Dispatches from the Midwest, Issue 8

 Wednesday, 5 March: Evening

The friend that I am staying with, Danielle, is possibly one of the few females I know who is actually more geeky than I am. She’s such a hardcore geek, she’s actually a gamer. While I am not nearly as committed as she and her friends are, I do miss having companions such as her…so when she tells me that I’ll actually be staying over during Weekly Game Night, I’m absurdly gleeful. And request a rousing round of Cards Against Humanity, of course.

When I finally get back to their place that evening, Danielle and Robbie are sitting down to dinner with one of their gamer friends. Two more soon arrive, and I spend a few minutes trying to explain why I’m spending two week of hard-earned vacation time traveling around the Midwest.

“It’s so beautiful!” I enthuse. “And fascinating! The landscape…”

“It’s boring,” says Friend #1.

“Yeah,” agrees Friend #2. “A barn…another barn…”

Of course, this gets me started on the barns. All of the barns. Particularly the broken-down ones. I’ve nurtured an enduring fascination for them since I first moved to the Midwest. Barns everywhere! Of every age and condition! I have always been in awe of how they endure, decade after decade, despite their encroaching decay. I’ve always  thought there is something noble and dignified in how they are still standing, all these years later. And anyway, why don’t the landowners and farmers tear down the old structures? Is leaving these barns standing a conscious decision? Is there a deep and possibly proud and profound reason why they leave them up?”

I’ve reached the end of my soliloquy about barns (and how often can one say a sentence like that) and I’m quite impressed with my own perceptivity. And then…I encounter a prime example of the unsentimental Midwestern practicality that I secretly adore:

“Well…” Friend #1 says. “What’s easier…tearing down a barn, or not tearing down a barn?”

I snort with laughter, because it’s so sensible and laissez-faire, but because I’m me, of course I look more into the seemingly dismissive statement. And let’s think about it: really, when you’re a farmer, tending thousands of acres of land and trying to hold your own in the Big Agribusiness Industry, do you really have a lot of spare time to be spent worrying about clearing out some old barn? Really, it’s the same as any beleaguered office, where we allow files to accumulate year after year.

And yes, I totally just compared a farmer to an office worker.

Much, much later, after we consume several bottles of wine between us, I pour myself into bed. I have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn to make tracks for Central Michigan, but I am loathe to abandon a game of Cards Against Humanity which gives gems such as this: