Illustration by Chris Philpot. 

Missing Now, Missing Then

William H. Itoh of Albuquerque recently acquired an 1895 document proving we’ve been lost for a long time. Signed by Colorado Governor Albert W. McIntire, it seeks the arrest of a fugitive wanted for burglary. The request, resplendent with a swirly font and shiny state seal, is addressed to the “Governor of Mexico” and says the perpetrator “may have taken refuge in the state of Mexico.” It was nonetheless received in Santa Fe and signed by Territorial Secretary Lorion Miller, whose red-ink stamp notes the locale as “N. Mex.,” perhaps feeding decades of people confusing us with northern Mexico.

We’re Here, But We’re Not

Lee Higbie chose a web search to check on his library’s hours, plugging “Lomas Tramway Library hours Albuquerque” into the search box. A site called PublicLibraryHours.com looked the most promising, so he clicked on it.  It had the hours all right, but within a few seconds a box popped up that perplexingly proclaimed, “Albuquerque, New Mexico: Not Found!” 

Like a Whole Other Country

After mailing a package to a friend in San Marcos, Texas, Jolane Wiegand received an email thanking her. “The best part,” her friend wrote, “is the box came with this sticker on it that said foreign in big yellow letters. [My son] brought it in and asked if I ordered something from overseas!” Wiegand thought that maybe something had gotten lost in translation, so she asked for a snapshot of the box. The picture came through and, yup, there was that big yellow sticker promising delivery of something special from the exotically foreign locale of Angel Fire, New Mexico

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