It’s a frigid Friday night in February in small-town Utah, and Conner Mantz and his wife, Kylie, are doing what they do pretty much every night: padding around in sweats, making pasta, talking. Lately, also about pregnancy, as Kylie is a few months in with their first—as are at least two of their neighbors. But tonight’s riveting topic?
Apparently, there is a crack in the ceiling of the couple’s new house. I don’t see it, but luckily, Kylie did, mere days before the one-year warranty on their four-bedroom, 4,500-square-foot new build in a master-planned community runs out. I can’t help but notice, though: It looks like they just moved in.
The kitchen as bare as a hotel kitchenette. A stack of cardboard boxes still unpacked. The bright-white interior is blank, save for a wooden sign propped on a table that reads “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).
And an “art TV” presiding over the living room. The only reason I know it’s an art TV is because I have one, too. A wall-mounted, bordered box designed to look like a painting or photograph, which you can choose from an extensive library, in lieu of the otherwise invasive screen it actually is.
It was Conner’s Christmas gift to Kylie. Even though three years into their marriage, they have rarely, if ever, watched TV. It’s also kind of funny, I think, that they have yet to select any art for the art TV, which renders it just an ordinary screen that’s seen neither Claude Monet nor the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, which at the time is well underway.
Then again, if all goes according to his training plans, Conner won’t be tuning into the 2028 Games from his gray Costco couch in Mapleton, Utah. He’ll be running 26.2 miles through the streets of Los Angeles. And breaking his personal record—which is the American marathon record: 2:04:43.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
