Day 3: "New Hampshire: The South of the North" (Shows #5 & 6)

May 23 | Manchester, NH | 10-1

May 23 | Nashua, NH | 2-5

The start of a new weekend of yoyoing for Nate and I was in NH. Nate's family was already going up there for a trip, so I drove up and met him. I arrived to the T'R'U a half an hour early so decided to go and try to find a place where I could snag something quick to eat. I found a Wal-Mart and decided to go and get some granola bars. Almost immediately after exiting my car, I was verbally harassed. A shirtless guy in his early 20s driving a pick-up truck with another guy, also shirtless, cat-called to me, "Your ass looks nice in those jeans." I could tell from that moment that that day was not going to be one of our most positive experiences.

Discouraged, I informed Nate of my already "interesting" day. He made a point then that really stuck with us; New Hampshire is the South of the North. This is not meant with any offense to people from the South, but with Nate being from Northampton, MA and me going to school in Boston, we are both used to very liberal, open-minded environments. Although NH is in the blue North East, it is not really like what you think of politically or socially when you think of the North East. In fact, we got insulted more times in New Hampshire than any other shows we've done thus far.

Regardless, we hoped that something positive would come from these shows. We quickly found out that this would not be the case. Both of the T'R'U stores that we went to were completely dead. There was little to no foot traffic and even less interest in what we were doing. At the Manchester show, we got stuck in the Star Trek display. At the Nashua store, the manager didn't even know we were coming. These were two of our worst shows yet.

In between shows we got lunch at the only half-decent place we could find around, the 99. For an appetizer, I got a wedge salad. Apparently Nate had no what a wedge salad was and even after me explaining it to him, still doesn't really understand the concept of it. For those of you that don't know, a wedge salad is usually 1/8 a head of iceberg lettuce with dressing, blue cheese crumbles, tomatoes, and bacon bits. For those of us who favor iceberg lettuce, this is a great thing. For Nate, he just could not seem to wrap his head around the concept and why anyone would want to buy/eat it. As I put it, it's a designer part of a head of lettuce.

What else is there to say about New Hampshire? Well, nothing positive, so I guess I'll end it here.

Shoutouts goes to: my roommate Austin and his girlfriend Celia for showing up in Nashua and surprising us. You two are awesome. Also, thanks to Austin for running up to me when I was going into the store and making me think I was going to get mugged.

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