Home is...where?

Oops, meant to write about this awhile ago. Whatevs.

As you all probably know, many of us here in this fabulous commonwealth recently experienced what we called "aquapocalypse." Pretty much there was a huge water main that broke somewhere and we were told not to drink, brush our teeth, or cook with any water unless it was a) bottled or b) boiled first. Fine.

Alerts came out online and on TV as to which towns were safe from the dirty poop water and which had to follow the boil order. Among the areas listed for the boil order were Newton, Boston and Brookline. I live in a lovely little town called Brighton that happens to be near all of the aforementioned areas. The news never specifically mentioned Brighton but since I was smack in the middle of all of those, I decided to be safe and made a run for bottled water like everyone else.

At some point I mentioned to my roommate that it was weird that they never named Brighton for the boil order, and she goes, "Well, they said Boston on there, and Brighton is just an area of Boston."

Jigga what?

So apparently I've been living in Boston for the last 2 years and didn't know. And I was always like, "Well I live West of Boston" and all my New York friends would nod because a) no one cares b) no one knows the difference c) no one in Manhattan says they live West or East of anywhere. You just give your intersection.

But still, this confused me. Because if I leave my house and start walking East it goes something like this:

Brighton --> Brookline --> Boston

And I didn't understand how Boston and Brighton/Boston could make a little Brookline sandwich. So I consulted the great internet and found 2 things.

The first thing is that Allston, home of the awesome Sunset Grill, is also part of Boston, so now my little rudimentary map looks like this:

______________Allston
Brighton --> Brookline --> Boston

So I guess Boston just goes across the top there. No soup sandwich for you, Brookline.

The second thing I found is that apparently some people were similarly confused and had posted on some aquapocalypse-related forums being like, "Panic! I live in Brighton! Is my water clean?" and then they similarly got schooled, and then a Boston blog went on to make fun of them for not knowing where they lived.

So I guess I'm not the only moron who didn't know that they lived in Boston, but seriously why didn't anyone tell me that I live in Boston? It's not like anyone in Astoria or Williamsburg randomly finds out one day that they live in New York City. They know.

It's days like that that make me wonder how I ever graduated high school.