{"product_id":"at-least-in-the-city-someone-would-hear-me-scream-isbn-9780307451910","title":"At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream","description":"\u003cb\u003eWe all dream about it, but Wade Rouse actually did it. Discover his journey to live the simple life in this hilarious memoir. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Finally fed up with the frenzy of  city life and a job he hates, Wade Rouse decided to make either the bravest decision  of his life or the worst mistake since his botched Ogilvie home perm: to uproot his  life and try, as Thoreau did some 160 years earlier, to \"live a plain, simple life  in radically reduced conditions.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this rollicking and hilarious memoir, Wade  and his partner, Gary, leave culture, cable,  and consumerism behind and strike out  for rural Michigan—a place with fewer people than in their former spinning class.  There, Wade discovers the simple life isn’t so simple. Battling blizzards, bloodthirsty  critters, and nosy neighbors equipped with night-vision goggles, Wade and his spirit,  sanity, relationship, and Kenneth Cole pointy-toed boots are sorely tested with humorous  and humiliating frequency. And though he never does learn where his well water actually  comes from or how to survive without Kashi cereal, he does discover some things in  the woods outside his knotty-pine cottage in Saugatuck, Michigan, that he always  dreamed of but never imagined he’d find–happiness and a home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAt Least in the City  Someone Would Hear Me Scream\u003c\/i\u003e is a sidesplitting and heartwarming look at taking a  risk, fulfilling a dream, and finding a home–with very thick and very dark curtains.  \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e“This is David Sedaris meets Dave Barry….every page is good for a laugh.” \u003cbr\u003e–\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Rouse chronicles the hilarious escapades of these 'two neurotic urbanites' as they ensconce themselves in the woods without magazine subscriptions, malls, Trader Joe's, HGTV, or lattes. Rouse feels like a Martian confronting the locals at the general store, and suffers extreme anxiety when attempting ice fishing or karaoke. Gay or straight, any reader who has tried to 'fit in' somewhere outside his or her comfort zone will readily empathize with Rouse's rousing and ultimately successful lifestyle change.\" \u003cbr\u003e–\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Wade Rouse is a true oddball: half Henry David Thoreau, half Oliver Wendell Douglas. AT LEAST IN THE CITY SOMEONE WOULD HEAR ME SCREAM is a funny, good-natured chronicle of a fish out of water, slowly learning to breathe.\" \u003cbr\u003e–Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eElection\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLittle Children\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Abstinence Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“In AT LEAST IN THE CITY SOMEONE WOULD HEAR ME SCREAM, Wade Rouse’s inner Eddie Albert does battle with his inner Eva Gabor. I won’t tell you who wins, but the fight is immensely entertaining.”\u003cbr\u003e–A.J. Jacobs, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Year of Living Biblically\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Somewhere between Thoreau’s \u003ci\u003eWalden Pond\u003c\/i\u003e and Oliver Douglas’s \u003ci\u003eGreen Acres \u003c\/i\u003elies Wade Rouse. In AT LEAST IN THE CITY SOMEONE WOULD HEAR ME SCREAM\u003ci\u003e,\u003c\/i\u003e Rouse details his quest to shed the trappings of his fabulous life to live more simply… except no one told him how hard the simple life would be. Rouse is a master raconteur and his transition from city slicker to country mouse is filled with side-spitting humor, heart, and, of course, bands of marauding raccoons. This book has now taken its place at the top of my favorites list!”\u003cbr\u003e—Jen Lancaster, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eSuch a Pretty Fat\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePretty in Plaid\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eWADE ROUSE\u003c\/b\u003e is the critically acclaimed author ofthe memoirs \u003ci\u003eAmerica’s Boy, Confessions of a Prep School Mommy Handler, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eAt Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream\u003c\/i\u003e and editor of the upcoming humorous dog anthology \u003ci\u003eI’m Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship!\u003c\/i\u003eHe is a humor columnist for \u003ci\u003eMetrosource\u003c\/i\u003e magazine. Rouse lives outside Saugatuck, Michigan, with his partner, Gary, and their mutts, Marge and Mabel.\u003cb\u003eCoonskin Cap\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere’s a raccoon on my head.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I don’t particularly look good in hats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEspecially when they’re still moving.I certainly wish this were one of those “Hey, look at me standing here on vacation in Wall Drug wearing a fifteen-dollar coonskin cap pretending to be Daniel Boone, so hurry up and take the goddamn picture!” moments, but it’s not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo, my cap is very much alive, very much pissed off, and very much sporting a bad stink, a head filled with razor fangs, and a lot of painfully sharp claws.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I guess I’d be pissed off, too, if someone interrupted my late-night dinner reservation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWho knew that in the woods you simply can’t shove a forgotten bag of trash into your garbage can?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn’t.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s because I’m a city boy, a self-obsessed gay man who intentionally bedazzled himself in roughly $1,000 worth of trendy clothing just to walk the trash out \u003ci\u003ein the middle of f***ing nowhere!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI honestly believe, deep down, that I am like K-Fed in Vegas, or some pseudocelebrity on vacation who just might be ambushed by the paparazzi at any moment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I’m really just a lost soul, in every possible way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNot long ago, I moved to the woods of Michigan from the city, because I wanted to be a modern-day Henry David Thoreau.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy goal? To find myself, to find my modern-day Walden Pond, by stripping away superfluous luxuries and living a plainer, simpler life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThoreau famously wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd he is right. The woods have already taught me something of great value: I \u003ci\u003eam\u003c\/i\u003e going to die. Specifically, I am going to die after being disfigured by a raccoon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut at least I have had a life-changing epiphany, albeit a bit too late. The epiphany “Never go to a place that doesn’t have a Starbucks within arm’s reach or you might find a wild animal clinging to your scalp” has already edged out my all-time favorite epiphany, the one I had in eighth grade: “My God, my thingy doesn’t seem to work when I kiss girls!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe raccoon digs its claws into the side of my head and begins to burrow, like it’s trying to bury the apple core it still has in its mouth into the middle of my brain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eMy hair!\u003c\/i\u003e I think. \u003ci\u003eYou’re jacking up my hair!\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhich is another reason why I shouldn’t be living in the woods. I care more about how my profile will look when I’m found dead than about actually trying to stay alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe raccoon locates an artery, and I begin screaming, like any man who is truly scared for his life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd then I pee on myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI admit it. There is no shame.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI scream again, yelling, “Help! Help! There’s a raccoon on my head! Can somebody, anybody, help me?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut I sadly realize this is a rhetorical question, that it doesn’t matter what I yell, because no one can hear me in the woods. My closest neighbor is a “holler” away, or what ever the hell they say out here in the country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, my yells simply echo off the surrounding pines, the voice coming back to me sounding a whole lot like Drew Barrymore right before she gets offed at the beginning of \u003ci\u003eScream.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI do have enough wherewithal, however, to scrunch my eyes shut, in order to protect my vision, and to begin spinning like a top, twirling like a drunken, crazed ballerina, to jostle the beast free. Unfortunately, the coon is along for the ride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI can feel blood beginning to trickle down my face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI will later read on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia: “Raccoons are unusual for their thumbs, which (though not opposable) enable them to open many closed containers (such as garbage cans) and doors. The raccoon is most distinguishable by the black ‘mask’ of fur around its eyes and the long, bushy tail. They are intelligent omnivores with a reputation for being clever, sly, and mischievous. Raccoons range from 20 to 40 inches in length (including the tail) and weigh between 10 and 35 pounds. As city dwellers in the United States and Canada increasingly move into primary or second homes in former rural areas, raccoons are often considered pests because they forage in trash receptacles.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI, of course, read this too late, like I do everything in my life: the nutrition chart on Little Debbie boxes, the prescription for my Xanax, the size 4 tag in the back of my “men’s” jeans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, I am a child of the ’70s, which means I didn’t really have to read to learn anything; I just had to watch TV. And that I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat’s when it hits me. The solution to my problems.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat would Lucy do? \u003c\/i\u003eI ask myself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLucy would fight back, in some wacky-chocolate-factory, grape-stompin’, Vitameatavegamin way!”\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo I grab the garbage can lid, and the flashlight I am holding, and begin to wield them like shields, like Brad Pitt in Troy, and whack the raccoon, taking part of my temple along with it. But the coon doesn’t budge. It screeches and digs its claws more deeply into my skull.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s those damn thumbs. They may not be opposable, but I swear this thing could hitchhike.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304835240165,"sku":"NP9780307451910","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307451910.jpg?v=1767721899","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/at-least-in-the-city-someone-would-hear-me-scream-isbn-9780307451910","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}