Casey and I have had an adventure in Phoenix every weekend following my escape from bondage in Egypt.
Today we visited where all the clothes taken away from people on What Not To Wear are taken. It was frightening. First, the place is called, “Last Chance,” which sounds like the name for a way station between Phoenix and some other place that was only meant to be a gas station between New York and Los Angeles. When you’ve reached Chicago you really, really have reached the edge of civilization and should turn around. Second, trolls, hobgoblins, and Al Sharpton’s ex-wives infest the place. If you have seen the 1930s version of, “A Christmas Carol,” (Suburban Island knows the version of which I speak), this is where they take Ebenezer’s stuff to sell it after he dies and the same women work there, too. Scary.
Casey is brave or stupid. She took off her shoes and socks and tried on the shoes there. While I wouldn’t file this under, “sex without a condom,” it does go under, “answering the phone when your parents aren’t home.” I would be a little more critical but we know someone from the gym who claims to buy underpants at Goodwill. Last Chance is in the deepest level of shopping hell, beneath Wal Mart and the Dollar Store: this is where the Mullets go for the tube tops. No, I couldn’t get a clean shot of them but we saw it.
After this we went to Old Navy (shopping hell, level three) after this, not as much an adventure, but I did manage to buy a shirt that looked like everything else I already own and another shirt I will wear once (if that) and then pass off to my father in hopes of stealing it back after my mother irons it for him. We also had a nice conversation with another teacher who didn’t get that Casey is Mexican in particular or that we live in Mexico in general before proceeding to trash them. We excused ourselves before they started in on the Jews because Casey is so much nicer than I am.
Casey and I agree on few things that are questioned in politics or history; Casey doesn’t believe anything she reads or sees but I believe it all. One thing we do agree on is the Moon Landing being a hoax. You cannot sell me on the fact that our government, a monument to ineptitude, landed men on the Moon. I know that Buzz Aldrin will punch you in the face if he hears you saying that but being beat up by an astronaut is on my bucket list, so he can bring it on. Casey proved this was a hoax last weekend when we went to Scottsdale and parked where they filmed the moon landing. It is now used as overflow parking.
I wasn’t happy about it because I had just gotten my car back from being fixed but we need my car to sneak into Scottsdale because poor people aren’t allowed in that part of Arizona after dark. Casey wanted to go see a band, but we were too late for that band and instead got to see a cover band. The first thing I am doing after the Revolution is sending all the cover bands to Siberia. I realize that they are ‘talented,’ but if they were talented they would write their own songs. Apparently, we paid a cover charge to watch forty-year-olds play guitar hero and belt out, “Stacey’s Mom.” To move around the club where we were watching the cover band I had constantly recreate Chaos Bean’s parting of the Douche Bag Sea, even saying, “excuse me douche bags,” to get passed people. Contrary to popular myth (and tourist guides) the people of Scottsdale do not answer to Barbie and Ken.
I would go much more medieval on their asses than sending them to Siberia but someone is passing this information on to people without senses of humor so it can be taken out of context. One should note that my mentor teacher’s answer to many questions when was a neophyte was, “Molotov Cocktail,” followed by copious assurances that the string of arsons that preceded her fifteen years in Paris are not connected events – even if they fit the statue of limitations for that crime at that time. I was born eccentric but well trained in being crazy, batshitcrazy.
That in mind, Chaos Bean had better have won the lottery on Saturday because I am leaving Phoenix soon but Louisville might not be far enough from my troubles. I taught the Lost Generation and the Harlem Renaissance – if getting the kids passed the idea that the Renaissance Fair had nothing to do with history let alone the Renaissance wasn’t a Herculean task, nothing is – and this only reinforced my desire to be an expatriate. Emily and Nedenia, of course, are on stand-by for this eventuality. Phoenix needs Casey, she’ll have to stay here. It’d be boring without her.



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