How (not) To Dress Minnesotan

I don't know if you've heard, but I've been hearing something about it exactly every 37 seconds... the Superbowl is in Minneapolis this year, and it's this Sunday. I happen to live near Minneapolis, and have lived in various places near Minneapolis for my entire four+several decades (well, except for those first few months where I lived somewhere else, but that's another story).

Over the past few weeks, I've been subjected to more articles/news stories in regards to:

• what Minnesotans do (no, we don't all go ice fishing every weekend)
• what winter pastimes Minnesotans love to participate in (no, we don't all skate or ski)
• what Minnesotans eat (Lutefisk what?)
• where Minnesotans dine (we're not all trust fund families, so Burch Steak and Butcher & The Boar, though great, are not on the regular rotation)
• what Minnesotans drink (which includes a lot of things besides craft brew)
• how Minnesotans survive basically being frozen to death for 14 months of the year

Oh how I love hearing about how hardy we are to live in this arctic climate! One would think that instead of bike lanes, we should've installed sidewalks built specifically for snowshoes and a commuter lane designed solely for snowmobilers. Instead of the war over backyard chickens, it's a battle to see who can own the most penguins.

To the out-of-towner who has never been to Minnesota and only hears about how cold and awful it is and how people sprout icicles made out of snot, it's hard to believe that it actually gets hot in the summer (and yes, it lasts longer than a month), people get to wear something besides fleece and "strategic layering" becomes a distant memory.

It's at the end of these warm months and before our kids go back to school that something happens in Minnesota that I have yet to see mentioned in any Superbowl visitor Guides: The Minnesota State Fair. It's during these twelve days of gluttony and animal barns and Vitamix demonstrations that the most entertaining lesson is learned: what some Minnesotans actually wear in public, on purpose.

It would be interesting to see what this guy wears on a non-State Fair day. I like to think that he chose this outfit so that he would be easy to spy in crowds. If only his socks had been orange and green, too.

Just like in every single other state I've been to, Minnesotans struggle with parking between the lines, too.

They might as well add "useful for hauling cheap ass styrofoam filled carnival prizes" to the reasons why one would rent a wheelchair.

In addition to a lot of eating, the State Fair involves a lot of walking. This fella was extra prepared with the KT Tape strategically applied to his super jacked, milky white calves.

About all of that open toe footwear you see, though. Keep in mind that the State Fair streets, while not strewn with human feces and mountains of trash, are strewn with traces of animal feces, discarded food and more spit than an entire baseball team produces in a season. So while sandals and flip flops look great, it's going to suck when these people can't wear them next year because I assume that, when they got home from this fair, they looked and sniffed at the condition of their feet, and just chopped those suckers right off.

I wasn't sure if this was a man or a merman. Or maybe it's a mermaid. Again, not sure.

When I heard some clomping approaching from behind me, I stepped aside, preparing to pet the nice horsey. I was disappointed, and then thought "yeah, shoelaces can be SUCH a pain in the ass. All that tying!"

So I guess if you don't want to mess with tying your shoes and can't stand the thought of scumming up those flip flops or sandals, just say fuck it and go barefoot.

Not 100% convinced that what you're seeing here is a real Gucci bag, and also not sure if what you're seeing is shoes or electric tape, slapped on to resemble shoes.

And here we have the most hydrated man on the Fair grounds, along with someone walking while looking at their phone, which makes me rage.

Shirts, even though they seem so constraining and frivolous, are not to be considered an optional accessory. Pleather backpack, though? Absofuckenlutely necessary.

Yes, jorts are still a thing. Jorts in a variety of lengths, apparently not a thing.

I guess one way to solve the "but I don't want to stain any of my favorite outfits" dilemma is to just go to the Fair in your favorite slutty pajamas.

If the horizontal stripes aren't slimming and the vertical stripes are, let's just go with the diagonals.

I don't know what is on her back, and I really think it's best to leave it that way.

So this guy went through the trouble of picking out a shirt, but he couldn't be bothered to actually put the shirt on. Again, people, wearing a shirt is NOT OPTIONAL.

But apparently pants are.

And here, standing in line in front of one of the Gibb brothers, is someone staring at their phone and as a result, is stricken with paralysis and unable to navigate a beer line.

Wearing white pants to the State Fair is strongly discouraged, even if they do make your ass look great. Shoes that fit... also a bonus.

Sometimes while at the Fair, you spill your food/beer/snowcone, and it's only the truly prepared fairgoer that remembers to bring his own towel.

This 19yo dude won the award for Most Convincing Old Man Outfit.

You'd think that "pleather skirt that leaves dents in my skin" wouldn't make the list for State Fair wardrobe choices, but you would be wrong.

Hey check it out! Some bras have translucent straps but this one is better! The entire thing is translucent! And you don't even need to wear a shirt with it because it's invisible, so therefore it must make me invisible!

This booth right here, Sweet Martha's Cookies, is the main reason why so many people wander these overpopulated streets. They happily fork over $18 for a bucket that is overflowing with chocolate chip cookies, stand around and eat themselves into a calorie coma, and then carry that damn bucket around with them for the rest of the day.

Oh, and the booth NEVER looks like this, as it's usually MOBBED with people standing in lines ten fairgoers long. So if you ever see it like this at any point during the twelve days that the Fair is actually running, go buy a lottery ticket.

And about that ice fishing pastime that not all of us (including me) participate in, there are icefish house models at the State Fair because, I mean, why wouldn't there be!?

So if I WAS to go ice fishing and I had $16K, this is what I would gladly use. Yes, this is an icehouse and yes, that's a fireplace and yes, of course there's a bathroom.

This picture sums up the State Fair better than anything. Perfectly civilized and most likely highly educated people, voluntarily sitting on grit coated streets, shoving gobs of fatty foots into their mouths using hands that probably haven't been washed.

It's the best. And I look forward to it every single year.

One last word of wisdom; if you do happen to be in Minnesota for the State Fair and not the Superbowl, use your stealthiest skills to smuggle in a flask of vodka. Towards the end of the day, when your feet are tired and your entire body feels like it's coated with a questionable film, wander over to the Blue Barn, buy a blueberry lemonade and dump the contents of that flask into said lemonade. Now, take a giant gulp, and then say thank you, Mean Mom.

And then go home and wash your feet.

The Time That A Cake Made Me Have To Miss Day Drinking

Whenever I'm at a party and someone says "Would you like a piece of cake?" and I say "No, I don't like cake," they inevitably stare at me in disbelief. Like, "How can you not like cake? And frosting! What about the frosting!?" Well, to me, cake is an overrated hunk of wasted calories. The texture is weird, the flavor is usually overwhelming, it makes a mess when you cut it (cleaning cake crumbs off of a counter is THE WORST!) and seriously, don't even get me started on the grossness of frosting, especially when that cheap ass green and blue Costco frosting stains someone's teeth.

The one exception that I make maybe once a year is carrot cake. But it has to be a perfectly prepared carrot cake, which means no nuts, no raisins, no chunks, no excessive oiliness, and the cream cheese frosting better not be thicker than a piece of foam core.

My husband's birthday occurred this week, and we have been celebrating in stages for the last few days; dinner out one night, grilled steak and cake on another, party and gifts on yet another. It's like he's an eight year old again. Anyway, I purchased a carrot cake at a shiny new HyVee that recently opened near our house, and as a result, have spent the last two days, let's see... how can I put this in proper medical terms... oh I know... pissing out my asshole while wincing in extreme abdominal pain.

Once I realized that I had purchased what was obviously a frosting coated cylinder of death, but before the odorous post-cake repercussions had set in, I tweeted at HyVee:




And they actually replied:










Of course, HyVee! That sounds like the PERFECT solution to my problem! Let's try ANOTHER terrible carrot cake, just to see if maybe I happened to purchase the one dud! And besides, this scenario is highly improbable, since I'm pretty sure that every single one of their carrot cakes contains raisins and nuts, which is basically like saying "Here, have this cake filled with poison and rocks and little nuggets of chewy rabbit shit."

After managing to stay out of the bathroom for five consecutive hours and sleeping off and on for about eleven, I decided that I would, in fact, contact customercare@hy-vee.com:


To: customercare@hy-vee.com
Subject: Worst. Cake. Ever.
Hi there.

I am contacting you per the instructions I received via twitter, after mentioning an awful cake that I purchased at HyVee. Please excuse the delay, as I am just now finally feeling well enough to sit at my computer.

I purchased a carrot cake at the HyVee located at 9409 Zane Ave. N. in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on Friday, January 26th. The cake was $19.99 and was labeled “best if used by February 3.” Since I was planning on serving this cake on Monday, January 30, I assumed it would be edible. I brought it home, put it in the refrigerator for the weekend, and then pulled it out on Monday.

The cake looked amazing. It really did. It almost looked fake, it looked so amazing. The multiple layers of carrot cake, with perfectly placed blobs of frosting separating each layer… it reminded me of a cake that was prepared solely for picture taking purposes, all carefully crafted and coated with inedible lacquer. Well, guess what? That’s exactly how it tasted. It was like it had been dried out to match the same texture and taste of a kitchen sponge that had been used to mop up raw chicken juices for three weeks straight. And although no where in the description does it mention the inclusion of raisins and nuts, IT HAS RAISINS AND NUTS! I guess I should’ve flipped the box upside down and squinted at the 1pt font ingredient list, because then I would’ve noticed that the cake contains raisins and nuts, which are basically the surest way to ruin anything.

After sawing through the cake, serving up a couple slices to my kids and skeptically taking a bite myself, I instantly knew within the first half a bite that it was wrong on every level. It didn’t taste like cake. It didn’t even taste like food. It tasted like something that you’d buy for someone that you hated. It wasn’t sweet, it wasn’t soft, it tasted like sadness. I took the plates from my kids and chucked them - plus the entire cake - into the trash, hoping that the bite still wreaking havoc on my taste buds wasn’t going to have negative repercussions.

Well, even though I hoped, I realized on Tuesday at 5am that it wasn’t going to be a good day. Sharp stomach pains, several trips to the bathroom, filmy sweats and fatigue plagued me all day yesterday, and continues into today.  Coincidentally, yesterday was a birthday party that had been scheduled for my husband (yes, this carrot cake was supposed to be his birthday cake). It was so much fun to attend and sit there, sipping ginger ale, while everyone else bowled and played ping pong and ate chips and guacamole! I had a great time sitting there, when I wasn't sprinting to the bathroom every 14 minutes! Thanks, HyVee carrot cake!

In addition to the inedibility and obvious spoilage of the cake, my daughter, before I chucked the sucker into the trash, looked at the top of the cake and - with her amazing contact lens assisted vision - said “Oh look, there are black hairs on the cake! Gross!” Sure enough, I looked and there were three short, wirey, frizzled looking hairs clinging to the blobs of cream cheese frosting, nestled right next to a few carrot shavings. No, I am not making this up. HyVee sold me a rotten hairy carrot cake.

So while I am obviously irritated about the money I wasted on a cake, I am actually more irritated about the fact that I got sick and basically missed my husband’s $900+ birthday party, and the most irritated that, after years with zero disappointment, I strayed from Lunds & Byerlys bakery.

Sincerely,

the Mean Mom

Was I pissed about the wasted $19.99? Yes. Was I pissed about the excessive shitting? Yes. Was I happy about the immediate loss of water weight? FUCK YES. But most of all, was I pissed about having to miss day drinking with an open bar?! OH MY GOD I'M PRETTY SURE THAT'S THE WORST SCENARIO ANYONE COULD EVER HAVE TO SUFFER THROUGH!

To my surprise, Hy-Vee replied with the following:



Yes, that's exactly right, HyVee. I was disappointed with the quality. I just used a lot of extra words to express those feelings.

Later that afternoon, the nice manager man from the Hy-Vee that sold me the Worst Cake Ever contacted me via a phone call and wondered if I'd be home for a little while. I'm like "Uh, yeah, since I still have to be near a bathroom." About a half hour later, he appeared at my front door with a bottle of wine, a giant vase of flowers and a very generous gift card. He apologized profusely, I forgave him, and then I said "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to use the bathroom."

Lesson learned: if you end up pissing out of your asshole after eating something funky, email customercare@hy-vee.com.