Hi, I’m Tanner. I’m from Idaho. Solid intro Tanner, none of this is weird yet. Why does anyone introduce themselves based on where they are from anyway? Like, why is it that the most important piece of information we must know about people is where most of their baby pictures are? I might as well say “Hi, I’m Tanner, if my pog investment from the 90s works out after I die, most of them are in Idaho.”
Remember pogs? Those circles that came in big green tubes. They were just circles. Made of paper. And when I was a kid, nothing was more important to me. And we were in a war at the time. SEVERAL! It was almost as if I could walk in on my mom in tears witnessing the wreckage of the Oklahoma City Bombing and still ask for pog money. Almost like that.
That was so weird. They were just paper circles. Unless it was a slammer! How cool were slammers? If you're with me about slammers I guarantee I could guess the year you were born.
I can’t defend the nineties, I just lived through them. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about playing for slammers. I don’t know if I should tell you this, but it was against school rules to play for slammers. If you aren’t familiar, every time you played pogs you were at risk of losing some of your pogs. But if you played for slammers and lost? That meant you lost your pogs, and your slammer! Basically, playing for pogs was the gateway drug to playing for slammers. Next thing you know you’re wearing a zoot suit and trying to win a bet against Frank Sinatra that you can seduce a soldier in the Salvation Army. (beat) That was a Guys and Dolls joke. We don’t want to talk about the year you were born in if you got that joke.
But I was a pog collecting bad boy. I had this one super cool slammer. It wasn’t plastic like most are. It was metal. And in the shape of a table saw blade! I was way too Marty McFly for rules. Automatic white slip be damned.
Why are you looking at me like that? Oh, do you not know about white slips? They are the most terrifying consequence that Whittier Elementary School was willing to enforce without violating the Geneva Convention. So, if you got a white slip, get this, you couldn’t go to the year-end assembly. The fun assembly. Did your elementary school have these? Sometimes a guy with lots of puppets would come. Or an entire troupe of professional jump rope . . . ers? Ists? Professional Jumpropeians. Or someone would bring a smoker’s lung swimming in formaldehyde to scare us. Or we would watch the VHS of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat. Or our DARE officer would give us hot tips on thwarting kidnappers. Or a teacher would have something to yell at all of us about in a big awkward group of sobbing children sitting on the literal floor of the basketball court/cafeteria/assembly hall surrounded by their standing teachers doing the same disappointed dad armfold.
No, YOU’RE traumatized. Those were the actual 5 year-end assemblies I attended at Whittier Elementary. Why not 6? Because in 5th grade we played for slammers. I was a rebel with a badboy saw blade slammer. Are there even professional jumpropers? I’m confident that is what I was told they were. I’ll have to give Principal Stanger a call. Anyway, jokes on them. I read Night of the Living Dummy by the immortal R. L. Stein in the library, while they were doing the fun assembly, instead.
The slammer had a picture of New Kids on the Block on it.
It matters though. Where you’re from. From earlier? Remember? Admit it, you thought thoughts when I said Idaho. You think you know how this works better than me? I grew up there. I’m not sure what stereotypes there are about Idaho, except that I guarantee I already know every potato joke you just thought of.
Look, not everyone from Idaho is obsessed with potatoes, okay? Just because I’m from Idaho, doesn’t mean you should expect me to know that Idaho produces ⅓ of all the potatoes in the United States. Sure, we grow potatoes there. But stop assuming that we’re all proud of the fact that Idaho has the perfect combination of volcanic soil, hot days, cool nights, and an easily accessible water table due to the Idaho Batholith for potato production. There’s even an international fast-food franchise run by a terrifying clown that buys its potatoes exclusively from Idaho. You may have heard of it. Oh, now you’re going to just ASSUME because I’m from Idaho that I can explain that the Idaho Batholith is a granitic and granodioritic batholith of Cretaceous-Paleogene age that covers approximately 9,700 sq mi of central Idaho and adjacent Montana. It’s not like we have an entire museum dedicated to potatoes or anything. I mean, we do have one. In Blackfoot Idaho. Since 1912 . . . but it’s not like we have one, you know? The point is, Idaho isn’t JUST about potatoes. We also have an entire blue football field. It helps us cheat.
Sure, sure, laugh away at the simple Idahoan. You know what? Yeah! We are simple. It is a lot simpler to be an Idahoan. Or even just from the West! Our boarders there are LIIIIIINES. There you don’t need to be able to derive an integral just to draw your own state. Sure, Idaho gets a bit flirty up there with Montana, but have you SEEN West Virginia? I mean, I know West Virginians say it looks like a frog, but when I moved there all I could think about is how it looks like Patrick Starfish falling over while he has a sock puppet on his hand. Go home and google the shape of West Virginia. You’ll never be able to unsee it.
Also, you live in this entire different dimension here. I’m not joking. You do. I see skeptical faces in the audience, let me prove it. What time is it right now? (wait for answer) Crazy Easterners. It’s actually (2 hours before the time the audience gives). Look, I know you’ve all decided here that it’s (actual time) but you’re deluded! Go to Idaho and check, I promise it’s (2 hours before now). I still see skeptical faces. You’re just like my boss. “Stop showing up for work at 10am Tanner, we’re missing business in the morning.” That’s YOU. That’s how YOU are. That’s what YOU sound like.
What do you think the West Virginia equivalent of potatoes is? Like, what’s West Virginia known for?
(Crowd work)
From a non-local perspective, I’ll fill you in. West Virginia is known for - Nothing. It’s one of those states that always get left blank when you’re taking the “name the states” test in fourth grade. Right before you play for slammers at recess. Okay, okay, that’s only MOSTLY true. Some people know about West Virginia. Some people are EXPERTS in West Virginia. They even have a name; did you know that? They are called crypto zoologists. Well, either that or West Virginians.
Okay, this is where I confess that I love West Virginia. Go Mountaineers! By the way, we Idahoans think it’s adorable that you call these mountains. Sorry, no, I mean it! I am a proud West Virginian. Because of The Mothman. I want to believe. It is the coolest story, and the absolute best cryptid. This story has everything. TNT areas, aliens, Indrid Cold, men in black, future-telling, high speed chases, drunk witnesses, unconscionably bad and dangerous state infrastructure . . . Pink eye . . . And the best name for any cryptid in the history of humankind. The Mothman. Honestly, I’d be a big fan of that spooky psychic just from the name alone. What are these other states doing, bragging about their local cryptids? “Yeah, it gots big feet so we calls it Bigfoot.” Either that or it’s just <insert place name> monster. That’s our cryptid in Idaho. The Bear Lake Monster. But seriously, don’t mess with that monster, it’s nothing to take lightly. It will straight up murder you. Slowly and painfully. Because the monster of Bear Lake . . . is pollution. Just kidding, Idaho doesn’t have enough people in it to cause pollution.
I’m Tanner, and I’m from Idaho. Thank you!
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