You’re right. We are inept. We call soda “pop” and indoor parking garages “ramps”. We love meatloaf and casseroles and our children operate lemonade stands, for shame. Who let us near the ballot box? What do a coupl’a million gun toters know ‘bout politics? And what in the Sam Hill is a Tea Partier?

Congratulations. You’ve managed to immerse yourself for 20 long years in a land brimming with students from all walks of life, in a state increasingly urban (over 60% urban), to paint us all with one of three brushes: 1) the “skuzzy and uneducated, Bible-thumping hick with malice for turkeys and a meth addiction to boot” brush; 2) the “sports-car driving Chinese student” brush; and 3) the “slaughterhouse-dwelling illegal immigrant” brush. My whiteness dictates I must belong to the first group. Thank ya Jesus!

In the interest of wasting as little of my time as possible on something you will no doubt ever read, I will keep my statements brief: Iowa City was barren that day you arrived during U of I’s Spring Break not because of a nuclear bomb, but because the U of I students were away for Spring Break (duh?). Nobody knows what Red Waldorf cake is. My dad is over 50 and he does leave home without a penknife. Lollipops and suckers are two completely different things. “Bud” is not a proper noun I have heard people in this lifetime use to describe young boys. My grandparents answer the phone the same way you do. Some of the most breathtaking towns in this country sit along the banks of the Mississippi in Iowa. People do not take tuna casserole and cottage cheese flavored Jell-O to wedding receptions. What is the matter with you? Lastly, Iowa’s suicide rate ranks 27th in the country. The way you altered your statistics to portray Iowa as a prime place to kill one’s self was clever (and a little pathetic) and for a second I thought you were pretending to be a politician! Then I remembered that I am an Iowan, and therefore I’m ill-equipped when it comes to such posturing.

I am, however, equipped to tell you that your writing itself is an example of everything my own journalism professors at the University of Iowa taught me never to do. Aside from the lapses in proofreading, you use sweeping generalizations and your entire “argument” is based on a fallacy. You touch on the fact that mental illness is stigmatized in Iowa, then go on to call the state schizophrenic and depressed? Huh? And didn’t your own journalism professors teach to you to avoid cliches like the plague? ;) To be blunt, Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life smells like pig shit. And I would know. Pig shit is a smell “absolutely venerated” in Iowa. Because LOVING the smell of pig shit makes a whole damn lot of sense! About as much as anything else in your article.

In all fairness, you did get some things right. For one thing, Iowa is in the middle of the country. Yay! And yes, students in Iowa do stand up for themselves when holier-than-thou professors tell them it’s un-American to wish people Merry Christmas. Additionally, I love meatloaf!, and Yellow Labs are absolutely known to be a hunter’s best friend. Despite all of your rambling, you still haven’t explained how these truths make me, an Iowan, any less capable of choosing a presidential nominee than someone from Georgia who eats grits or someone from New Jersey who calls it “soda” or someone from California who loves a Pomeranian.

I want to tell you to quit your whining, to go home already, but you don’t have a home. That’s sad. You’ve had 20 years to absorb what Iowa can offer, and what do you have to show for it? A poorly edited article in The Atlantic, and a bunch of ornery meth addicts who want you to GTFO.

Eek! Them are fightin’ words.