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Watch a Hungry Student Interrupt Kirsten Gillibrand to Get Ranch for Her Pizza

"Everyone was like, ‘What happened down there?’ and I was like, ‘I really don’t know, man. I got the ranch though.'"
Kirsten Gilliranch
Photo of Gillibrand by Scott Olson/Getty Images; photo of ranch by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The race for the 2020 Democratic nomination is already heating up, with hopefuls from Bernie Sanders to Kamala Harris making moves while Joe Biden presumably gears up to challenge Trump to a literal footrace or something. But it turns out there are more important and pressing questions right now than deciding which candidate can actually beat Trump. Namely: Where's the ranch at?

This week, one noble University of Iowa student became an icon to everyone who's both exhausted by the political grind and, simultaneously, hungry as fuck when she interrupted a campaign speech by presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand just to snag some ranch dressing for her pizza.

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Please, enjoy:

The 17-second video of the whole interaction—which went down at an Iowa City sports bar called the Airliner—immediately went viral, and it is really, truly something. As Gillibrand addresses the crowd, the intrepid student carefully winds her way through a mass of supporters, lost in her dressing quest. She tries to slip past Gillibrand, but the New York senator—seemingly mistaking her for a fan—rests a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, I’m just trying to get some ranch,” the student says, simply, before continuing on her quest undeterred.

According to the student, University of Iowa senior Hanna Kinney, she didn't even know Gillibrand was there, or what the crowd was about. "Being someone who is only 5'2", I can’t really see over most people, so I was like, I’ll just have to push through," she told Washington Post after the video made the rounds on Twitter. "I was just a girl on a mission to get some ranch for me and my friends."

Even Gillibrand supporters at the Airliner wound up rooting for Kinney, interruption or no. "I finally got through and when I came back holding a squirt ranch bottle I said something like, 'I got my ranch,'" she told New York Magazine. "People were literally yelling, 'Yes, queen' and 'She got her ranch!' I was just like, 'Thank you, I’m going to go back upstairs now.'"

"When I got back upstairs, everyone was like, ‘What happened down there?’ and I was like, ‘I really don’t know, man. I got the ranch though, so that’s important,’” she told the Post.

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In her interviews, Kinney refused to weigh in on politics, presumably in order to keep the focus on what is actually important: ranch, baby. Ranch.

"The pizza is amazing. The ranch is amazing. Together, it’s probably the best thing you’ll have in the entire world," Kinney told New York Magazine.

And she's right—we may not be able to agree on much in these dark, depressing times, but at least we can all come together to collectively say: If you've got some pizza, dip that shit in ranch. Life is too short to do anything less. Thank you, Hanna Kinney, for the valuable reminder.

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