Swing Vote: New Mexico. Spontaneous Combustion.

Yesterday a friend of mine saw a man sitting in his car sneeze so hard he hit his head on the steering wheel and honked the horn.

She posted it on facebook. I’ve been laughing all day as I remember.

We’ve had one, single, lonely comment about New Mexico. And for that I am forever grateful to Jennifer. She told us Santa Fe is the oldest capital in the United States, White Sands is not actually ‘sand’ but gypsum crystals, Smokey the Bear is a native, and the largest area in Carlsbad Caverns is 10 football fields long.

Those are good facts, friends, don’t you believe?! And they involve Smokey the Bear! I know a song about Smokey the Bear I can play on the piano! (But don’t worry, I will not record myself singing the Smokey the Bear song and post it on StealingFaith.com. I’m not that vicious.)

White Sands is a place they blow stuff up. Like Nevada, New Mexico has large swaths of land nobody appreciates and so our government, in its intelligence, decided to practice destroying stuff there.

It’s similar to how a toddler feels when viewing a birthday cake. Why wouldn’t you smash it into a thousand pieces just to see what it looks like when you’re done?!

So, let me tell you about the industry in New Mexico besides the ability to decimate acreage and have no one notice. The state is known for producing electric equipment, petroleum and coal products, food processing, printing and publishing, stone, glass, and clay products, tourism.

One out of every four residents works for the state or federal government.

Um, hm. You know it.

(On a side note, I recently discovered there’s a reputable study about mattresses. Newer mattresses have comfortable puffy foam which is essentially aerated petroleum. This requires mattresses to be doused in flame retardant chemicals so we don’t spontaneously combust while catching some zzz’s on our bed of oil. The flame retardant chemical has been conclusively linked with lowering the IQ of children ages 0-to-5 by an average of ten points. So, if you have a newer mattress, you’ve likely got a stupider kid. Merry Christmas, glad to spread the joy of knowledge.)

Another fun fact about New Mexico has nothing to do with spontaneous combustion and everything to do with Words with Friends. The state flag has a zia in the center. The zia is an ancient sun symbol of a Native American people called the Zia.

The Zia believed that the giver of all good gave them gifts in groups of four. These gifts are:

1. The four directions – north, east, south and west.
2. The four seasons – spring, summer, fall and winter.
3. The day – sunrise, noon, evening and night.
4. Life itself – childhood, youth, middle years and old age.
5. All of these are bound by a circle of life and love, without a beginning or end.

Ah. Isn’t that sweet? And can I please get an, “amen!” that the zia is an honest-to-goodness symbol and word? I continually try to play it in Words with Friends and get smacked down right and left.

Again, I am confronted with the fact life is just not fair.

My last fact for the night? The state flower is the Yucca flower. Which, if a child related to me, say, Uno, heard, she would call it the “yucky” flower and wonder why botanists are so mean.

Just hypothetically speaking, of course.

Tomorrow is our last chance to learn about New Mexico and I’m saving some scandals just special for the day. It’s not too late to have a friend of a friend or a person who just likes gypsum crystals leave a comment with some fun facts about their state!

(Steffany was the only one who gave a guess about two truths and a lie. And she nailed it. I need to come up with some better lies.)

Until tomorrow. I will leave you with the New Mexico state motto: It grows as it goes. Um, hm. Yeppers, see you later!