I’m not just saying this because I’m dating someone in Chicago, I’m not just saying this because it’s a mind numbingly visual famine of a drive: Indiana sucks. It is as if all intellectual progress stops at the border and doesn’t continue until you pass into one of the bordering states, and keep in mind, one of those is fucking Kentucky.

My route is what I would refer to as connecting the ear-rings of the Midwest, Columbus to Chicago. On the way I was reminded very boldly on a large sign in a farm field that, ‘Jesus is Real.’ Another billboard had a big crossed out circle over the traditional image of the evolutionary progression of species. When I say there were five more evangelical atrocities on my interstate journey, they didn’t get smarter than those.

Let me bite my tongue for a moment, because I have passed by the Purdue University exit 4 times now and stopped once. I have a lot of respect for this institution as I do for Indiana University, but this was my stop: The Wendy’s freestyle machine that has worked everywhere else I’ve ever been, was almost nonfunctional, and the employees said that it was because of the internet speed, in 2022.

When you enter the state you are greeted with: Indiana, ‘The Crossroads of America.’ Except this isn’t the crossroads where you sell your soul to the devil for amazing guitar skills, it’s the crossroads where you get bombarded with bigotry end to end. As soon as you cross the border it is evident that the roads are paved with some sort of inferior asphalt that makes the road noise unbearable. Crank the volume for those Indiana boys on them shitty Indiana nights.

What more can I expect from the state that gave us Mike Pence? What more can I expect from a state where at one point 30% of the male population were members of the Ku Klux Klan? I’m half surprised I didn’t have to present my birth certificate and bible at the border, but I digress. Though I drive through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no hoosier, for you are with me; thy Diet Coke and thy Apple Music comfort me. -Psalm 23:4