Michigan may be a really fine state to live in but I've been there, done that, and if I'd been given a t-shirt, I'd have burned it to free myself of the bad juju. It seems I escaped just in time, too, with the recent panic that their Senate and House could not agree to a budget and the Governor was getting fed up with the waiting and prepared/threatened to shut down the state government. All was resolved, at least temporarily--consult your chosen news source for details...do I look like Ira Glass? As I heard this story breaking over the radio last week, I laughed with relief that I was not able to witness the crisis first-hand. It did, however, bring to mind some of the crap I'd endured and learned while living in the state shaped like a mitten.
(I should have known better than to move there--I hate mittens...)

1) I met one of my all-time favorite authors and, whether it was because I'd built up the meeting or he was on the last day of the tour, he seemed to be kind of a jerk.

2) Michigan squirrels threw tiny, diseased apples (apparently most Michigan trees have blight. So much for "Ann Arbor") at my wife.

3) Michigan drivers pay less attention to their surroundings than runaway freight trains do--and are likely to cause more damage to you because of this.

4) Michigan pedestrians pay less attention than Michigan drivers do, so it's surprising that there aren't corpses littering the Michigan roadways...

5) ...but there are! Animals in Michigan apparently have nothing to fear from hunters, as the drivers in that state have a veritable monopoly on the roadkill business. I'd guess it's the size of the target, and the subsequent mess it would make, that saves the average Michigan pedestrian.

6) My brother was diagnosed with cancer in June.

7) My mother was diagnosed with cancer two weeks later.

Stay away from Michigan, children! It will swallow your soul!