The other night, Bryce Glass publicly made me aware of two major mistakes I made, each dutifully documented on his site.

First, I misspelled the name of Ohio’s great citadel, Cincinnati, with the word “cincinatti.”

Second (and most importantly), I mis-tagged Bryce with such a label when (in actuality) he lives in Columbus.

Now, I won’t lie. I haven’t been to Ohio before, and I profess no desire to visit. This is not due to some dislike for its residents, its industry, its heritage, or its sizable electoral voting weight. Rather, it goes back to one of my many dollar bets.

(Ed. note: A “dollar bet” is a wager placed between Micah Laaker and some third party for the value of one dollar. The loser of said bet must write his/her name, as well as the subject of the wager, on the bill.)

In 2000, I placed a friendly wager with another of Ohio’s sons, my good friend and associate Colin Lange. Mr. Lange had insidiously suggested to others in our office that Ohio was part of the Midwest. Such heresies were considered impolite in proper company in that day, and I took Lange to task. “Ohio is not part of the Midwest. Never was, never will be,” I defiantly roared. “As far as I’m concerned, Ohio is part of the Northeast.” He quickly met my retort with a dollar-bet challenge, and the result was a despondent trip to the annals of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sadly, the Census Bureau disagreed with my assessment. I did take comfort, however, finding that it was non-canonical Midwest, being labeled as “East North Central.” (Note how none of those words contained “Mid” or “West,” while two of the three matched “North” and “east.”)

The bet was lost, the dollar transcribed, and a new disdain for Ohio was born. (Ed. note: Such disdain, however, did not rank high enough to warrant Ohio’s placement on the dreaded Laaker.com Enemies List.)

Which brings us back to present times, where Cincinnati and Columbus clash about in tale of alliteration, betrayal, misspellings, and a laissez-faire approach to studying American geography (and friend’s details).

So, to Mr. Glass, I publicly apologize. If a fellow Midwesterner had confused Nebraska with Iowa, or Omaha with Lincoln (or, worse, Council Bluffs!), I, too, would have done something other than smile. I feel your pain, and your tags have been corrected. Let’s squash this beef like titans.