Ready or not, here they come, Kansas City. The World Cup will be on our doorstep in just a few hours and Kansas City, Riverside, Lawrence… places, please.
And just like that, the town has undergone one of those civic makeovers usually reserved for a movie montage. Yesterday, every major artery was lined with enough orange construction barrels to make it look as if a family of traffic cones had migrated here for the summer. Today? Poof. In their place, a parade of flags snapping in the wind, draped from light poles, fluttering outside hotels, smiling from storefronts like the whole metro got dressed by a very enthusiastic geography teacher.
You can practically hear the city bracing for impact like a jumbo jet headed into the side of a mountain.
For months we have navigated detours, lane shifts, mysterious patches of gravel, and handwritten signs suggesting “local traffic only,” as if any of us had ever felt especially cosmopolitan while waiting three light cycles to turn left. (I’m looking at you 169 and Englewood) But now the jackhammers and cranes have taken a respectful step backward and the bunting has marched in. It’s as if Kansas City shoved everything messy into a closet, sprayed some air freshener, and opened the front door saying, “Oh, this old place? We just threw something together.”
Roads in KC leading east have become a migratory stream of Ubers, Lyfts, shuttle vans, black SUVs, and confused rental cars all heading toward Arrowhead with the purposeful chaos $100 parking. Every third vehicle appears to contain someone in a jersey, someone holding a phone out the window filming the skyline, and someone asking whether barbecue counts as a pregame meal. (In KC, BBQ is breakfast, lunch AND dinner.)
The city says it is prepared in the same way a 16-year-old’s parents are away for the weekend and they’re just “going to invite over a few friends.” Then the Netherlands fans are passed out on our front lawn and Argentina’s fans are throwing up in our bathroom. Methinks we’re in for one helluva party.
It won’t be easy to sweep everything ugly under the rug, however. Just this weekend, a shooting near Swope Park injured nine people forcing Team England to increase security. (England was out of town at the time.) But science has told us that turds can, in fact, be polished. We just hope they got that Missouri River smell out.
There is still something admirable about the effort. Kansas City has polished its belt buckle, reheated its hospitality, and put extra air in the civic tires. Thousands of volunteers are posted. Signs are translated. Hotels are braced. Restaurants are smiling with the determined optimism of people who know they are about to explain burnt ends 7,000 times in six weeks. Bartenders are stretching like athletes before a marathon. The streetcar is humming. Parking attendants have the thousand-yard stare of soldiers who have seen things.
We just hope the world actually shows up and says something a little bit nice about us.
We’re built for this in our own odd little way. We know how to throw open the gates. We know how to stuff people full of burnt ends until they need a nap. We can throw a party whether it’s a Kenny Chesney concert or an AFC Championship game. If strangers arrive a little bewildered, they will leave with sauce on their shirts and strong opinions about which side of the state line did it better.
Will there be hiccups? Of course. There will be glitches, wrong exits, sunburned tourists who have never heard of sunscreen, and at least one person who accidentally ends up in Blue Springs looking for the stadium. Someone will ask why everything is 20 minutes away and someone else will explain, with great Midwestern patience, that 20 minutes is basically next door.
This is us, world. This is Kansas City. For better or for worse. Welcome.
(Get more from Chris Kamler at chriskamler.com)
