Joni Ernst Delivers Talk About Wearing ‘Bread Bags’ On Her Feet In Folksy SOTU Rebuttal

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst delivered the Republican Party’s rebuttal to President Barack Obama‘s State of the Union Tuesday night, sharing a story about wearing “bread bags” on her feet amidst a number of other personal anecdotes.

Joni Ernst’s Folksy Rebuttal

Ernst, who was elected to her first full term as a senator back in November, decided to use a portion of her rebuttal speech to talk about growing up in Iowa.

“As a young girl, I plowed the fields of our family farm. I worked in construction with my dad. To save for college, I worked the morning biscuit line at Hardee’s,” Ernst said into the camera. “We were raised to live simply, not to waste.”

Ernst added, “You see, growing up, I had only one good pair of shoes. So on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. But I was never embarrassed. Because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet.”

Predictably, the reference to bread bags quickly went viral on the Internet, with many Twitter users jumping at the chance to create memes and deliver pithy quips about Ernst’s unique footwear past.

Kicking back in my new #breadbag shoes! pic.twitter.com/N0wx0i9dYO

— Daniel Phan (@DanielPhanMpls) January 21, 2015

#breadbagchronicles When I was a kid, we collected and traded #breadbags like baseball cards.

— Warren Throckmorton (@wthrockmorton) January 21, 2015