Above: Illustration by Chris Philpot.
ALOHA-HA-HA-HA
Grocery stores from Texas to Arizona to Colorado came under our readers’ fire when the new crop of Hatch chiles landed this fall. Mind you, no out-of-state reader has ever objected to laying hands on the home-state fave, but the signage on these chiles brought the burn. “Produce of the Island of New Mexico,” it said. Over and over, store after store. “Well,” reader Ethan Rule wrote, “I suppose we do have Tingley Beach.”
CAN WE CHOOSE WHICH DAYS?
Ryan Lorek, who lives in Long Island, New York, was prepping for a work trip to Santa Fe, which he offhandedly mentioned to an agent for his cell-phone provider during an unrelated service call. The agent promptly advised him to upgrade his plan to cover international calls, warning him that New Mexico is only “sometimes considered part of the U.S.” Lorek assured her that it’s a state every day, but she held her ground and he gave up. “Now I really wish I had pressed her to explain how a state can be a ‘sometimes state,’” he said.
NOW A COLLECTOR'S ITEM
During the National Senior Games in Albuquerque this past June, participants could step into a photo booth and get their picture on the cover of a faux Sports Illustrated magazine. Hazel Morgan says the rushed process forced a few errors, including the one on hers: “Now Mexico.”
DON'T BE SUCH A PILL
After moving to Angel Fire, Kim Engel-Pearson tried to transfer her prescriptions from Arizona, but a cheery front-office person said, “We can’t write prescriptions to be filled in Mexico.”
HAVE A “MISSING” MOMENT?
Send it to fifty@nmmagazine.com, or Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501.Include your name, hometown, and state. ¡Gracias!