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Peak Iowa: Easy kum, easy go
by Malcolm MacDougallJan 3, 2025- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
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“Do you really have gas stations called Kum & Go?!” –A half-whispered quote from multiple out-of-state visitors of mine
Sadly, the window of opportunity to scandalize the uninitiated is quickly closing. In April 2023, Kyle Krause, the Des Moines-based owner of Jizz & Jet, announced that he would be selling the company to Utah-based Maverik, whose CEO, Chuck Maggelet, announced at that time that the branding would not change. Since then, they’ve reassessed.
“If you’re growing cross-regionally, which brand do you think will have more appeal to a new audience: Maverik or Kum & Go?” a (notably anonymous) source told trade publication CSP. “No disrespect to Kum & Go, but the answer is pretty clear.” Already the replacement of Smash & Dash signs has begun around the region, with the single-entendre MAVERIK logo replacing the one Iowans have known and loved (or, at least, tolerated) for nearly 60 years.
The famous/infamous Ejaculate & Evacuate logo was designed by Michael Phelan, a Cedar Rapids music teacher, freelance designer and a Von Maur piano player for Lindale and Westdale malls for 25 years. I never met him in person, but a little gesture from him a couple of years ago has made Phelan someone I’ll never entirely forget.
At my previous job, one of my duties was to write and send birthday cards to customers on behalf of the business. It was a simple process: Boilerplate message written in my pinched, vaguely tortured handwriting. Pair with a gift card. Send them out weekly.
One day, I received a card back from Phelan with his family crest on the front, and inside, in beautiful, near-machine-perfect calligraphy, he thanked me for the gesture. Regrettably, over the course of a couple of moves, I’ve lost track of his thank-you card, but I never forgot the way that it had shocked me — the idea that he had taken the time to write this meticulous little note of gratitude to me. I couldn’t even remember writing the card to him.
Phelan passed away in May of 2024. I found that out when I started writing this piece, which was initially going to consist primarily of various alternative names for Kum & Go. But really, there are Reddit threads full of the most innovative minds in obscene puns for that.
In fact, it was probably inevitable, given the fountain of online jokes and memes about Kum & Go, that the name would be changed. It would always be replaced with something so corporate-friendly that it will slither comfortably across the frontal lobe and whip away into oblivion. Soon our highways and streets will be blessedly clear for any who may clutch so firmly at their pearls that they veer across the lanes into oncoming traffic. So it goes.
I drove past a Kum & Go this morning. For the first time, I deeply examined the logo, the custom-drawn lettering, the connecting line that underlines the whole thing and connects the K and the G. I thought about the hand that had drawn the logo, the same one that played the organ at the church down the street from my house, the same one that at 81 had written a thank-you card to me with such deft precision I’d thought it was a font.
Soon the signs will be gone, and all that will be left will be another fun little fact about the Way Things Were When I Was Young that I’ll tell my daughter. But for the moment, some still stand, cherry red and white against the gray winter skies.
