Welcome to Utah, Please Remove Your Shoes and Accept This Jello

A heartfelt love letter to the Beehive State, where fry sauce is currency, and nobody knows where Bountiful is

🧂Where are you from?

“Utah.”

“Oh, like Salt Lake?”

“Kind of. Bountiful.”

“What’s a Bountiful?”

“Fine. I’m from Salt Lake. I live inside the Salt Lake Temple. I eat fry sauce every day. I also subsist on funeral potatoes and spite. I wash it all down with a dirty Diet Coke because we’ve found a Word of Wisdom loophole and by golly we’re going to carbonate the hell out of it.”

Yes. I’m from Utah.

You’ve probably heard of it. We’re the state trying to look square-shaped but someone neatly bit off the top corner. We have five national parks, fourteen seasons per year (two of which involve locusts), and 97% of our land is either owned by the government or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And they’re in a complicated custody battle over the Great Sale Lake, which has filed for emancipation due to prolonged neglect.

🎂Aging in Zion

I just had a birthday. The big four-five. (I still have a long way to go before six-seven.)

At this point, birthdays are less “celebration” and more “annual wellness check with sarcasm.” My back hurt before I woke up. Not from doing anything. Just from being alive in Utah, a state where the air is toxic lake dust, inversion, and mud from the trails. I now ice injuries from sleeping wrong.

Which brings me to another back pain enticer:

⚽Soccer season and the quest for North Ogden

After weeks of near misses, shin bruises, and sunscreen sprayed directly in my car, these legends finally pulled off a win, then high-fived very parent along the sideline like it was the World Cup.

My kids’ soccer season is wrapping up, which means I’ve spent approximately 13,000 minutes navigating to obscure fields that Google Maps insists are “somewhere near this fence behind a pumpkin patch and 300 cows.”

I assistant coach my son’s team, and they refuse to be known by their club name. They’re the Guapos now. Which is Spanish for The Handsome Ones. (And not just a name from The Three Amigos for those without a basic understanding of Spanish and how to cuss on the soccer field.) Every game they start with hollering, “GUAPOS ON THREE, ONE, TWO, THREE GUAPOS.” Such rousing shouts from thirteen-year-old boys throw the opposing team into chaos and self-doubt. It’s a flawless strategy. We’ve won exactly one game this fall season, which is statistically a 100% increase over zero.

I am here to share all the successful strategies.

🐸 No kings, just frogs

Last weekend, Utah successfully hosted No Kings protests. One was at the State Capitol, where nothing says “peaceful resistance” like a dance party full of inflatable amphibians and unreal creatures (unicorns, dinosaurs, and axolotls) conga-lining past thousands in attendance.

I donned my frog suit (resistance edition) and croaked for democracy. Republicans were DEEPLY CONCERNED, saying things like,

“If we had a king, you couldn’t protest!”
Which is true. And also the exact reason we’re protesting.
But don’t worry, they returned to Facebook shortly after to share memes about how their retirement was stolen by a cabal of vaccinated teachers and solar panels.

💪 Utah gains

After the protest, I went to lift weights, because Utah has approximately one gym per human. Sometimes, they double as chapels. You’ll see a sign that says, “Cardio with Christ — 7:30 a.m.”

It’s great. Unless you try to deadlift on a Sunday, and someone calls the Stake President.

🌍 The Bountiful mystery

Back to being from Bountiful. No one knows where it is unless they live here. It’s like Brigadoon, if Brigadoon had drive-thrus for soda and teenagers riding electric scooters in snowstorms wearing Crocs. When I tell people I’m from Bountiful, they nod blankly. Then I add:

“Near Centerville.”

Nothing.

“Woods Cross?”

Crickets.

“Fine. Salt Lake.”

Then they say, “Oh yeah, I know someone who went to Moab once.”

💻 Ethical technologist corner (but still trying to be funny)

As an Ethical Technologist™, I must remind you that democracy is fragile, misinformation is rampant, and our collective mental health is being held together by memes and salted caramel pretzels from Trader Joe’s.

Also, I may have started this week by publishing a VPN tutorial about kicking idle clients offline. It’s the cyber equivalent of a school pickup sign that says, Turn off your engine, Utah mom in the big SUV. You’re polluting the lungs of tomorrow.

So if you’re out there, lost somewhere between Kamas and Kanab, wondering if you’re from Utah — ask yourself this:

• Do you own more than three hoodies?

• Have you ever eaten a salad with whipped cream?

• Do you live 20 minutes from a protest, a glacier, and a Crumbl cookie shop?

If so, congratulations. You are one of us. Welcome. Please remove your shoes and accept this casserole.

Give me ribberty or give me death. Croak.