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Credit: Darrow Montgomery

Instacart joined the throng of brands competing for good will by incentivizing Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine through its “Get Vaxxed For Snacks” sweepstakes. The grocery delivery company’s logo happens to be a carrot. In this case, the carrot they’re dangling is a $500 gift card to spend on summer treats “from ice cream and popsicles to salsa and guacamole and everything in between!”

The rules seemed simple enough. Enter the sweepstakes here and wait to see if you’re one of the 200 winners chosen on July 1. Only D.C. was shit out of snacks. At least at first. The dropdown menu on the registration page didn’t include the District of Columbia in its list of states, making it impossible for anyone with a District address to compete for munchies.

Twitter user @KevMinLaw let ’em hear it.

Then the jokester behind the D.C. Council’s Twitter account, Josh Gibson, piled on.

In came Gwen from Instacart with a solution: Use District of Columbia as the city, and Virginia as the state. That didn’t sit right with anyone.

Six hours later, the company, which came under fire for the way it treated its shoppers during the pandemic, made the District of Columbia a state.

Now it’s up to Congress to follow suit. A Senate committee hearing on D.C. statehood is scheduled for June 22. Here are 51 reasons to support it.

“It’s good to be back in the running for snacks, but what we really want to add to our shopping cart is “statehood, once and for all,” Gibson of the D.C. Council Twitter account tells City Paper. “Whoever delivers that—we’ll tip generously.”

City Paper tried to reach @kevminlaw to ask about their fearless activism but they did not respond. This story will be updated should they want to comment.