The Good Times are Killing Me
May 17th, 2004 | Posted by Shannon
Ah, Phoenix. It’s kind of crazy that so many have migrated there. A strip-mall wasteland. A river runs through it, or at least some canals do. I saw one. It had water in it. But how? And there are something like 100,000 homes suppose to be built in the next ten to twenty years in that humongous sweltering valley.
Someday there will be houses from Scottsdale to Santa Monica, all in the low $200,000’s. Oops. Excuse me. In Scottsdale and Santa Monica, the houses will remain a bit higher. Let’s say, from Buckeye to Banning. Those will be the affordable homes.
This is already happening. Is California (or, the extension of California, Arizona) that big of a draw that people are willing to live in the pit of hell to own a home?
It’s all very confusing to me. But let’s move on to another topic.
I was having some dinner at some relatives of one of my relatives house on Friday night. We all helped ourselves to some chicken, fried potatoes, and corn on the cob, and then I sat, as instructed, “where ever you want to sit.” Which was in the living room on the L-shaped couch. There was a show on the TV and Dick Van Dyck was a private eye with a bizarre white hair-do. (Was that a WIG?)
Anyway, I was eating my dinner and one of the relatives of my relative was sitting next to me. I took a bite of corn. It was soggy and disappointing as I am a corn connoisseur and very hard to please in this respect.
My seat mate looked up at me, holding his corn. “I grew this corn, in the backyard.”
“Really?” I asked. I was genuinely interested and even forgot that the corn was soggy for a second.
“No,” he said. “I was just razzing you.” (Or something like that.) “Oh.” I said. Some minutes of silence ensued.
“Actually, this corn is from Colorado.” This came after I had completely forgotten about the corn-in-the-yard comment, and was busy watching Dick Van Dyck SING in that weird wig on that private-eye TV show. Was that a hit show at some point? I am so out-of-touch.
“From Colorado? Really?” I said. “I would have thought it came from Iowa.” What the hell was I talking about? More silence. The Colorado Corn was proving to be Curiously Crappy.
“Actually,” he said after a bit more time, or another Dick song, or what seemed like an eternity at any rate, “the best corn comes from Minnesota. The corn in Iowa is mostly grown for feed.”
“Wow.” I said. Though at the time this seemed a most lonely and bizarre conversation, chances are good that I will remember the details for the rest of my life. Therefore, I will be able to hold my own when the corn topic might arise in one of these Western States. For this I am eternally grateful.
