30 People Share The Most ‘Small Town’ Things They’ve Ever Seen Happen In Real Life
Interview
If you have ever decided to stay for the summer or perhaps have a vacation in the countryside, you know that life absolutely moves at a very different pace. From everyone knowing each other, to random wildlife and farm animals showing up all over the place, rural areas are like no other.
Someone asked “What's the most "small town" thing you've witnessed?” and netizens from the suburbs and countryside shared their best examples. So get comfortable as you read through, upvote your favorites and if you have a memorable small-town experience, share it in the comments! We also got in touch with official_biz to learn more.
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45 people, a group exactly one shy of the entire adult male population, sitting in lawn chairs, on a fence, and on car hoods...
They were patiently waiting outside of the house of the 46th adult male, who had hit his child hard enough to fracture a rib earlier that day, and was known to smack his wife around a bit..
The best part of the story was when he threatened to call the police chief. "If you don't all leave, I'm calling Georgie!"
(Chief) Georgie quickly replied from near the guy's back door... "Present!"
I didn't get to witness the beating itself, apparently it happened a couple of days later. But he definitely spent the whole night in terror.
Beautiful example of male peer pressure doing something about toxic masculinity.
Due to a traffic incident (ie. unfortunate meeting with a large buck) we were "stranded" in a small town for several days. In that time one of the local police officers gave us his number - said call me anytime if you need a lift somewhere. The manager at the hotel we stayed at offered us the same thing, and one of the staff at the hotel flat out offered us her car to use while she was at work. The irony was - it was such a small town everything we needed was within walking distance.
Every single person we met went out of their way to try to help us. To this day (4 years later) we still refer to this as the best bad experience we've ever had. In fact two years ago we went out of our way to swing through that small town again - and they remembered us. We had a nice chat with the mechanic / garage owner who got our vehicle fixed - showed him it was still on the road, running like a top. A small town will renew your faith in humanity.
My mail carrier bringing my dog to my office after she stopped at my house to deliver my mail and my dog, Lefty jumped in her mail truck and refused to get out.
Bored Panda got in touch with official_biz who made the original post and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. Naturally, we were curious to learn why he asked this question in the first place.
“I was inspired to ask the question after a small-town experience of my own. I'd planned to just answer my own question by putting my experience in the comments. When I woke up to something like 4k comments the next morning, I decided to just let them keep rolling in,” they shared.
We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down.
Are there any homes for sale in this ice cream loving village?
A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him.
I worked at a prison many years ago. One inmate told me a story that was very similar… He was the robber, and the teller said “dammit Bryan, I’m gonna tell your mother.”
Left the grocery store and forgot a bag. Another customer brought it to my house.
“What happened to me was this: I was visiting my long-time online friend who lives on a small, remote, mostly unknown island with a population close to 2000. When he picked me up from the ferry and we started driving down the island's one road, there was a man jogging, to which my friend rolled down the window and made some small talk. He was like, "Wagwan bro?" and such, which was returned before we drove off. Then he turned to me and very casually said, "That guy's cool... He's running for president."
I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes “Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.” She replied “I think I’d rather have the ticket.”
Jip, and no the family will make sure she never speeds again. She will be reminded every holiday and family dinner
Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy
I grew up in a small Missouri river town that got wiped out in 1993. After rebuilding, the market became a combination hair salon and live bait shop. It was called Perms & Worms. I saw it in person and I still don't believe it.
Hahaha 😆 love the name. Reminds me when I was a kid visiting my great aunt in Maine and we drove by a hair salon called 'Curl up and Dye.'
The post, as mentioned, garnered over four thousand comments, so we were curious to hear OP’s opinion on why it was so popular. “I guess a lot of people have these very specific, random impressions of things they've seen in small towns that have been burned into their brains because they challenge the assumptions we have about what a normal society should look like. A lot of them are also pretty wholesome.”
My wife grew up in a very very small town. The first time I went with her to her parent’s house, I drove and she was engrossed in reading a book.
“Let’s go in the back way.”
“Where is that?”
“Turn left at Calvin Adams’ store.”
We passed a rural intersection with nothing on the corner. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“There was no store there!”
“Oh, it burned down years ago. Now turn right at Jack Simpson’s house.”
We pass another empty intersection. There is nothing to see but cotton fields and a clump of trees yonder in the distance. She looks up and punches my arm.
“You missed the turn.”
“Aw c’mon, there’s no house here.”
“It’s behind those trees. You can’t see it from the road.”
A couple of minutes later, without looking up, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
We finally got there and I’m talking to her mom.
“Which way did you come in?”
“We came in the back way. I missed the turn at Calvin Adams’ store.”
She nodded. “It burned down years ago.”
“Then I missed the turn at Jack Simpson’s house.”
Another nod. “You can’t see it from the road.”
There was a long pause and she added, “He doesn’t live there anymore.”
I love my small town! People genuinely care about each other and help each other out. Also one day a year it's Drive your tractor to School day. And the HS kids bring in sheep and bunnies and horses for the elem kids to come pet. It's not perfect but I would not trade it! And no it's not racist. Half Hispanic half white. We all get along! We even have a taco truck that's as good as anything in LA
I grew up in a town of 150 people. Moved away, but I keep in touch.
A friend of mine posted a picture on Facebook a few months ago, tagging another friend: "Hey, Bubba, your pig got loose and is running around the Dollar General parking lot. Come get him!"
People were more surprised that they'd gotten themselves a Dollar General store than they were about Bubba's pig.
A couple days after we moved to the small farming town we live in, we found out who used to have our new (to us) phone number. There was obviously a summer storm brewing outside, and we got a couple calls from people saying stuff like “Ruth, you might want to close your windows, there’s a storm headed your way!” We would just say Ruth doesn’t have this number anymore, introduce ourselves, and tell them thanks for the warning about the storm, we’ll get our windows shut right now. We thought it was kind of sweet, tbh.
“There isn't really much of an outlet to share these with a wider audience so I guess my question gave them a chance to do that. For the people who live in rural, remote, and small towns where those things are considered normal, it can be a neat experience to share about your everyday life in a way that baffles others globally.”
Small town girl here. When we moved here, we really had people talking. Rumor was "Joe's" granddaughter bought the house. No, it was "Bob's" son. They didn't know we had married each other and everyone was right.
We were having a machine shop, that was located in a small town, make a manufacturing machine for us. They could make the individual parts, but had no idea how everything went together. We sent a mechanic to be onsite for several weeks to assemble the machine. First day, he went to the local cafe to get coffee and breakfast. There are several people in there drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, chatting, etc. He goes in and sits at the counter. No one is there to wait on him. Finally, one of the guys says "if you want coffee, you'll have to get it yourself. They ain't open yet."
Way back I lived in a small town. When my friend, who lived two houses down the street, and I were going to go hunting birds in the morning before work, whichever of us was up first would walk into the others house to put coffee on for when he got up.
Heard over the scanner one day. Tourist passing through reports dog on roof at XX address. Can someone go get Frank off the roof please dunno how that son of a gun keeps getting up there”
“As for my favorite comments, the one that stuck with me was the one that said if you called 911 after midnight, you'd be put on hold so the dispatcher could wake up the sheriff. I haven't read through them all yet. that's pretty ambitious. but thanks for the reminder to do that when I need a laugh.”
The traffic on the "main street" of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem.
Dude moves here, goes to the local garden shop. Loads his pick up with bags of soil, garden implements, et al.
Oops, he forgot his wallet.
Old dude at the store, honest to God, says, "You can stop by and pay tomorrow"
If you are in need of hay, straw or other horse bedding, just call the farmer. He will tell you in which barn and which corner you have to be, you load the stuff, tell him how much you took and pay by Tikkie (sort of Venmo, I guess). Only interaction with a live being are the dog, who will sit next to the truck and count (?) and sometimes some livestock, having their shelter in the same barn.
Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy.
😂 this one made me laugh so hard, my mum is like this in the country, I’m a full fledged Gold Coast girl, I’m used to busy, I can’t imagine the ease of waiting behind 3 peoole 😂
A “parade” that consisted of like, three goats and four children
The parade was created, so the parents of all the kids, could take a little break.
I taught English in a small town in Japan for a couple of years. One day the principal said they were cancelling classes for the afternoon so the police could come give a safety talk.
As the product of the American school system I was thinking drugs? gangs? STDs?
Bicycle safety. Some of the students had been seen riding two to a bicycle through town. We were reminded that bicycles were for one person only, also wear your helmet and always signal your moves to drivers.
Got a call ... neighbor 5 houses down the road:
"hey can you look out the window and tell me who is walking down the street?"
"yea, that's the guy from Louisdale who is going out with that Felix girl"
"mk, thanks"
I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, "Whose house did you buy?"
My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home.
my mom and dad were divorced, dad bought a dog that had been abused and given cocaine by the then owner, dog did not like people but hated women more. dog got loose dad wasnt home. cops came to my mom, we only lived up the road less than 5 mins away. now cops knew my dad took in abused dogs and that they were usually mean so there's a dozen cop cars surrounding the house cops hiding behind there cars guns at the ready just in case. mom gets there yells' buddy house now!' he stops growling and went to the porch lol its like he was doing his job guarding the house you didn't need that many cops you could have just put one cop there to make sure no one went up to the house he wouldn't have left the yard.... he was a good dog- someone hit him on the head with a shovel in order to steal stuff, never found the bastard who did it
One spring, the front page of the local newspaper's top headline was "Deer finds grass in " The fact that someone had a picture of a deer who found some grass meant that winter might finally be over, which is the big news that everyone cares about.
My fiancé took me to a popular festival in his tiny hometown. Some guy nodded and waved at him on the street. I asked how they knew each other. Fiancé told me he was the only other guy in town with the same name as him.
Also, his dad told him not to sleep with a particular chick because she might be his half-sister.
One day, I was walking down the street in our small town and a guy stopped me and asked me for my watch. And I gave it to him because he was the local jeweler and knew I needed a new band.
Oh, freaked out my big-city SIL when I named all 40ish people in a diner.
Tbf, I technically don't live in a big city, but I'm a little freaked out by someone knowing that many people and somehow he is able to remember all their names. 🤯
Where I grew up if we called 911 after midnight the operator would have us hold so she could wake up the sheriff.
My local beer store had dedicated snowmobile parking.
My prom was in a barn
Note: this post originally had 49 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I honestly believe this is how we were supposed to live. No huge bustling cities, just small towns where everyone knows everyone. Actual human connections.
I lived in a huge bustling city. Each neighborhood had a distinct flavour and everyone knew each other and looked after each other. Cities aren't the problem. Corporations and developers create horrible unlivable spaces in cities and it all falls apart.
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Visiting the small town where I was born but not raised after my parents retired and moved back. Woman at a store sees my name on my credit card, which is the same name as my father's, and proceeds to tell me that she used to date him in high school.
My great uncle on my mother's side went to elementary school and remained friends with my grandmother on my dad's side. I didn't know this until they were both in their 90s.
Load More Replies... What a great post. I grew up in a small town of about 12,000 people. I haven't lived there for 40 years. But whenever I go back to visit, people ask me how my dog is.....They are mistaking me for my mother, who used to take her dog for a 5 mile walk every day 20 years ago!
My dad was the pastor in a town in northern Vermont with a total population of about 1600, but it's split up into three villages a few miles apart. 12,000 isn't big but it's hard for me to think of it as small
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I honestly believe this is how we were supposed to live. No huge bustling cities, just small towns where everyone knows everyone. Actual human connections.
I lived in a huge bustling city. Each neighborhood had a distinct flavour and everyone knew each other and looked after each other. Cities aren't the problem. Corporations and developers create horrible unlivable spaces in cities and it all falls apart.
Load More Replies... Visiting the small town where I was born but not raised after my parents retired and moved back. Woman at a store sees my name on my credit card, which is the same name as my father's, and proceeds to tell me that she used to date him in high school.
My great uncle on my mother's side went to elementary school and remained friends with my grandmother on my dad's side. I didn't know this until they were both in their 90s.
Load More Replies... What a great post. I grew up in a small town of about 12,000 people. I haven't lived there for 40 years. But whenever I go back to visit, people ask me how my dog is.....They are mistaking me for my mother, who used to take her dog for a 5 mile walk every day 20 years ago!
My dad was the pastor in a town in northern Vermont with a total population of about 1600, but it's split up into three villages a few miles apart. 12,000 isn't big but it's hard for me to think of it as small
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