Above: Illustration by Chris Philpot.

AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD
Mark Gruen lives in Albuquerque, so it seemed pretty reasonable to him that he could watch “our awesome” New Mexico United soccer team on TV. The game was in Oklahoma City, so he set up a streaming app to watch it through his video game system. But when he turned it on, he got an error message: “We’re sorry,” it said. “ESPN+ is currently only available in the United States and outlying territories.” Burn! “Not only are we not a state,” Gruen groused, “we don’t even qualify as an outlying territory.”

AND THEY SET IT IN BRONZE?
During an online auction, Arthur D. Ortega placed the winning bid for a vintage bronze New Mexico belt buckle. When it arrived in his Albuquerque mailbox, he approved of its depictions of our state, including a cow skull, mesas, and—wait, is that a saguaro cactus? The kind that grows only in Arizona and Mexico? “It seems the Great American Chicago Buckle Co. knows nothing of the great American Southwest,” Ortega said.

AND THEN THEY SET IT IN FABRIC?
Gabriele Teich of Las Cruces purchased some quilting fabric with a whimsical map of U.S. states on it that included a saguaro cactus in the middle of our state. The upside? “They added a red chile,” she said.

WELL, THAT SOUNDS INFERNAL
While filling out tax withholding forms on the IRS website, Rodrigo Lievano noticed a box to check for “Foreign Province.” Living in Santa Fe, he left it blank. But once he was finished, a dastardly techno glitch had magically filled the blank with “New Mexico.”

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