Warning: I sound like a whining little bitch in this post. But I’m over pretending that it’s okay here, these are my issues for the last three years that are only getting worse now that the oil has “left” ND, it hasn’t the price just dropped and people had to leave. Once the demand goes back up there will be plenty of PEOPLE coming back to help you further rape the land for money.

I am SO fucking over living in Bismarck middle of fucking nowhere North Dakota. Privacy blah blah blah. No fuck this shit. I can’t say that I haven’t met and connected with some WONDERFUL people who I want to stay in touch with, and would even come back to visit, while I have lived survived here the last few years. But this weekend, was the pinnacle of what I call ND racists ignorant cock-sucking xenophobic asshats or ND-RICXA (rick-a) for short. I swear to jebus I am the last one to judge people without knowing as much as I can about a situation, THEN I’m judgymcjudgster while being a total bitch.

So even though I came out here thinking “North Dakota Nice” that’s got to be a good thing, less people so less traffic, less legislative sessions so they must have their shit together (they only meet once every 2 years while taking over the largest chunk of parking at the capitol), people are flocking there and staying thanks to the oil stuff so it must be a good area to raise kids, and housing prices are only going up so buying a house early is an investment.

Simply put, I was a naïve moron.

I’ve come to find that the people I’ve connected with the most, are the people that moved here within the last 5 years from GA, NY, CA, AZ, and CO. I have the world’s best neighbors who are beyond words wonderful, they are from here, moved around with military and came back because to call the mans family large would be an understatement. Family is super important out here, but most people don’t give a shit about anyone else’s, because they are the only people who matter. These people I love to call world’s best neighbors care about everyone, they are loving, inviting, beyond helpful, just… they are just the best people ever. Every time we even think about moving the one pro of being here is them, like what would we do being away from family AND not having them? Generally our conversation doesn’t get much farther after that.

I was informed by co-workers that “North Dakota Nice” is a form of frenemies, and sadly I’ve had to experience it as well. My first month here I tried to tap into Mary Kay meetings, since I had done it back home and thought it would be a good way to meet people outside of work. We had our “breakout” meetings and after a few minutes of business it was Sarah saying “Stacy did you ever talk to your son about that sleep over?” “Yes we just had to find a reason to ground him so he couldn’t go, we don’t want to be the bad guys”, I’m curious and say, “is his friend a bad kid or something?”, “oh no he’s wonderful but we don’t really KNOW the family” UNDERSTANDABLE… but wait, “they have only been here a few years, they aren’t FROM here, so I don’t think they are all that trustable”… that was her fucking reasoning. Her kid was in 3^rd grade so he has gone to school with this friend since kindergarten, she says they’ve had play dates but they aren’t fucking from here so they must not be good enough. So instead of address the issue of their bogus mistrust they play ND NICE. Most basic example that we’ve all heard before is to say your baby is cute and turn around and tell their friend how horrid you/your baby is/looks, etc. Down to the workplace, sabotage for jobs, shit talking, etc. ALL while to your face they are nothing but wonderful, these are people I would call chicken shit back in CA but out here, this is just how most people are, which is beyond frustrating because you can’t tell who is really your friend. I used to think I was a decent judge of character but damn these people are good actors.

Less people and less traffic is still true, along with less traffic meaning people don’t pay attention to shit around them and put others’ lives in danger on the daily. I used to drive 9.7 miles to work while living in Los Angeles, it took anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour depending on when I left, and three freeway changes. Here, I live in the pseudo suburb’s and (look it up) there are only two “freeways” in the entire states, which I call glorified highways. I drive less than a mile through “town”, take a freeway for a couple of exits, down a main street and into the parking lot. I thought “my god this is going to be amazing! I’ll be so calm when getting to work, so much less stress, it only takes 15 minutes max to get to work and that’s if it’s bad snow,….” Stupid stupid STUPID me…  I can’t even make it to the onramp without a heavy case of road rage. Blinkers aren’t used, and I was used to that, you can watch people driving and pay enough attention to see when they’re going to start merging, I basically lived my entire driving life anticipating others movements. Out here, it’s fucking impossible. We drive a pickup that most people here call a car because it’s not some heavy duty diesel, which 90% of the population apparently drives. They change lanes without notice, they slow down for no reason, sometimes they take more than two blocks to fully merge, they are usually eating, they don’t seem to care about laws saying you can’t be on your phone while driving (talk or text), they will change their minds at the last second and go from off ramp to fast lane, they turn right from the left hand lane, fuck one guy STOPPED right in front of me and then screamed at me that I was going TOO fast once we got to a 2 lane stop light. I was going 20 in a 25 with only him around, fucker. I say “they” because while this is all young and dumb driver shit that some of us (cough cough me cough) have done before, this is what happens on a daily, less than 5 mile commute, to me every. Single. Fucking. Day. I’ve been rear ended 18 times in the last 3 years. EIGHTEEN TIMES. We replaced the bumper once and then said fuck it, it’s only going to happen again, not worth the deductible.

I miss the traffic in LA because it was so congested that you couldn’t do this shit. Whenever we go home to visit I drive because I feel so good to be in “real” traffic. Every day my life is on the line with these dipshits, who claim to be the best drivers ever. I don’t claim to be but I certainly don’t endanger others every fucking day. I speed like crazy most days and I own it, I have a lead foot and the quicker I get away from these shitheads the better. By the way, a speeding ticket, or any ticket for that matter is LAUGHABLE. I was going 90 to Fargo (because that’s my closest goddamn Costco) in a 65 or 70… My ticket was $40, no points, well some points but their point system is ridiculous, so it doesn’t even matter until you get a DUI (which doesn’t fucking matter to most people anyways, pay your mediocre fine and move on, no jail time, no license revoked, etc) so yea. I’ve gotten 4 speeding tickets in the last few years: my insurance never goes up, nothing shows on my driving record, and I’m out all of $65 total.  Do I speed with tickets so cheap? Absofuckinglutely.

I’m not going to get myself started on the bullshit that is the legislation here. I will say that they are the least transparent state in the entire US because of all the bullshit fraud, kickbacks, etc. They are at least 50 years behind in EVERYTHING, last session they said abortion after a heartbeat was detected was illegal, aka PLEASE SUE THE FUCK OUT OF US BECAUSE WE DON’T “recognize” Roe v Wade AFTER ALL WE HAVE A SHITTON OF MONEY, oh wait, no we don’t, we have cutbacks for state employees who are already making just over minimum wage with the worst healthcare EVER. … yea, won’t get myself started.

Don’t come out here to raise your kids, the school systems SUCK, the homeschooled kids get a better education, and there are nowhere NEAR enough private school options. Also, good luck finding daycare, I had to put my son on list for YMCA when I was 8 weeks pregnant, almost two years later, he’s STILL on a list… even after they expanded to a new building… I have one conversation burned into my mind regarding my daycare. Again, sweetest people ever but our agreement was he goes in early and comes home a little early. My daycare lady does it out of her home and has a night job as a cleaner so they HAVE to leave by a specific time, we agreed happily because we love them and she was our only hope. This woman NEVER takes a day off, she is a machine, I want to be like her when I grow up. We went on vacation, two days in her mother dies, obviously she wants/needs to take a week off. We come home, I’ve used all my vacation time on the trip with one sick day left while my husband has 90 more hours to use. We agree he will stay home with baby after the first day since I can stay home that day. He tells his boss before we even come home that he will need to miss a few days, he walks into work and while on the phone with me (baby is now sick, we have one car, needed him to come swap with me at lunch) tells his boss “I’m only here today but I can take my laptop home and work while baby is sleeping” asshole boss says “that’s fine, but why are you taking so much time?” (TWO DAYS) husband “our daycares mother died and she needs the week off” this is what is burned in my head forever: boss says “is she working for you or are you working for her?”… husband just walks away and quickly gets off the phone with me. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE… who says that? Long story short, if you don’t have family to rely on, one of you better stay home with kiddos until they are in school because everyone else here has HUGE families so when johnny is sick or daycare isn’t there everyone else just steps up and if you don’t have that system, well, sucks to be you.Especially if you’re a dude, because why doesn’t your wife just stay home? This is the reason I had no sick time left fucker, I WAS STAYING HOME when baby was sick.

We bought a house just before the bubble of housing hit so we got a decent deal, shitty land, but decent layout. Then we pumped $30k into the house to ‘finish’ it and we’re up so I can’t complain. I will say that this is what sparked my rant, we wanted to refi at year 2.5. Our credit scores are on point, we pumped equity into the home, house prices went down but still way above what we paid, not much on credit (thus the good scores) and we had full time “secured” jobs that we held for three years. All signs point to EASY approval. I met with loan guy at our credit union who gave me the all clear and set up an assessment  saying “once we get this back your husband can come in and look at your options”, GREAT. I’m white as can be, I’m mostly German, one would think I fit in since I’m a fucking chameleon at blending into a culture and community. He was hesitant but nice enough, see ND Nice for example. I get the call to come in, bring your husband. I need to point out that my husband was the one to let the assessor into the house and made a comment about my husband being native, he’s not but why does that matter… I find out later… Less than two minutes after walking in with my husband it was a “well I wish I could make this work but the loan amount just won’t be high enough” I look at the copy of the appraisal, they shorted us a full bedroom and bathroom. I point this out and he says “well, it’s up to the appraiser and that’s what they have so that’s what they go off of”, I ask what type of business they are working with, the answer, “we hold discretion on what types of loans we work with and this one won’t work, we wish you luck, and since we’re not going to issue the loan you will have to cover the fee for the assessment which is $600, would you like us to pull from your checking or send you an invoice”… I was FUMING. I contact an attorney friend of mine who looks into discrimination, he pulled some information on the demographics the bank is working with… 98% WHITE customers. Do I have a case, yes, will I win, NO. fuck my life.

This is what started my fury. I knew that we were treated as outsiders. I know that the go-to statement after anything negative is mention on the news is something along the lines of “well, you know it’s all those terrible people coming in from all over that are causing all these problems””the cold winters usually keep the riff-raft out”. These were the exact statement from a woman a cubicle over from me within the first two weeks of starting my job. From then on I tracked it, because I’m a fucking nerd with anger issues. The result up to last weeks “attack on a mother in a mall” (read that as dumbass 20-something pissing off her ‘friends’ and getting smacked around while holding her two year AS A FUCKING SHIELD)… all the comments on the article were around black trash, outsiders, etc… whatever, trash is trash but these women have been here since they were in elementary school… if your oh so wonderful community couldn’t help them “adapt” then fucking take on some blame yourself. It’s always a “they weren’t born and bred here”, “typical outside trash wrecking everything”, “We used to be the country’s best kept secret”, etc etc etc. This is pretty much in EVERY article, the news will only state if someone is a Bismarck Native if it’s a good story and lets everyone assume that something bad is only done by an “outsider”, which only enrages me more.

The results, sorry I sidetracked there, are that 97% of the “bad stuff” is perpetrated by a born and fucking bred NORTH DAKOTIANS. Do you hear that you complaining dumb-fucks of ND, NINTY-SEVEN PERCENT OF ALL THE BAD SHIT IS DONE BY YOUR “OWN PEOPLE”. Even when I shared the spreadsheet complete with links to public information on the people being born in ND (I spent entirely too much time on hospital searches for birth announcements, but I do have software at work that makes it a little easier to find people) and crickets, they blow past it saying “your information must be off”… NOPE you just don’t like being called out on your bullshit.

And I get it, you don’t want to see your “own” as bad, you want to blame some external force, but you can’t, it’s not going to work forever. At some point you have to own up that people here fucked up, not people coming here thinking (and wanting to believe) they will be accepted as decent human beings….

I know this is like a novel of a rant (about four pages now) but I’m just done with being here. I’m done with the backstabbing, I’m done with worrying that my son won’t have any real friends because their parents are fucking dickwads, I’m done feeling like a complete outcast when there is NOTHING different about me other than where I’m from and my character of not participating in the bullshit they love. I’m done feeling so much fucking hate in my heart towards people who could be decent human beings if they weren’t so xenophobic. I’m done with my son being called DARK like it’s a bad thing just because my husband is a Mexican mutt (I say mutt with love because according to ancestry he’s got a little of EVERYWHERE in him) when he’s barely even olive toned. I’m sick of feeling so down all the time because my family and most of my friends are so fucking far away and I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to visit the place that I refer to as frozen over hell. I’m done with everyone saying “come home” when I know my husband’s family is the reason we won’t. I’m done not having a Costco within a 2 hour drive. I’m done shopping at Walmart for my groceries because that’s the only semi-affordable option since the ONLY chain of grocery stores out here has the monopoly and charges VONS prices for food-4-less quality.

I’m done being at the point of my happiness resting on getting the fuck out of this place and encouraging others to do the same so they can go back to being the best kept secret for a fucking reason. Bismarck is a fucking pandora’s box, that’s why nobody wants to talk about it. I’m done trying to see the good in this place when I’m surrounded with negativity.

I’m done ranting now too. Going to get back to working out and eating better to feel good.

On a happy note, I did a HIIT run and it didn’t kill me! Going to have to keep that shit up!

Ella

I’ll attach some screen grabs from a news outlet here in Bismarck to show that I seriously can’t make this shit up. The issue was 4 “women” were pissed about a post their “friend” made and straight out attacked her while she held her toddler at the mall. One elderly gentleman stepped in and was hit as well. Everyone just walked by like “nothing to see here”. Some of the responses are people I know feel my pain in being here but the second I post something like that I’ll get the “go home then, we don’t want you”… here’s the shots (keep in mind a LOT of people deleted their comments when they were called out, I should’ve taken more sooner) screenshotsbullshitbismarck