North Dakota

She’s a lot like North Dakota. Everybody knows that North Dakota is a state, but they never think that they’ll actually end up there.

It should surprise no one then if North Dakota is the number one producer of honey in the nation. The state flower, the wild prairie rose, contributing significantly to the cause. She has both a little honey and little wild prairie rose in her DNA.

It should also come as no surprise that North Dakota holds the record for most snow angels made simultaneously in one place. On the other hand, a little shock is understandable upon hearing that it is illegal to wear shoes while napping in the ‘Peace Garden State.’ Although it does make some sense, it’s hard to be peaceful when wearing shoes. Ask any yogi.

It has the both the largest number of wildlife refuges and the world’s largest buffalo statue. If you find the last fact odd, then you’ll understand why I felt compelled to include it in my comparison. In a world littered with Venus de Milos, Christ the Redeemers and Buddha of Bamyans, she is 26 feet, 60 tons of concrete buffalo.

And then some.

She’s the type of girl that when men watch her enjoying a milkshake they envy the straw. Palpably. They are forced to wrestle with the realization that nobody will ever want them as much as they want her in that moment.

Obviously the same cannot be said, as beautiful as it might be, about North Dakota.

(Given that milk is the state’s official beverage and her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, I feel like I’m missing a metaphor that’s right in front of me. I just can’t come up with it. Is it the shake part that throws me? No idea. I have failed both her and the great state of North Dakota.)