Civility and Toilets

Roswell, New Mexico is filled to the brim with bumpkin wingnuts that sport conservative, right wing views and Protestant, God-fearing ideas. We like the Second Amendment, steak, like Fox News, and most importantly, we like green chili. Green chili, for the two of you who read this and haven't step foot in New Mexico, is the manna from heaven that blesses the taste buds of any good, God-fearing American this side of Texas. It is divine. If you like red chili, get therapy. It's nowhere near Hatch green chili, and you're just too afraid to realize it. Leaving town and going anywhere besides New Mexico means we get Tex-Mex, a putrid blend of beans, meat, and soupy broth the rest of the country sadly calls chili. It's not. Period.

While on our trip to Denver, Colorado, my family had to forgo the privilege of having green chili for nearly a week, a feat very few, genuine New Mexicans can live through. We made the most of it, though. Denver is far more liberal than Roswell is (then again, Roswell makes Texas look liberal). This means they have artsy galleries and 5 star restaurant. This means they have stuff to do. This means, it's way cooler than Roswell, minus the chili. At any rate, our relatives in Denver deci

ded to take us out to a neat-o five star Mediterranean joint called Rioja for our first real brush with civility, with the exception of the midnight chocolate buffet on that cruise we were one one, if that even counts. We were apprehensive about it, mainly because we've never heard of a place that didn't give you the option of red or green. But, we were adventurous and tried it anyways.

It was incredible. Phenomenal, really. Never had we ventured beyond our realm of Roswell. I mean, the best restaurant in Roswell serves their food out of tin foil! The menu consisted of items we had never heard before and things we could not fathom! Our food was decorated with frillies and floundries made of sauces and vegetables. Even the bread was hard to pronounce. Is that a roll you're eating? No, that is roll with lemon zest and freshly squeezed citrus from the finest groves in all of freaking America! Is that lamb you're eating? Shazam! It's now a spotless, tender meat sautéed in the finest of wines and garnished with just the garnishes. Is that a garden salad to start? Ah, heck nah! It's a freshly plucked head of luttuce with a basil and vinegrette dressing and freshly picked vegetables to compliment harvested from the greenest of farms in all of Colorado. You get the picture. This place was swanky. This place was groovin. Best part, no tin foil.

Hardest part of the night, though- the bathroom. More technology went into making the bathroom state of the art than put a man on the moon. The toilet, for one, had enough flushing power to move a small calf through the common household sink with room to spare. The tremendous force of the flow cause me to scream and panic for a second, much to the annoyance of the restaurant's patrons. The sink resemble the ancient fountains of yore, found deep within the Mayan ruins, flowing from the basin to the roof in a spectacular display. I thought I was washing my hands in Caesar's palace. The air dryer for your hands was a blade of air that wiped the water off in one swoop. That was in freaking Star Trek 30 years ago people! The whole experience was quite extravagant and as I left the little men's room, speechless and in awe, I knew two things: 1) The guy outside the door waiting for me to finish was a little freaked out about my amazement and 2) I had to tell everybody back home that there is life outside this world because something from another planet HAD to have made that bathroom.

I dunno, maybe you've seen better, but I know that that bathroom was by far the craziest thing I've ever seen. I went back and just looked around again like it was a museum or something. Maybe it was the testosterone in me that got excited when it saw such a stellar bathroom, but I'm pretty sure if Roswell had that, we would sell people tickets just so they could check it out. But I learned something important. No matter how cool other places are, or how dazzling they can be, there is nothing like the feeling of being home. Don't get me wrong, I loved spending time with relatives and seeing an awesome game (despite getting attacked), but being in my own home is magnificent. Being with my family at home is one step away from heaven. Being with my family at home and we just get to sit around and talk until it is nearly one in the morning, making each other laugh, well that is heaven on earth. Heck, maybe the real heaven will be like that, just a bunch of us sharing stories and making each other laugh. Anyways, whether you have an awesome home life or just wanna get away from home, I challenge you to find your home, wherever it may be, and cherish every waking second in there. I also challenge you to find a better bathroom than I did. You probably won't, just by the way. So here's to home, wherever you may find it.

KB