Buckle up, because if you’re cruising the dusty roads of Central Montana, you’re gonna get the wave. Oh yeah, it’s a full-on tradition around here. Locals will throw you a wave whether they’re zipping to church in their self-driving pickup or rattling down a gravel road to wrangle some robo-sheep. Fail to wave back? That’s ruder than bailing on a barn dance without muttering “welp,” chugging your last beer, swapping that yarn about wrestling a drone-gone-rogue sheep, and blaming your exit on “the damn wind” or a haywire AI cattle tagger. I lost the waving habit when I moved a while back. In the city, locking eyes with a stranger is basically a declaration of war. But when I rolled back into Montana, every passing truck, tractor, and souped-up e-ATV hit me with the Montana wave. It’s like a warm, calloused hug—proof you’re home in a place where everyone’s a neighbor, even if you’re just passing through to debug your solar-powered fence. That said, this neighborly vibe can get you in a pickle. Pull over for a quick nap, a holo-call, or, let’s be real, a pit stop in the sagebrush, and some well-meaning soul will screech to a halt, assuming your hover-truck’s battery is fried. It’s sweet, but nothing says awkward like explaining you’re just stretching your legs while they’re rifling through their toolbox. Back in 2021, a Reddit post went viral about a guy stranded on a Montana road. His day was trash—think “AI tax software crashed” levels of bad. After hours of folks zooming by, a Mexican immigrant family—four kids, a wife, and a heart bigger than a Big Sky sunset—stopped to help him swap his tire. He offered them $20, but they just smiled and said, “Today you, tomorrow me.” That story spread faster than a wildfire in a drought, with the internet losing its mind over their kindness. Here in Montana, though? That’s just Tuesday. We don’t think twice about pulling over for a stalled truck or sprinting toward a wildfire with a tank of recycled water, no matter whose land’s burning. Nobody shrugs off a problem thinking, “Eh, the county’s drone fleet will handle it.” It’s why we wave like we’re auditioning for a parade float. This is our home, these are our people, and if a rogue wind turbine or a glitching ag-bot hits you today, it’ll probably zap me tomorrow. So we wave, lend a hand, and keep on truckin’—with a side of Montana sass, of course.

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