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In This Issue: One Of Our 50 Is Missing
A good two decades after its launch, the One of Our Fifty Is Missing humor column remains the magazine's most popular recurring department. Managing editor Walter K. Lopez produces the column, drawing on the 30-to-50 submissions we typically receive each month from our Web and magazine readers. To submit your anecdotes, e-mail Lopez at fifty@nmmagazine.com.
LIFE’S A BEACH:
Following a trip to New Mexico to visit relatives, Melanie LaRue, of Conyers, Georgia, didn’t hesitate to fill her neighbor in on the details. “I told him how much I enjoyed it, and how we flew into Albuquerque,” LaRue says.
After digesting the info, her neighbor took the conversation to another dimension: “My brother went there once and enjoyed the ocean and beaches.”
Stunned by this statement, LaRue quickly corrected him, assuring him that there were no oceans near New Mexico. “I told him we were up in the mountains, near the Colorado border, and we even got close to the Oklahoma Panhandle.”
Hardly deterred by her explanation, the neighbor calmly said, “Well, I want to go to the part of it where they have the ocean. Say, can you still cross the border with a driver’s license, or is a passport required?”
‘BAMA BIKING:
During a recent trip to Alabama, Robert Rael and his two sons, of Albuquerque, went shopping for a Harley Davidson at a cycle shop in Dothan. “We thought the prices on their bikes were somewhat better than the Albuquerque prices,” Rael says, “so we asked the salesperson if he had any idea what it would cost to ship a bike to Albuquerque.”
After speaking with the sales manager, the salesperson returned and said he had no idea how much shipping would cost. “We’ve never had that request before, but I think it would be pretty expensive being that it has to go through customs.”
Absorbing the response, Rael asked, “What does customs have to do with shipping to Albuquerque, New Mexico?”
Fidgeting a bit, the salesperson said, “Well, I don’t know, but that is what the sales manager said.”
CHECK IT OUT:
Jolynn Carlton’s recent visit to a bank in Stafford, Virginia, could have been the basis of an episode of The Twilight Zone.
Carlton, a New Mexico native who now lives with her husband and son on the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia, says she visited the local bank to cash three birthday checks that her son had received from family in New Mexico. Carlton says the confusion began immediately when the teller took the checks and perused them for about five minutes.
“She finally asked me to wait, locked her drawer, and then asked the girl next to her if she could cash my checks, since they were from another country,” Carlton says. The second teller glanced at the checks before announcing that she needed to ask a supervisor about international transactions. “Neither woman knew that New Mexico was a state, and at this point I was in shock,” Carlton says.
When the employees struck up a conversation about the Mexican bank and routing system, Carlton had heard enough. “Are you serious?” she asked them. “Do you both know that New Mexico is one of our 50 states?”
After staring back in disbelief, one of the tellers said to the other, “Just go ahead and cash them.”
“I think geography teachers everywhere are probably sick to their stomachs!” Carlton says. “It did give our family many laughs.”
