Minne Soda

Hey Kelly.

Yeah?

What's your favorite kind of soda?

Fanta. What's yours?

Minne Soda.

And so goes the joke.

Over and over again.

It's pretty clever, really. Especially when you learn that the play on words is attributed to a four year-old.

The joke would never fly with a four year-old in Minnesota, a place where "soda" is faithfully called "pop." But I had to hand it to this East Coast kid. His Minne Soda joke was smart.

The four year-old in question is the son of my dear friend Michelle, who I've been staying with for a few days in her suburban New York home. For weeks she had been telling her son that I was coming to visit all the way from Minnesota. Unacquainted with U.S. geography, he heard something entirely different.