10 Things I Hate About You

Upon our return to Houston, the newspaper headlines greeted us with news of two children murdered and the bodies burned by their father. Then I read about a teenage girl killed in a drive-by shooting while she slept in her bedroom; her sister was injured. This follows a year in which a college student was murdered by her ex while home on spring bring, in which a couple beat their toddler daughter to death and stored her corpse in the garage, then set the container afloat in Galveston, in which a man beat to death his stepdaughter because the 3-year-old was having potty-training accidents, in which a 10-year-old unidentified corpse of a 4-year-old was finally identified. And let's not forget the skinheads who beat and sodomized a Latino kid for looking at a neighbor girl wrong, nor the 13-year-old girl who stabbed a kid to death to impress a gang.

Yeesh. Big city life - except that we live in the suburbs, and a lot of this occurred not in the city, but in the burbs. It's just all part of a big picture. Bottom line: Living in Houston, in the suburbs, is not where we want to be. Lucky for us we're moving. So I thought I'd share my Top 10 List of things I won't miss about Harris County and the greater Houston metropolitan area.

Keep in mind that this is a general list - just a recap of random things I hate about living here. Not that there aren't some good things, but for today, let's concentrate on being contrary, shall we?

10. Traffic: Houston has the worst traffic I have ever seen in the United States. I won't say that I've ever seen because we rented a car in Greece, and my god, that was terrifying. Italy wasn't a lot of fun either, but we left the driving there to the cabbie. And in New York, Chicago, and Washington DC, there's reliable public transportation. Here, it's just about volume. Gary's commute time is god-awful. And he car pools, so they can use the HOV lane. It's best to avoid the roads between 6-9 a.m. and 4-7 p.m.; makes getting around tricky. Thank goodness the radio gives frequent traffic updates so you know what's in store. I've just never seen the cars move so slowly. And, when you're in the HOV lane, it's shocking to see how many people are not using it - they are driving themselves. But that's another gripe - see #3.

9. Driving time: Not to be confused with traffic. Houston is the sixth (down from fourth) largest metropolitan area in the country, and it is 600 square miles - in other words, it is huge. So it takes forever to get from one place to another. We are 30 minutes minimum from everywhere: church, shopping, baseball, theater. And that is without traffic - see No. 10 above. Driving is grueling; I avoid it all costs. Makes my days a little dull. Thank goodness for Netflix.

8. Weather: I thought I would be OK with abandoning winter; I thought I would love the six months of summer and six months of shoulder season. But I was wrong. I truly miss those chilly winter days, when you bake cookies, make homemade soup, wear sweaters and cuddle in front of the fireplace. Nope, here we are wearing capris in December. And it's weird. I know, I know - my first 10-degree day will jolt me back into reality. But I think I'm a four-seasons kind of gal. I like my winter wardrobe. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.

7. Humidity: Once again, a separate issue than the weather. The summer here is not only hot, but muggy. The air hits you in the face like a blanket when you walk outdoors. Houstonians deal with it with energy usage: Pools, air conditioning, running the parked car for 30 minutes while waiting for your kid. I shudder to think of my carbon footprint here. But really, I am concerned about my bad hair - you try controlling the frizzies ten months a year. Again, something I can live without. Sayonara!

6. Chain stores and strip malls: They surround us. I haven't seen a free-standing, independently owned business in weeks (unless you count my time on vacation. Or McDonald's). Every strip mall looks the same, feels the same. Diversity, where are you?

5. Giant schools: What can you do when you have 100,000 kids in your school district? Deal with it. But wow, the schools are gigantic. My children's teachers barely know me; the principal has no idea who I am. I miss our little neighborhood school where the principal knew every child by name; I am overwhelmed by a grade school with nine of every grade level, a high school with 4,000 kids. Read the reports about violence in high schools and they all point to large schools as being contributing factors. Now you're terrified, too.

4. Y'all: I know. Still makes me cringe every time I hear it.

3. Texas arrogance: It's a giant state, with egos to match. A friend from Indiana who went to college here laughed and said Texans act as if everything north of here is like Nebraska. (And I'm from Nebraska.) You can even buy mugs that say: "I'm not from Texas, but I got here as fast as I could." Please. Lots of people don't worry about recycling because Texas has plenty of potential landfill space. Energy usage appears to be someone else's problem; Texans want everything BIG. I'm sure this attitude stems from the fact that Texas was once, in fact, its own country. But a separate Texas Pledge of Allegiance? Come on, people, there are 49 other states. And they all have something to offer. (Well, perhaps not Kansas. Or Idaho. But really, all the others have redeeming value.) Texas isn't even the biggest. Get over it.

2. HOAs: As in, Home Owners Associations. I know, they exist in other cities. I've just never lived in a subdivision that has such a militant one before. My dad recommended a book about HOAs and the issues people have with them - I will definitely be reading it. The HOA is our only defense against the lack of ANY zoning here - seriously, it's true. But they go to the extreme. They patrol the streets, looking for infractions. Even neighbors around me that seem to love it here complain about the pickiness of the HOA; people have gotten letters for: parking a truck in their driveway, loading their camper for vacation in their driveway, having planters with no flowers, putting their trash out too early, not edging their sidewalks, having visible trash cans. One neighbor applied to put up a swingset in the backyard; their request was denied because they did not include a scale drawing of what the swingset would look like in the yard. Their response? They put it up anyway. My realtor moved into her place and put a potted plant in a flower bed to see how it would thrive before transplanting it; she got a cease and desist letter - Welcome to the neighborhood, huh? Oh, yeah, and our HOA consistently refuses to institute curbside recycling, even though 65 percent of neighbors want it and are happy to pay for it. Grrr. Another "won't miss." (The new house? No HOA. No way, now how.)

1. Suburbia: As in, conservative attitudes • lack of diversity • gas-hogging SUV-drivers • houses that all look the same • energy wasting • conspicuous consumption • cliques more nauseating than high school • self-importance • paranoia over unwanted subdivision interlopers (ie, "undesirables" - the poor, the ethnic, anything outside the box, like Democrats) • too new • too sanitized • too phony • too artificial • too much money • too far from the city • too far from real life. A bad fit for us.

Give me a day - I'm sure there is something I'll miss about Houston. When I think of it, I'll let you know what it is ...