It is widely said that people from Nebraska are lovely and generous. Maybe it was just a stereotype, but, boy, did I need that stereotype to be true.
I was driving alone from New Jersey to Salt Lake City and I kind of miscalculated the cash thing. Davenport, Iowa, was about halfway to my destination, so one-quarter of my money should have been gone. But no matter how many times I counted and recounted my remaining bills on the rumpled motel comforter, I was missing a third of it. Staying in motels every night and eating out three times a day was expensive, apparently.
But Nebraska was one state over — and I had a mooching plan in place. I didn’t know if my plan would work, but I had to try. My bankroll was depending on it. Before I checked out, I made a call to Lincoln. Brian, my college friend, lived there. I hadn’t spoken to him in years.
Brian was an interesting person. He entered Carnegie Mellon University – one of the nation’s finest engineering schools – planning to study engineering, a career that was always in demand and paid very well. Midway through his sophomore year, however, Brian had an epiphany. He decided to switch majors. He needed to pursue graphic design, a career that was hardly ever in demand – and on the rare occasion that it was, the pay was terrible. Carnegie Mellon University, it should be noted, is not one of the nation’s finest design schools. I know this first hand. I lived the Carnegie Mellon design experience and was underwhelmed by it.
Oh, and Brian also played the bagpipes.
Armed with these life skills, it should come as little surprise that two years after getting his degree, Brian was unemployed and living at home with his parents.
But he was also a Nebraskan. If the popular assumption held true, he would be lovely and generous.
My phone call to Brian went something like this:
Me: Hey, Brian, it’s Mike Allegra!
Brian: Mike! Oh, my God! I haven’t talked to you in… I don’t know how long! How are you?
Me: I’m good, I’m good! Listen, I’m driving across the country.
Brian: You are? Awesome!
Me: I’m in Iowa right now.
Brian: Stop by and see me!
Me: That’s exactly what I wanted to do! I should be in Lincoln at around dinnertime. You want to get dinner?
Brian: Yeah!
Me: Great! (Beat.) Oh, one more thing. Do you know of any good motels in town?
Brian: Oh, no, no, no. You’re not staying in a motel. You can stay with us!
Me: No, Brian. I couldn’t do that!
But of course could. And I did.
A few hours later I met Brian’s very nice and very Nebraskan parents. They were lovely and generous.
“Driving across the country! My goodness!” Brian’s mom said. “You’re a long way from home. You must have dirty laundry.”
My brain jumped for joy. More mooching!, it shouted. OK. Play it cool. Just like you did with that motel B.S.
“I have some laundry,” I said. This was a bit of an understatement as pretty much everything in my suitcase was dirty by now. “After dinner I was going to ask Brian to point me to a laundromat.”
She waved my comment away as if it was a lazy mosquito. “Oh, stop it! Put your dirty clothes right here. I’ll do them while you and Brian catch up.”
“No, I couldn’t!” I protested.
But of course I could. And I did.
So, while Brian’s mom scrubbed nearly 1,000 miles of dusty road out of socks that smelled like regurgitated corn chips, Brian showed me the city.
Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, was a lot smaller than I had anticipated. It wasn’t a city at all, really. It resembled the downtown of a charming suburb that had found prosperity but had yet to discover ostentation. In its unique way, it was kind of perfect.
“Burger place, OK?” Brian asked.
“Sure!” I said, even though I knew I should’ve said no. I had grown a bit too acquainted with red meat on this particular journey. This awful diet, coupled with countless hours of sitting behind a steering wheel, was starting to cause me a bit of discomfort.
To be frank, I hadn’t pooped since Baltimore. But I ignored my rebellious lower intestine. I sensed another opportunity to mooch and that was where I placed my undivided attention.
Play it cool, my brain said. Now go get a free burger.
Oh, and a milkshake. I wanna milkshake, it added.
We trundled into a restaurant designed to mimic the neon and chrome feel of a ‘50s drive-in. As I held the door open for Brian, I said, rather off-handedly, “My treat.”
“No,” he replied, a hint of firmness in his voice. (Just a hint, mind you. Brian was Nebraskan, after all.) “You’re in my town. My treat.”
“No, Brian. You’re doing so much already. We’ll split the bill.”
“No. My dad even told me to buy your meal.”
“That’s really nice of him, but I couldn’t.”
But of course I could. And I did.
Under these happy circumstances I thought it was appropriate to order a bacon cheeseburger deluxe. With a milkshake, of course. And some extra onion rings on the side. All the food was piled high in merry, red plastic baskets the size of office garbage cans. I hadn’t eaten so much since the previous Thanksgiving.
Brian and I talked and reminisced and laughed for hours. We just picked up where we left off our senior year of college. Brian really was a good guy.
Halfway through the meal, I excused myself to go to the men’s room. The lone stall was occupied, which was fine, for my lower intestine remained plugged up and petulant. I did my business at the urinal.
That was when I noticed the wallet on the edge of the sink. It was stuffed with so much cash, it was about as fat as the burger I had just forced down my gullet. I assumed the wallet belonged to the guy in the stall. But, if so, why would it be siting on the sink out of his view where anyone could just grab it? Why wasn’t it in the stall? With him? In his pants pocket?
I was horrified that anyone anywhere would ever do such a stupid thing.
For a moment I thought I might have wandered into a police sting. But judging by the noises Mr. Monopoly was making in the stall, the guy was clearly not prepared to take down a potential thief.
At this point in the story I would like to point out that, as a rule, I do not chat with people in restrooms. I hate it. I avoid it at all costs. But if ever there was an occasion for me to do so, it was now.
“Um. Sir? Excuse me. Is this your wallet?”
The man’s strained, tremulous voice echoed off the tiles. “Hm? Oh, on the sink? Yeah… That’s mine.”
I had startled him in the middle of his business. The awkwardness was not lost on either of us.
“Do you, um, want your wallet in the stall? With you?”
“No. Uh. No. It’s fine. If… If you’ll excuse me…”
Red faced, I apologized for my interruption, washed up, and returned to my table, leaving the rich bounty behind to bewilder some other passerby.
I just had to share my new anecdote with Brian. But when I did, I was surprised to discover that the story didn’t surprise him at all.
“We don’t live in fear here,” he said.
“I don’t live in fear in New Jersey, either, but I don’t leave my wallet out like that.”
“Why not?” Brian asked.
“Because I don’t want anyone to take it!”
“That’s a kind of fear, though, isn’t it?” he asked.
“No. It’s common sense.”
“You lock your car, you lock your house, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Even though you live in a safe town, right?”
“Sure.”
“Why? Because you’re afraid something will get stolen.”
OK. Yes. I am. But leaving a wallet on a men’s room sink? That’s just –”
“That’s a little extreme, even for around here,” Brian admitted. Then he smiled. “But it does give you a pretty good idea of what Lincoln is like.”
It sure did. And for some reason, it made me not like Lincoln very much. The people here were too alien. Too trusting. Too innocent. Too nice. By comparison, I was a selfish, manipulative turd. Lincoln, in it’s inoffensive, kindly way, called attention to who I was — and I hated who I was.
“Brian,” I said. “I want to pay the bill.”
“Already got it, buddy,” he replied.
I returned to Brian’s house to find my clothes cleaned and folded on the guest room bed. Brian’s mom even folded my underpants.
This was all too much. Right then and there I decided to leave first thing in the morning. Dawn. I would graciously refuse breakfast, thank them all repeatedly and profusely for their generosity, and head west in search of more corrupt places where my casual misanthropy would be the rule rather than the exception.
But I was more tired than I knew — and the bed was more comfortable than anything I had laid on in the past week. I awoke at 9:45. I was greeted by an empty house.
I found two notes on the kitchen table. The first was written in a pristine, near calligraphic cursive. It was from Brian’s mom. In it, she apologized that she and her husband had to leave for work. Then she invited me to stick around and make myself breakfast. “Just close the door behind you when you’re ready to leave,” she wrote.
The second note was in Brian’s hand. He wrote how happy he was to have seen me. His note contained an apology, too, for he neglected to tell me the night before that today was his first day at a new job. Brian was working as a designer at last.
It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.
Nebraskans were more lovely and generous than I could have possibly imagined. I didn’t belong here.
Time to go, my brain said. I hoisted my bag — now filled with clothes that were clean, folded, and smelling like a spring breeze — and headed for the front door.
But I paused in the foyer to listen to my brain once more.
I’m kinda hungry, it said.
Brian’s mom said it was OK, it said.
Do you think you could find some frozen waffles? it asked.
But of course I could. And I did. And, despite my troubled conscience, they were delicious.
Hey, Look! A Writer Fellow! 
Temptation. Be gone!
I love the tug of internal war here and the outcome. A hungry man has to eat breakfast before hitting the road again. Ha ha.
This story made me smile, Mike. Great way to start my day. 😆
So glad you enjoyed it, Tess.
Come to think of it, Nebraska is so nice it’s like America’s Canada.
America’s Canada. Do you mind if I steal… I mean u.s.e. that sometime?
😀
Of course you may!
😀 😀 😀
Being from Nebraska and not liking Canada (I guess I’m not as nice as the rest of Nebraskans, I would rather not be compared to Canada. lol
Canadians do have a bad habit of importing things we don’t want: like oil pipelines and Justin Bieber.
Or do you have another reason to dislike Canada…?
Great story, Mike! I hope you sent Brian and his family a very generous gift when you got home.
I actually did! On my way back to NJ I gave Brian some of the fireworks I bought from that crazy guy in Wyoming.
https://mikeallegra.com/2015/05/12/a-short-fuse/
Perfect!
What a great story. Our little town used to be that trusting, it still is in the winter months once all of the Citiots have left. 😉
I would expect nothing less from rural Canada. Nebraskans are probably all Canadian transplants.
Lol…could explain some of our missing locals! 😛
Well, you can’t have them back until you take back Justin Beiber.
I’m smarter than I look…that’s never going to happen. 😀
Dang it!
Cute story, Mike. I’ve driven through Nebraska a couple times, clueless that it was such a great place to mooch. Ha ha. Next time. Do you often converse with your brain? It sounds like a bad influence. 🙂
Do get your mooch muscles pumped for your next drive across!
As to your other point: yes, my brain is often filled with terrible, terrible ideas — most of which I do not act upon.
I’m married to a Nebraskan, and everything you just said is true. Also, everything Lady Ga Ga said is true. This might be the nexus of the universe, right there in Lincoln or somewhere around Ogallala.
Lady Ga Ga is from Nebraska? Wow!
And I stopped in Ogallala! With a name like that, how could I not?
Apparently she was born in Manhattan. But she had a similar Nebraska experience to yours. Kind of. Except with an umlaut and several alter egos.
That Ga Ga gal is a very strange woman. I mean, umlauts? Come ON!
Very interesting story.
Note to self make friends with people from Nebraska so that you can mooch from them.
Why did you drive from New Jersey to Salt Lake City of all places?
Did you convert to Mormonism or something?
Nope, not a Mormon. This post is actually third of a series chronicling my solo trip to Salt Lake City in the mid-1990s.
This post will set the scene: https://mikeallegra.com/2015/04/14/salt-solution/
And this one is about a whackadoodle I met in Wyoming: https://mikeallegra.com/2015/05/12/a-short-fuse/
Wow, I’d say those people were saints. And obviously not introverts… What a nice story. Reinforces one’s belief that a good humankind does indeed exist.
“To be frank, I hadn’t pooped since Baltimore.”—Ha, what a great first line that would make in a novel!
You’re right! I am now outlining a novel that begins with that line.
Hopefully things will run smoothly and you won’t experience any blockage…
Ha! Well done.
So what you’re telling us is that you used to be a grif—I mean drifter?
You would have seen the dark side of Nebraskans, if you had said anything against the Big Red Corn Husking Machine. Just kidding. They would have run the combine over you politely.
Neither a grifter no a drifter, just a broke, unemployed opportunist.
Now, how does one mangle a person politely?
It’s a slippery slope, my friend, a slippery slope. Nebraskans can do everything politely. It involves smiling, driving the combine with cheerful abandon, then apologizing for not having seen you standing in the corn field like a scarecrow.
Ooh, they are fiendishly clever, aren’t they?
Hi mike I love reading your blogs n just wanna say that you r awesome
Great story! Glad you got the frozen waffles!
I have a sixth sense for sniffing out waffles.
Wow, what a crazy trip. I would have never taken you for a moocher. You seem more the gracious giver and host. I also thought not locking your doors was a 1950’s thing gone forever. That guy leaving a stuffed wallet out on a public counter, out of his site, is plain crazy. I would love to know what he was thinking. Nebraskans are most definitely interesting people. But Cornhuskers . . . not a fan. (Going to catch up on this story).
Yes, when I was young and poor, I had a propensity to mooch. Fortunately I have outgrown this instinct and am now the embodiment of the gracious giver and host that you imagined.
I am still bewildered by the wallet incident. It seems like the stupidest out of town thief on earth could grab a king’s ransom in that city.
So, how do I get there? lol
Just keep driving until you reach the flattest place on earth.
LOL – yes, it is the flattest place on earth.
But the corn grows as high as an elephant’s eye! Oh, wait, that’s Oklahoma.
What a fab story! How nice are Nebraskans
Almost as nice as Canadians.
😉
I love this story. When I’m wearing my rose-coloured glasses I want to believe that most of the world is like that when given a chance 🙂
… and I agree that “To be frank, I hadn’t pooped since Baltimore.” would make a great beginning line to a story. Wish I had thought of it … but then again, I’m just as happy that it didn’t happen to me 😉
Yeah, there is more to the “haven’t pooped since Baltimore” story. But that, I think, is fodder for a future post.
… and I’m sure you will tell it with your trademark humour 🙂
Poop jokes? My goodness! How uncouth!
I agree, the line about Baltimore is a great opener for a book. You should enter or write a story for the Erma Bombeck contest this Jan-Feb. You some of your stories. They have some of her sense of humor. You tell a great tale! Think you’d have a great chance!
I remember you telling me about the Erma Bombeck contest last year, but the it wasn’t held in 2015. It is, however, being held in 2016. And I will enter!
And thank you for your very kind words of encouragement, Patricia!
I really hope you enter. You really know how to spin a tale. The contest is held every two years. I live in Centerville, OH, not far from where Erma lived. She’s a legend here.
You have my word. I’m going for it.
Another blog that I need to follow.
“It will cost me more time here. I couldn’t”
But of course I could, and I did.
*tents fingers* Excellent! My time wasting plans are working!
Ahhhh I love your writing! Always makes me smile 🙂
Aw, thanks, Tamara.
I savored every word of your post, but it also made me introspective. Isn’t it interesting, how we want to get away from the ‘too nice’ people? Reminds me of so many women who want a deep loving relationship but only date the ‘bad’ guys. Are we afraid that ‘nice’ means ‘boring’? Or that no one can really be that nice – they must have an angle in there somewhere? However, I have a feeling that you’ve turned out to be a really really nice guy, and you’re neither boring nor out for a an angle. There, you can deny it all you want, but it’s true.
My big (and only) problem with all the niceness was that it painfully reminded me how “not nice” I was.
Though my niceness muscles have developed quite a bit in the decades since, my sometimes acerbic, loner style will never get me anywhere near “Nebraska Nice.” But that’s fine.
Oh, and there is no doubt in my mind that you are one of the nicest bloggy people I know.
My experience with Nebraska is limited, of course, but the niceness everyone expressed there felt pure and genuine. It was deeply ingrained in their culture. New Jersey culture is different. When I’ve worked with “too-good-to-be-true nice people” in my home state, in almost every case, it was too good to be true. Their niceness often masked an alarming dark side.
Who knew there were different levels of niceness? But I agree totally. Those who ooze niceness give out a large warning sign — TROUBLE. I promise, I can do ‘not nice.’ Just ask my kids; my son once told me that when I was mad at him as a kid, I became a “green-eyed monster.”
The nicest people are the ones who can do “not nice”. You’re the real deal, Pam.
You should have let me know you were passing through. I live just outside of Davenport and could have housed you for an evening or at least taken you out for dinner.
I would’ve loved to, AJ, but that trip was almost 20 years ago!
I’ll let you know the next time I pass through, though. I did enjoy my stay in Iowa.
And I promise I won’t mooch!
What a charming story, down to the folded underwear! I remember when I moved to London from Paris and thinking how incredibly kind and polite everyone was. I guess Londoners are the Nebraskans of Europe….. well, compared to Parisians anyway, haha!
Is Paris the Newark of Europe?
😂😂
Made me smile!
Then my job is done here!
Mike, I want to be a fly on the walls of your car! Well, as long as I’m not near the dirty laundry sack. And if you’re ever in Denver . . . Thanks for a great, fun story.
I have never been to Denver…
I think I smell a mooching opportunity!
Ha, Ha! Great story! It’s like you walked into the set of Leave it to Beaver…and it all came true.
Sadly, Brian’s mom, the Barbara Billingsley of this story, was unable to speak jive.
Lol…one of favs!
Oh that is funny!!
I promise I’m about through stalking your blog comments. I’ll have to stop procrastinating soon and start dinner for hubby.
Hey, you hang out here as long as you want. Your husband can microwave something.
Only time I set foot in Nebraska was when we were driving cross-country with our maniacal cats for the Portland move last year. We were just passing through, but stopped at a scary gas station in the sticks, then hit a blizzard right after that. (Story here if you’re interested… http://brittskrabanek.com/2014/04/04/the-accidental-spirit-quest/)
When people are too trusting, like the dude on the crapper, it trips me out. I don’t call it fear…I call it common sense. 😉
I’m headin’ on over to read it!
Another amazing regaling of the fabulous Allegra. And bagpipes to boot.
I’m from South Dakota and moved to Nebraska when I was 9. Have been living here ever since. We are nice people!! But even I wouldn’t leave my billfold sit out like that. I can totally sympathize with your restroom awkwardness, for I too, would have felt the need to say something all while trying not to gag at the smell. btw taking a couple of stool softeners the night before can really help with the traveler’s constipation.
I’m about 75 miles away from Lincoln and would totally have done the same thing your friend Brian did for you. A room, homecooked meal, and laundry facilities with a hot shower. So if you’re ever in NE and in need again, look me up. 🙂
My kids would be horrified. ha ha I had a friend I met from PA on facebook come stay with me for a week a couple years ago. My middle son acted like I’d asked an ax murderer to stay.
Ooh, my long latent mooching instincts are beginning to kick into high gear! I’m putting you in my Rolodex.