10/09/2026
Coming too soon!
Somewhere in Minnesota there’s always seven guys that look exactly like this, standing beside a pickup truck… except now it’s parked half on gravel, half in the muddy grass, right next to a cornfield, soybean field, dairy farm, or cattle pasture, with rolling farmland, frozen lakes in the distance, and an old weathered red barn sitting under gray skies that look like they’ve been threatening snow since sunrise.
Same uniform every time: faded Minnesota Vikings hat or a beat-up Minnesota Twins cap, polarized sunglasses even though the sun hasn’t fully appeared in three days, a Carhartt jacket or flannel layered over a hoodie, worn blue jeans, and mud-covered work boots that smell faintly like diesel, hay, and wet dirt. One hand usually buried in a pocket, the other holding black coffee from a small-town gas station, an energy drink, or a Holiday Stationstores cup that’s definitely been refilled three times already.
Ages range from 34 to 70… but somehow every single one of them has looked exactly the same since about 2011.
One runs entirely on black coffee and venison jerky. Another’s been awake since 4:45AM “just checking the cattle before the snow starts again.” The rest survive on breakfast sandwiches from the local diner, cheese curds, gas station breakfast burritos, and whatever somebody’s wife brought to the volunteer fire department fundraiser last weekend.
At least three are wearing some shade of green. One guy’s diesel truck has been idling for twenty minutes because “she runs better warm.” Another swears he knows a backroad around I-94 traffic through the Twin Cities that “saves a ton of time” (it somehow includes a stop for coffee and adds thirty extra minutes).
Within about 90 seconds they’ll all slowly nod and agree on the same things:
The weather’s completely confused this year (snowin’ too much… then 60 degrees… then somehow both)
Gas used to be under two bucks and nobody appreciated it
Twin Cities traffic keeps getting worse every year
Somebody almost hit a deer, turkey, or runaway raccoon last week on the highway
“Them folks in St. Paul don’t know what they’re doing”
People from out of state keep moving in and “driving up everything”
One of them knows the absolute best spot for walleye, wild rice soup, or biscuits & gravy in the entire state… but he ain’t saying where because “too many people already found Minnesota.”
Nobody really knows why they’re standing there. They don’t need a reason.
They’ve been having this exact same conversation since at least 2009… and if you drive by tomorrow morning, they’ll still be right there.
Seven guys. Hands in pockets. Slow nods. Coffee cups and muddy boots. Staring out toward the frozen lake and snow-covered fields like they’re solving every problem in America one quiet “yep” at a time.
Just Minnesota.