BraiN

From The Brain of the Giant Head

Don’t Visit The Future Hole of America

Have you ever had one of those places where you dreaded going? Like heading to that corner Payless so your mom can buy a new pair of heals or to the over-crowded bar with expensive booze or to little Johnny’s house because his parents think TV is the devil and refuse to buy one. Everyone has a place that they loathe. I am no different from the masses, and I, too, have a destination that I dread more than going bald.

I hate Indiana.

While I’ve never spent much hanging-out time in the state (for good reason), I’ve driven through it more than 2 million times and can assure you that if you’ve never been there, you’ve never experienced hell. The nicest highways are held together with duct tape and paste. Hugging both sides of the road are dead grass, cell phone towers, and tractors probably built sometime around the Truman presidency. And never, I repeat never, stop anywhere to pee.

The rest stops along the highway are more like outhouses with a pop machine that sells Check Cola and has signs that say, "You Are In Indiana." Thanks for the help, Indiana, as if the puke-colored skies didn’t give it away. Aside from the "Wet Floor" sign that hasn’t moved in three years and the sketchy character that will offer to help pull down your pants, the rest area isn’t much different than other rest areas. (And by ‘not much different’ I mean ‘COMPLETELY different.’)

A few times I have been known to skip the rest area altogether and stop at any one of the finer Indiana gas station establishments, such as ‘Barney’s Gas and Anchovies’ or ‘Honus’s Fill-Um-Up and Move-Um-Out.’ While rumor has it that at least two dozen have died from the toxins of the manure stench roaming in the air, my guess is that the estimate is quite low. The clerk at the counter always has a mullet and wears a filthy Dale Earnhardt T-shirt with paint stains on the sleeve. If you’re lucky, maybe one of the patrons shopping in the gas station speaks a form of English you can understand and can translate to the worker.

Good English: I’d like ten dollars on gas pump number five.
Indiana English: I’s takin these many nickels worth on dat pump done over-dare.

Good English: Do you accept credit cards?
Indiana English: Can’s I pay wid a cow?

And so on.

After thinking about it time and time again, I believe it’s time to begin campaigning what I believe would improve our blessed U.S. of A.

I think we should get rid of Indiana.

Think about it. Do we really NEED 50 states? That always sounded a bit excessive to me. The number ‘49’ has a nice ring to it. What has Indiana done for us, anyway? Sure, the state produced Larry Bird, but do you think he lives there now? And name one other accomplishment Indiana can take credit for? Haystacks? Cut-off jeans? Inbreding? They kicked out Bobby Knight, which, in and of itself, is enough proof to pick Indiana up and throw it in the Atlantic. Or maybe we could use it for economic gain and sell it to the British, because we all know they are dumb -- just listen to Ginger Spice talk.

Am I crazy? I don’t think I am. If the government is willing to waste its precious hours debating the start time of Halloween and whether or not Martin Luther King Day should be a national holiday, then I feel I am fully within the realm of proper topics. And the more people I get to jump on my bandwagon, the more likely I can get Indiana dumped somewhere off the Florida coast.

While I know many people may be concerned with having a giant, gaping hole on the eastern side of the mid-west, I see it as an opportunity to rid us of the most boring state in the country. It would also solve our land-needed-for-garbage-sites problem, as we can throw our trash in the hole and let China deal with it. I’ve now killed two birds with one stone.

There may be some people who fight my quest. There may be others that want more incentives and want me to cut deals to get my legislative notion passed. And I’m not completely unreasonable and I would cut a deal.

I’m willing to throw in Wyoming.