Last week I complained to y'all on the Stranger Facebook page that Skylar keeps referring to Salt Lake City and Denver as "the Midwest."

AND I DON'T EVEN SAY Y'ALL.

Skylar is from Portland and his general lack of knowledge of any city that isn't somewhat near an ocean is disconcerting.

I need this to stop. I don't have a problem with the Midwest. But I do have a problem with misinformation.

I have explained to Skylar on several occasions that this area is, at most, called the "Mountain West," but he usually dismisses this with a wave of the hand and a condescending up-turned head shake.

It is very obnoxious to argue with Skylar because of this exact type of argument strategy. How can I argue with a condescending head shake? I invented the condescending head shake. I invented it because you can't argue with it.

But this isn't the worst thing he does. The worst thing he does is take a point I made, act like I made that point to some extreme, poke a hole in that extreme, and then congratulate himself for winning the argument.

For example, this is a real argument we had yesterday:

Eli: You Millenials and your participation trophies . . .

Skylar: I love that you think participation trophies have caused every problem in the world.

Eli: Wait, what--

Skylar: Did participation trophies cause climate change? Or the financial crisis of 2008? Or the conflict in the Middle East? What about cancer? Do you seriously think participation trophies are the cause of cancer?!

Eli: I never said--

Skylar: Ha! So you agree that participation trophies are not the cause of all problems!

Eli: Of course I agree--

Skylar: SKYLAR FOR THE WIN!

Do you see what I'm dealing with? This is a horrible person and he must be stopped. So that's why I secretly and passive-aggressively took to Facebook so you all could validate me on the whole Midwest thing.

My plan was to wait until your answers reached a critical mass and then send the link to Skylar so he could be told he was wrong by people who aren't just me.

You were helpful. You were appropriately condescending. You publicly shamed Skylar. You made assumptions about his mother that were unfair but effective. Then some of you even posted maps to prove that Salt Lake City is not part of the Midwest.

Sandy posted this one:


Mike posted this one:


Megan posted this one:



This was enough for me. So I proudly sent Skylar the link and waited. And waited. And waited. And he didn't respond. And I thought that maybe he was so overwhelmed with his defeat that he just couldn't bring himself to say words.

Later that day he was at my house and I congratulated myself for the victory. Skylar said he didn't know what I was talking about. I directed him to the link that he hadn't yet seen.

He opened a laptop and started reading. After a while I heard angry typing and clicking. I walked into the room and saw him aggressively working, making facial expressions as he clanked away on the device, facial expressions that made him look like a sassy middle-aged mother who just found out Fortify got cut from marching band.

And then a notification came to my phone. It was Skylar's reply:

In case you can't read it:
Blue=Coastal Elite
Red=Midwest
Pink=Who Even Knows


Eli: Did you seriously just take time out of your life to create this map?
Skylar: THE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW.
Eli: I give you points for creativity, but then take them away for pretentiousness.
~It Just Gets Stranger