14 Signs You’re From the Main Line

This list is not about candy stripers and milk in glass bottles

Facebook is like a large family gathering. Picture your niece’s graduation from high school or Thanksgiving dinner. You have to go, and sometimes it’s fun and entertaining, but lots of times it’s just annoying and everyone there is painfully dim-witted. You suffer through their drivel and can’t wait to beat a quick retreat. Facebook offers me the opportunity to see what’s going on in the lives of friends and family (that’s the good part), and then there’s the other stuff. No, I don’t want to know where the gems are hidden. No, I don’t want to know what kind of flower I am. The latest craze is “You Know You’re From … [fill in the blank] … When.” I’ve been following one for my high school, enjoying the nostalgic nonsense, but not all that moved to add. Then I was alerted to one that got my attention. Really got my attention. “You Know You’re From the Main Line When …”

Really? When the 7-11 used to be a horse farm? When Bryn Mawr Hospital had candy stripers? When Rosenberger’s delivered milk in glass bottles? Okay, all nice memories of the Main Line but, being a transplant to the area, I’d like to add my own, more recent, observations of the “special-ness” that is the Main Line. Ready? Here we go:

You Know You’re From the Main Line When …

• You dash through the Superfresh at breakneck speed because you’re wearing no makeup and someone might see you and, when someone does, you make excuses for your slovenly appearance.

• You answer the door in your “staying in the house today” clothing, and the meter reader thinks you’re the help.

• You land in the ER because your head got stuck in the dumbwaiter. (Okay, this actually happened to me. In addition to being embarrassing, it hurt).

• Your tax bill could “Save the Children” for several decades.

• The bitch at Genuardis who just needed a rope ladder to climb out of her SUV is buying an emery board with a credit card. (Her nails were perfect by the way.)

• A gaggle of women, all in tennis skirts, block the aisle at Gladwyne Pharmacy, and you’re the one who says you’re sorry.

• The guy at the post office knows you’re not from the Main Line because of your fringed leather jacket. (I got it in Idaho and still feel weird every time I wear it.)

• Joe at the gas station knows all the dirt about all the people, all the time.

• No one wants a cell tower anywhere near their house or neighborhood but can’t stop complaining about poor cell service.

• People refer to your house as the house that so-and-so used to live in. (I don’t care who used to live here. His name is not on the mortgage.)

• You think you’re socially diverse because you have friends who belong to other country clubs.

• People don’t mean “public” when they ask which school your kid goes to.

• Your décor is in “tasteful decline.”

• And my favorite: Everyone’s kid is “a genius.” Even the stupid ones.