Hick

Yesterday, when I got home from school, I strapped on the Garmin, iPod, and fuel belt and headed out the door for 9. I didn't really have a specific route in mind but decided I'd start out towards downtown.

As I neared downtown, I saw a police car parked in the middle of the intersection and people standing around. I thought there was some kind of wreck, but since there were no ambulances and everyone looked pretty calm, I figured it was just a fender bender. I didn't want to rubberneck, so I didn't pay much attention to the cop or the other people standing there and just kept running by.

As I crossed the street though, I noticed there was a LOT going on up ahead- people standing around, cars, all this strange equipment. Before I got any further, an unfamiliar woman flagged me down and I stopped and pulled out one earbud.

"Could you run somewhere else?" she asked. "We're filming here."

And then, I realized- I just ran past multiple people, including the police officer, who must have tried to stop me... because I was running smack dab into a movie set and about to ruin a scene. I was so wrapped up in my own little running world with my iPod on that I completely forgot that downtown was blocked off for filming this afternoon.

I felt pretty dumb. And as soon as I was rerouted around the corner, it became pretty obvious what was going on. I can't believe I didn't notice- the whole street outside of filming was lined with flashy cars and I saw people who clearly thought they had fallen off the edge of civilization into nowheresville.

Of course, the obvious question is: Why on earth was any kind of movie filming here? (You might recall I live in a dot on the map over an hour from any dots big enough to even have a YMCA.) And this is a for real movie. (Blake Lively and Alec Baldwin are on the cast list but unfortunately do not appear in the scenes filmed here.)

The answer, of course, is that the movie is called, "Hick" and the setting is rural Nebraska in the 1980s.

Yep. This is where I live.