Keeping from publishing the whole damn thing.
Iowa anchors the Upper American “Heartland,” the rural interior that produces much of the world’s corn, pigs, cattle, and soybeans. The corn grows so fast in Iowa — from seedlings to 7-foot-high stalks in 12 weeks — that it crackles nonstop throughout the summer months. The sound is like popcorn popping slow-motion in a microwave in your mind. That pop-pop-popping can be heard especially in the early morning hours, and especially if you’ve been out drinking and/or taking drugs. You look up from your vomit and see dew and fog cover the acres of gently swaying cornstalks that surround farming villages the way the sea encircles an island. And then the corn looks at you, in that corny way it does, and you’re like “Don’t you DARE judge me! I have a PhD!” And then, in a way that few urban minds can fathom, it flaunts and flirts and teases you with its leathery husks and silky tassels bending in unison to the shimmying breeze, begging for you to give it some hot corn sex, but then you pass out again.
Oh. My. I laughed.
I lived in Iowa City for two years while my wife was in grad school, and I just about peed myself laughing so hard at this. So much of it is true… especially the part about the self-absorbed jackass professors (my words, not his — he’d have been funnier).