Not In Kansas Anymore

“Wow!” I breathed, impressed, when my cousin Philomena unveiled to me her remodeled kitchen, her mother’s brown-shrouded shrine to the 1970s newly transformed into an airy beacon to North London chic. “I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore, are we?”

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

Philomena looked at me in a way that an alert observer might have recognized as ever so slightly strange.

“Well, no, we’re not in Kansas,” she confirmed with what that same observer might have detected as just the smallest edge of crisp to her tone. “We’re in Muswell Hill. Why would you think we were in Kansas?”

“I didn’t think we were in Kansas,” I said. I’d forgotten that British people are not in the habit of reproducing Dorothy’s initial cry of wonder when she finds herself transported from drab black-and-white mid-Western America to the giant gleaming flowers of the gloriously technicolored Kingdom of Oz. “In fact, I quite specifically said that we weren’t in Kansas, if you recall.”

“But why would you think we had been?” said Philomena. “You haven’t been anywhere near it. You flew from LA to Heathrow and then you took an Uber to your friends’ house in Hackney and then you came to see me. I don’t see where Kansas comes into it at all.”

“It doesn’t come into it,” I said. “That’s the whole point. Saying you’re not in Kansas anymore isn’t talking about Kansas, it’s just a saying.”

“Well, it’s an odd sort of saying,” said Philomena. “Why would you have thought you were in Kansas in the first place? Why not Winnipeg? Or New South Wales? Or West Glamorgan, if it comes to it? There are an awful lot of places you can be not in any more if you care to look for them.”

I’d also forgotten that British people did not on the whole grow up being regularly carried across the entertainment screen’s iconic rainbow to Oz’s magical land of munchkins, cowardly lions, and a much-lauded but ultimately fake wizard.

“Kansas is where Dorothy came from,” I explained. “Before the tornado took her away.”

Philomena’s eyes narrowed.

“Have you been hanging around with my brother Michael?” she said. “You know that stuff’s not legal in Britain, don’t you?”

“No, I haven’t seen Michael,” I said. “Not since the business last time with the fish. I’m talking about Dorothy. Dorothy Gale, you know. From Kansas.”

One thing about Philomena is that you never have to try very hard to guess what she’s thinking.

“I don’t know anyone called Dorothy anything,” she said. “And I don’t know anyone who comes from Kansas either. I don’t think there even are any people in Kansas. I don’t think there’s anything at all there, in fact.”

“There’s Kansas City,” I said. “They got some crazy little women there, or so I’m told.”

Philomena has just completed an Open University degree in Geography and Environmental Science.

“Most of Kansas City’s in Missouri,” she said.

I, on the other hand, have not.

“Is it?” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “It is. Have you ever even been to Kansas, by the way?”

Now, there was where I had her.

“As a matter of fact, I have,” I said. “Last year I visited a friend in Oklahoma, she took me to see the Ozarks, and on the way back I particularly requested that we make a detour over the state line to Kansas, just so that when we crossed back into Oklahoma I could say, ‘I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’”

Philomena frowned softly.

“And your friend thought this was a normal sort of thing to ask?” she inquired.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Apparently it’s a popular tourist attraction for people who come from Los Angeles.”

“For people who come from Los Angeles,” agreed Philomena. Then, as if despite herself, “But why would people who come from Los Angeles want to say that?”

“Um,” I said. “Because it makes us laugh.”

“But why would it make you laugh?” said Philomena. “Presumably, when your friend drove you back across the state line …”

She stopped in alarm.

“She was the one who was driving, wasn’t she?” she added.

Driving has never been my strong suit.

“Yes,” I reassured her. “She was.”

“Good,” said Philomena. “So when she drove you back across the state line and you both saw the sign that said ‘Welcome to Oklahoma,’ you’d have both already realized that you weren’t in Kansas anymore, wouldn’t you? I don’t see what’s funny about that at all.”

I decided to start from the beginning.

“Have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz?” I said.

“Once,” said Philomena. “When I was small. It had flying monkeys, and it gave me nightmares for weeks.”

I sighed and sat down on one of her spiffy ashen kitchen table chairs at her gleaming ashen kitchen table.

“Well, somewhere in The Wizard of Oz,” I said, “someone one says, ‘I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.’ And that line became popular and it’s still something Americans say to each other to this very day when what they really mean to say is, Golly gee willikers, dear cousin, what an amazing new kitchen you have, and wouldn’t your lovely Mum be just jumping for joy if she could only see you in it now?”

Philomena looked around at her new kitchen and smiled.

“It is nice, isn’t it?” she said. “Do you want a glass of wine?”

Here was terrain which was familiar to both of us.

“Yes please,” I said.

Philomena opened the door of her state of the art new refrigerator, extracted from it a bottle of crisply chilled Muscadet, and poured us each a glass, which we sipped companionably.

“Do you want to go to a movie tonight?” I said. “I see Wicked 2 is playing.”

“Certainly not,” said Philomena. “I hear it has flying monkeys.”