Ah, Kansas! The Truth About You Finally Comes Out

4 Min Read

Just when I thought my MotherLand couldn’t bring me any more shame…

It goes and completely redeems itself! (Uh, that’s from Dumb & Dumber…)

Since last week was Easter, I had the grand idea of celebrating it with a few ‘Easter Eggs’ related to my little Easter story–you know, the one read and thoroughly chuckled over last week…the one that can be found right here in case you need to refresh your memory *ahem*. Trust me, it will be worth it to know what that was all about before proceeding.

Anyways, I’ll confess that maybe ‘Easter Eggs’ isn’t the exact term I should be using, so I’ll just call this ‘Bonus Content’ and ‘Behind The Scenes’. Whatever we call it, I feel it’s definitely worth including–and best of all, it’ll only take two more minutes to enjoy the following juicy tidbits…

The next day after we had recovered from our daughter’s semi-traumatic introduction to the Sunflower State, we decided to go play in the park. Maybe fly a kite, y’know, seeing as how it’s windy af around here in the Spring and what-not.

Well, the poor kid, gets out of the car and this is how my homeland greets her? By blasting her in the face?!?

All I have to say is, “Welcome to Kansas, Kid. Welcome to Kansas…”¹Okay, so technically this a recycled joke, seeing as how I posted the same photo and comment on FaceBook a day or 2 after this happened. But it bears repeating.

Okay, so I spent waaaaay too much time on researching that particular episode, ensuring that the story was 95%+ historically and geographically accurate. But when I attempted to plug in my Wichita Airport-to-Dodge City route into Google Maps, and added a stop in between by simply searching for ‘coffee’ (in hopes of recreating the results I got back in 2014), I instead got this:

Needless to say, when I was actually in Kansas, Google Maps had enough sense to not suggest I take a 39 hour detour back to North Carolina just for some warm milk.

*moments earlier*

Oh, and fun fact: Google is usually pretty good at interpreting 3-letter strings as airports codes. For example, the code for the airport in Wichita is ICT. Work your contextual magic Google Maps, work that magic…

…or–and I’m just whiteboarding and brainstorming here, Google Maps–you could totally think I meant ‘Islamic Center of the Triad’ instead…

“Hmmm…when I Google Search ‘Kwik Shop’ to see if it could be the sh*tty gas station on the south side of the highway I clearly remember buying and heating the milk at, I get…this?!?”

(This:)

“Maybe I’m mistaken, and it wasn’t Kwik Shop,” I said as I diligently continued my research, not wanting to accidentally besmirch the good name of a chain of quality convenience stores.

“Perhaps it’s just the one in Pratt…hmmm, I wonder if Yelp has any insight…”

*searches ‘Yelp Pratt Kwik Shop’…*

“Ah, a local review from someone just passin’ thru! Let’s see what we have here…”

*spits out drink*

You gotta be effing kiddin’ me–this is too perfect. As M. Night Shyamalan would say, “What a twist!”

First, yes, this is indubitably the same store I patronized. And second…I’ve been vindicated! It wasn’t my poor milk-microwaving skills that got my Baby sick–it was ----- Kwik Shop! And now I can bring the proverbial receipts!

Me right now:

Oh boy, I can’t wait to show this evidence to My Beautiful Bride. I’m sure she’ll totally stop blaming for the whole fiasco now…

“Wait, what’s this? A second review for Pratt Kwik Shop on Yelp? But this time it’s be a local chap, a true native Kansan. Well, I can’t help wonder if it, too, is about spoiled milk…”

Wow. That was definitely not about spoiled milk. Welp, the only thing I can say is, “Welcome to Kansas…”

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a little bonus Bonus material: the “Ah…Kansas!” reference in the title. It’s from a commercial from my childhood, circa 1988, that was made by the Kansas Travel & Tourism, encouraging people from the boring parts of Kansas to come and visit other, equally boring parts of Kansas. Seriously, I’m not sure if this was ever ran on a TV station outside of the state. But if it did, I’m totally sure that anybody who saw it dropped what they were doing and immediately flocked to out great state *rolls eyes as hard as possible without engaging in hyperbole*.

And I believe that you, too, will flock to 1980’s Kansas once you click play below and behold for yourself this cinematic masterpiece.