After reading the website, “Some Things White People Like,” it occurred to me that I just might be the whitest man in Minneapolis, which puts me in the running for the whitest man in the nation. Here is a chronicling of my unequivocal (and lame) whiteness. 

I was driving my Subaru (white people love Subaru’s because of their all wheel drive, making it the most popular car in the whitest states in the union – Vermont, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, and Oregon). I was going to Whole Foods (white people love to pay top dollar for organic food, especially if it is gluten free and crunchy). I have to do most of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods because I suffer from Crohn’s Disease, a chronic inflammation of my lower intestines (The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America recently told me that Caucasians more than people from other racial groups develop Crohn’s. Even my stomach problems can be classified as cracker-ass white shit). I brought my reusable grocery bags (white people love the notion of saving the earth. This notion is fostered by Al Gore, a man so wooden and white he makes George W. Bush seem like Samuel Jackson). I wore a Patagonia fleece jacket that was made out of recycled plastic bottles (white people love really expensive outdoor gear that they wear not to scale mountains but to wear while they run domestic chores). Under my Patagonia jacket, I wore an Uncle Tupelo concert t-shirt (white people love Uncle Tupelo, the pioneering alt country band that featured the Grain Belt Premium duo of indie white musicians Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar. Uncle Tupelo was madly popular with flannel wearing college bros because they fused together two of the whitest forms of music to date – honky tonk country and underground punk). 

As I drove in my Subaru, I listened to a Radiohead album (white people worship at the altar of Radiohead. I’m pretty sure no one really likes their later albums – Kid A and Insomniac are filled with weird synthy beeps and boops – but we act like we do because it’s cool). I was contemplating the gross whiteness of my own name: Todd Smith. Does it get any lamer than the name Todd? Todd has become the go-to name for white guys on TV or on film who engage in deviant, idiotic behavior: your standard-issue perverts, nerds, and douche bags. A recent search on IMDb.com showed 500 film and television characters named Todd, and there wasn’t a single commendable character on the list. My name is so lame and white, that my own mother tried to get me to change it. After I published my first story, my mom told me that I needed a better pen name.

“Your name’s kind of boring,” my mom said sweetly, after she saw my name in print the first time. “You should change it to… you know…something fun…like Olly McConkle.”

“But you are the one that gave me the name Todd in the first place!” I retorted.

“Oh, I know, honey. But it’s kind of boring.”

I returned home from Whole Foods and read my new Outside Magazine (which is basically a bunch of stories about crazy white people doing shit in the woods like surfing logs down hills with piranhas in their pockets). Then my son Murphy got home from school (I named my kid Murphy! I’m not quite sure what the actual Irish translation is, but I’m pretty sure Murphy means: Large White Guy.) Murphy and I played Superhero Squad on our Wii and inadvertently played as Captain America and Thor, the two whitest characters in Marvel comic history. 

Later on, I played hockey outside (white people love hockey). It was –14 (white people love exercising outside when it is either insanley hot or cold) and frost stuck to my Neil Young style chopper sideburns (white people love dicking around with facial hair). My brother said I looked like Bumbles the snow monster (I’m so white that even the monster I resemble is stupid). As my friend Fred handed out Black and White jerseys for the night’s game, he asked me, “Hey, Todd, you want black or white?”

“I’m going with Black!” I said emphatically.