John Wise

One of the great cliches uttered ad nauseam here in the desert is how we are living in a dry heat. This dry heat gives us our problems with allergies, it is causing my dry cough, guess why my eyes are dry? I wonder if people who live in rain forests hear their local pundits and fellow citizens bleat endlessly about the moist air, their moist and juicy cough, are their eyes extra wet or are they crying for living in such a place? Or what about the Inuit, is their spit and snot frozen, do people go to the pharmacy to buy de-icer for their eyes? Funny, I have noticed in California that everything leads to cool, the weatherman might talk about the high winds but will end talking about a cooling trend, their sponsors remind you to cool down by stopping for a nice cool drink, so Californians are cool, Arizonans are dry, Oregonians are all wet, people of the midwest ride lawnmowers – I don’t know what to make of that.

But where will they go? Turns out, everyone is moving out of Phoenix. Overpriced homes, foreclosures, coke in a restaurant for $3.00, pronghorns everywhere, the wait at Krispy Kreme is unbearable, and not enough aluminum hats to protect the entire population. Not to forget mentioning our drought brought on by global warming that has drained our swimming pools, fouled our air, corrupted our politicians, delivered pestilence and plague, and the occasional alien spacecraft sighting. We will try to hold out here in the Arizona wasteland and when and if we are the only two left, we will rise again to rebuild this fractured and desolate outpost in the desert called Phoenix.

Yesterday wild animals were munching on a neighbor’s front yard, today the weeds have overtaken our local Krispy Kreme. I’ve got to tell you, since falling ill the world of Phoenix, Arizona, looks altogether different – as though something was going horribly wrong. Overgrown drive-throughs, rats in dining rooms, what’s going on with our way of life here in America?

About 20 minutes after taking that medicine and slugging down a glass of grapefruit juice, the world turned squiggly on me and of course, I had to be in the car when it happened. Don’t worry, I slowed down to maybe 30-something before snapping this picture of just how everything looked to me while driving down the freeway. The effect didn’t last long, soon I was barfing myself back into reality. Brushing your teeth with Crest and then rinsing with Pepsi is a lot more fun than this, in a human Mentos meets diet Coke kind of way.