SATURDAY MORNING WITH CRANKY DON JOE | Nobody in Minnesota Knows How to Leave

By Cranky Don Joe

My name is Cranky Don Joe. Cranky DJ to a lot of my neighbors.

I am not an expert. Which immediately makes me more qualified than half the people explaining Minnesota culture on the internet.

I have lived around Minnesotans long enough to know that we are perfectly capable of leaving a building. We understand doors, we recognize driveways, and most of us can operate automobiles. We know what coats are for, where shoes go, and generally which house belongs to us. There is therefore no mechanical, geographical, medical, or constitutional reason why a person who announces at 7:30 p.m. that he is going home should still be standing in your driveway at 8:22.

And yet he is.

Friends, nobody in Minnesota knows how to leave. We don't leave; we begin the leaving process. Those are entirely different things.

I was reminded of this last weekend after spending an otherwise pleasant evening at a neighbor's house. There was food, conversation, coffee, and enough dessert to keep a cardiologist professionally occupied through Christmas. Everything was going beautifully until approximately 7:41 p.m., when Larry slapped both hands against his knees and said, "Welp, we should probably get going."

Now, I have heard this expression hundreds of times, but I made the rookie mistake of believing the individual words carried their ordinary English meanings.

"Welp." Fine. "We." That's Larry and his wife. "Should probably." A little indecisive, but acceptable. "Get going." There it is: movement, departure, transportation, home.

I stood up. Nobody else moved. Larry remained seated. His wife took another sip of coffee. The host started telling a story about somebody named Dennis who had apparently purchased a pontoon boat near Brainerd.

I looked around the room. Had I misunderstood something? Larry had just announced a departure with the physical authority of a man closing a board meeting. He slapped his knees. Everybody knows the knee slap is serious Midwestern punctuation. You cannot slap both knees, say "Welp," and then remain seated for another twenty minutes. That's fraudulent signaling.

But that's exactly what happened. The conversation about Dennis led to a discussion about lake levels. Lake levels somehow led to road construction. Road construction led Larry to explain three alternate routes around a project in Maple Grove, even though nobody in the room was going to Maple Grove. That led somebody else to remember a Culver's near an exit ramp, and then we had to discuss whether that Culver's was still there.

Friends, eighteen minutes after announcing his departure, Larry was farther from leaving than when he started.

Eventually, his wife stood up. Progress. I stood up again. Then everybody stood up, which I foolishly interpreted as the beginning of actual physical departure.

Instead, we entered Phase Two: The Kitchen Goodbye.

Apparently, you cannot leave a Minnesota home without first transferring food between households.

"Take some bars." "No, no, we're fine." "Take them." "We've got plenty at home." "They'll just sit here." "Well, maybe a couple."

Suddenly, containers appeared. Where do these containers come from? Nobody knows. Minnesota kitchens apparently maintain emergency fleets of mismatched plastic containers specifically for people who have already said goodbye.

Then came the leftover negotiations.

"You want some potato salad?" "Oh, gosh, no." "Are you sure?" "We couldn't." "There's plenty." "Well, maybe just a little."

Now somebody is spooning potato salad into an old Cool Whip container while Larry stands beside the refrigerator explaining that he really shouldn't eat potato salad because he's "watching his carbs." Larry ate three pieces of pie forty minutes earlier. Apparently, carbohydrates become dangerous only after goodbye has officially begun.

Eventually, the leftovers were packed. Surely we were leaving. No.

Phase Three: The Entryway.

This is where everybody puts on coats while beginning entirely new subjects that were somehow unavailable during the previous three hours of uninterrupted conversation. Somebody asked about Larry's sister. That was catastrophic. Larry has never answered a question about a family member in fewer than eleven minutes.

"She's doing pretty good, actually."

Friends, whenever a Minnesotan says "actually" during a goodbye, sit back down. We received the complete sister report: work, children, one troublesome knee, a new furnace, her neighbor's retaining wall, and something involving a dog that had recently eaten part of a decorative pillow.

I had my coat on. My shoes were tied. My keys were in my hand. I was physically prepared to cross an international border, but we were not leaving.

Finally, the front door opened. Cold air entered, freedom was visible, and I stepped outside. Then something horrifying happened: the hosts followed us.

Friends, why are you coming outside? You live there. We already completed the goodbye. We thanked you for dinner, we complimented the dessert, we discussed Dennis and his pontoon boat, and we accepted potato salad we repeatedly said we didn't want. Your contractual obligations have been fulfilled. Stay with the house.

But no. Everybody came outside because we had now entered Phase Four: The Driveway Goodbye.

The Minnesota driveway goodbye is where time itself stops obeying ordinary physical laws. Scientists should study it. A conversation that would take four minutes indoors expands to twenty-seven minutes once everybody is standing beside a parked vehicle. Nobody knows why. Maybe it's the fresh air, maybe it's the proximity to escape, or maybe Minnesotans become emotionally honest only when somebody has one hand on a car door.

Whatever the reason, that's when the important information comes out: "Oh, before you go..."

No. Absolutely not. There should be a state law against beginning any sentence with "before you go" after the first goodbye has already occurred. If you forgot to tell me something during the previous four hours, mail it.

But Larry stopped beside the car because somebody remembered a mutual friend who had recently moved to Arizona. Arizona led to weather, weather led to snowblowers, and snowblowers led to Larry explaining why two-stage machines are superior to single-stage machines.

I checked my watch. We had now been leaving for forty-six minutes. At this point, you could have put me on a flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and I would have been halfway to Chicago. Larry was still discussing auger width.

Finally, his wife opened the passenger door and got inside. I nearly applauded. Larry walked around to the driver's side, opened his door, and placed one leg inside the vehicle. Friends, we were seconds away. Then the host leaned down toward the open driver's window, and an entirely new conversation began.

I looked toward the heavens: "Lord, I have tried."

The strange thing is that Minnesotans don't seem to recognize any of this as unusual. If anything, leaving quickly makes people deeply suspicious.

Suppose dinner ends and you simply stand up and say, "Thank you. We had a wonderful evening. Good night." Then you put on your coat and leave. Three minutes: efficient, courteous, completely civilized.

The moment the door closes, everybody inside will stare at one another: "Is Don upset?" "No." "He left awfully fast." "He said he had a nice time." "Yeah, but he left."

Apparently, actual prompt departure is considered primary evidence of severe emotional distress. You must linger long enough to demonstrate genuine affection.

This may explain another Minnesota behavior that has been receiving plenty of attention over the years: the famous "Ope, just gonna scooch right past ya" maneuver.

I witnessed a textbook example at the grocery store this week. A woman was standing directly in front of the canned tomatoes I needed. There was plenty of space, but she had positioned her cart diagonally in such a way that she controlled approximately seventy percent of available grocery-store infrastructure.

Now, there are several reasonable ways to handle this. You could say, "Excuse me." That's two words: simple. Instead, Minnesota has developed an entire verbal and physical ceremony: "Ope, sorry, just gonna scooch right past ya there."

Scooch. Friends, that word alone tells you everything you need to know about this region. We don't pass people; we scooch. Passing suggests confidence, whereas scooching means I intend to occupy your personal space while simultaneously apologizing for having a physical body.

So I attempted the maneuver: "Ope, just gonna scooch past ya."

She moved left, I moved left, and we stopped. She moved right, I moved right, and we stopped again. Friends, we were dancing—not well, but undeniably dancing. Left, right, left again. At one point I nearly took her hand because it seemed rude not to complete the waltz.

Finally, she laughed and said, "Sorry!" I said, "No, you're fine!"

She wasn't fine; her cart was sideways and I had been trying to reach those tomatoes since the Clinton administration. But I said she was fine because that's what you say. Minnesota Nice does not require that everything actually be fine; it requires both parties to maintain the diplomatic fiction that nobody has ever inconvenienced anybody in recorded history.

Then she moved her cart, I reached for the tomatoes, and another gentleman appeared behind me: "Ope, sorry, just gonna sneak right behind ya."

Now I'm the problem. I jumped forward: "Sorry!" "No, you're good!"

I wasn't good. I had nearly climbed into the canned vegetable display trying to get out of his way. But there we stood: three adults apologizing to one another because we had all committed the unforgivable social offense of existing simultaneously in Aisle Seven.

Larry says this is what makes Minnesota special. Naturally. Larry considers himself an authority on Minnesota etiquette because he has lived here for thirty-two years and once attended a live comedy show in Minneapolis.

"It's politeness," he explained over coffee. "Larry, I understand politeness." "No, you don't." "Excuse me?" "See? Right there." "What?" "You said 'excuse me.'" "Because you insulted me." "Exactly."

Friends, debating Larry is like trying to nail warm pudding to a wall. He explained that "ope" isn't really a word, but an instinct. Apparently, Minnesotans don't consciously decide to say "ope"; the body produces it automatically during minor collisions, unexpected proximity, dropped objects, grocery-store encounters, and situations involving doors. According to Larry, if two Minnesotans bump shopping carts, both will say "ope" before either cart has stopped moving.

I told him that sounded medically concerning, but he disagreed. Then, naturally, he demonstrated by deliberately bumping my elbow with his mug.

"Ope," he said. I stared at him. "Did you just physically assault me for educational purposes?" "See? It works."

I nearly demonstrated another regional tradition involving a man being chased out of a coffee shop, but I have to admit that beneath all this ridiculous choreography, there is something interesting happening.

The "ope" and the forty-five-minute goodbye appear completely unrelated. One happens because somebody wants to get past you, while the other happens because somebody supposedly wants to get away from you. But both are built around the same peculiar instinct: Minnesotans seem deeply reluctant to make another person feel pushed.

We don't say, "Move." We say, "Ope, I'm just gonna sneak past ya." We don't say, "I'm leaving." We say, "Welp, we should probably think about maybe getting going here pretty soon."

Even our departures come with heavy emotional shock absorbers. Maybe that's why the Minnesota Goodbye takes so long: it isn't really about leaving, it's about making sure nobody interprets the leaving as rejection.

You stand in the kitchen because somebody wants you to take leftovers. You stand in the entryway because somebody remembers one more thing. You stand in the driveway because the conversation is still good. You stand beside the running car because nobody quite wants to be the person who finally says, "All right, enough. Go home."

For all my complaining, there's something almost beautiful about that. We live in a time when people disappear from conversations by tapping a screen. Messages go unanswered, calls get ignored, and meetings end because another meeting is waiting. Everybody is busy, scheduled, optimized, and supposedly more connected than any generation in human history. Yet somewhere in Minnesota tonight, somebody will stand in a driveway for twenty minutes in forty-degree weather because neither person is quite ready to end a conversation.

That's inefficient, it's ridiculous, and it's terrible time management. Maybe we could use a little more of it. Not forty-five minutes more—let's remain reasonable. I think twelve minutes is plenty, fifteen if there are leftovers, and twenty if somebody has driven in from out of town. Anything beyond thirty minutes should require a municipal permit.

As for Larry, he came over yesterday afternoon to return a screwdriver he borrowed in May. At 4:12 p.m., he slapped both knees and said, "Welp, I suppose I should let you get back to your day." At 4:31, we were standing by my front door discussing lawn fertilizer. At 4:46, we had moved to the porch, where Larry remembered something about his cousin's new pickup truck. At 5:02, we reached his car, and at 5:11, he was sitting behind the wheel with the engine running while explaining why I should switch internet providers.

At 5:19, he finally backed out of my driveway—one hour and seven minutes after announcing that he was leaving.

Friends, Larry lives directly across the street. He could have walked home faster backward.

Until next time, Cranky DJ

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