Little Spouse on the Prairie

 The advertisement read: 

GREAT OPPORTUNITIES IN IOWA!

TALL, BLONDE PEOPLE

A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF MEXICAN RESTAURANTS

A TACO PIZZA TOPPED WITH DORITOS

A ROOM AT YOUR IN-LAWS 

So we hitched up the '13 Honda Wagon, loaded her with a sufficient supply of cheddar popcorn and wafer bites, and said so long to our charmed life of foldable pizza slices and Woody Allen controversies. We were headed west. Where people with enough pluck could eek out an existence, hard yet satisfying, provided their in-laws stocked their shelves with enough deli meats and breakfast cereals. 

     Arriving on the prairie (now with carpeting!)

Life on the plains wasn't easy. You had people calling "soda" "pop" and "bags" "sacks." Thanks to that jerk Paul Bunyan, there was not a lot of shade on the hot days and you could find yourself parked in a sliver of shade on the side of the road across from someone's house desperately hoping they didn't see you completely cover yourself in the frozen custard that had missed your mouth. 

And though the stories of attacks by native Iowans are much exaggerated to reinforce East Coast Supremacy, they did happen on occasion and when they did, they were not pretty. You may, say, go to the grocery store, and while looking for some croutons, a native Iowan would sneak up and ask you whether you were making a salad and then bombard you with his salad preferences. While driving by a farm, you might have a farmer shoot you a two finger salute--a gesture so shockingly friendly, an unprepared eastern driver may veer off the road in surprise. 

Even a Native Iowan Can Find Life on the Prairie Difficult. Seen here having to read PRINT MEDIA (😮) when the power went out for half an hour! 

But worst of all were the prairie diseases. Like the recent outbreak of Firework Fever that swept over the people of Mason City. Morning, noon, night--whether you could actually see the fireworks or not or whether the town had a very expensive, high quality professional show you could appreciate instead--victims of Firework Fever could not stop firing from their seemingly inexhaustible stockpiles as if their hospital-visits-in-the-making were the last line of defense against Al Queda. This outbreak seems to have been spread by a certain 10 foot gorilla outside the Iowa Fireworks, Inc. tent. Then you had to look out for the local Male-aria, which can drive you to cut off the sleeves of your shirt, want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet and guzzle mountain dew by the barrel. In some extreme cases, this could even lead to getting a giant tattoo of Marshall "Eminem" Mathers, or "the real slim shady" flipping the bird--on your back. 

It's Going to Take More Than This Prairie Mountain to Bring Me Down! I'm from the Adirondacks! 

Entertainment was also limited on the prairie. Besides a 4,870,000 square foot mall containing 4 floors of stores, an amusement park and hotels in Minneapolis; museums, art galleries, lakes and botanical gardens, there was practically nothing to do. So people will gather around their fireplace TV screensaver and tell tales of prairie legends. Like the man who ate so many slices of taco pizza he could no longer fit in his '13 Honda Wagon. Or the woman who shopped at all of the Targets in the greater Minneapolis area before you could say you betcha I have a Red Card two times. (or the tale of Daniel Funyan, Substitute Teacher of the Great Plains, featured below). 

Shopping at the local General store...being inexplicably overrun by Monarch butterflies. 

                 Sometimes the efforts to entertain oneself on the prairie become truly desperate! 

Life on the prairie was extremely trying. We only did get a few hours in the Mall of America and I nearly died from exhaustion walking from the Lego Store to Minnesot-ah, the home of moose coasters and You Betcha! hoodies. We only tried one Mexican restaurant though we heard such good things about The Happy Donkey in Mason City. We nearly died again when we mistakenly tried to eat midwestern bagel and a small bout with local male-aria almost lead to an incident with a 2 liter of "Hillbilly Holler," a generic Mountain Dew from the local grocery store. Plus, who knew "prairie" had two "i's"--how is anyone supposed to spell that!  But we are back at last--resting easy now that saltwater taffy, New Yorker cartoons and pissed off drivers are well within reach. 

Seen shopping at Minnesot-ah! at Mall of America. 

A Classic Prairie Tall Tale 

Daniel Funyan, Substitute Teacher of the Great Plains

A long time ago there lived a man named Daniel Funyan who was known throughout the land for his miraculous substitute teaching. Whenever a teacher got sick, Daniel mosied on over to the one-room school house, and before he was done, his students were exponentially smarter, fearing God like no one feared him before- and the welts on their hands were bigger than anyone had ever seen. One day, Ms. Candy Navian suddenly caught the gopher fever that had been plaguing the Dakota Territory. This spelled trouble, as Navian's students were the meanest, mangiest and most grasshopper-lovin' students on the plains. The last sub, Mr. Finn Lander ran home screaming after the students cut the straps on his overalls, then took his government land deed, whited out his name, and wrote in Sitting Bull.

But Daniel Funyan was not one to be bested by the youngins!

When he entered the room, there was chaos. One boy was sitting on another boy's head and farting to the tune of "Oh, Susanna." Two girls were flinging the bible across the room like a frisbee. The class prairie dog was eating a crying girl's Swedish meatballs. But when students noticed Daniel, standing 10 feet tall and another 10 feet wide, with ears like pumpkins and a ruler several meters long ready for inflicting punishment, they hushed up. "Get in your seats," his voiced boomed, causing the apple on the teacher's desk to explode all over the students. And all of the students and even the prairie dog did as were asked

By the end of the day, the students could read and write in not only English, but Greek, Latin, Portuguese and Swahili. They could name all 50 territories and knew several dozen derogatory terms for Native Americans. Before leaving, the children insisted that they wanted even more book learnin' and to go out and till the mother flippin' heck out of the land till their hands cramped shut and had to be sawed off. Their trousers were soaked from fearing God so much.

The next day, knowing Ms. Navian was still sick, Daniel headed in to school. But when he got there, there was a man setting up some kind of new-fangled contraption in front of the class.

"What is that?" He shouted, causing several students to fall out of their seats.

"This here. This is a Smartboard," the man said. "It's a new device that will teach students when teachers are out. Runs on steam."

"What? Steam can't teach students; I challenge this "Smartboard" to a teach-off."

All of the pioneers came to watch the great face-off between Daniel Funyan and the magical board. On one side the SmartBoard was teaching bible stories using audio, clip art and text. On the other Daniel was dressed up like Abraham and, in a dramatic rendition of the bible story, was threatening to kill Isaac (the boy who previously had been threatened with another boy's farts) with his infamous ruler. The students eyes darted back and forth between the two spectacles, but in the end, the kids watched and learned from Daniel. Everyone cheered for Daniel Funyan, the greatest education temp in all of the territory.

However, the next day, the Smartboard technician showed students Minesweeper, and the day of the Great Plains Substitute was done. Daniel disappeared after that, but every now and then someone would spot him trying to rapidly increase the pressure inside the Steam Smartboard.

The End