Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Utah- the postmodern Twilight Zone

OK, the last 2 posts have been VERY heavy. I am pleased to announce that tonight won't be as depressing! Hope that doesn't disappoint lol.
We won't talk about the events from previous post. Suffice it to say, I never forgot, but life went on.
Next stop on the road was two weeks in Utah. We arrived at a hideous motel in Ogden. I took a deep breath and tried to shake off the last two days. I had magazines to sell!
If you have ever seen The Twilight Zone you might have a rudimentary understanding of what Utah is like. In the southern part of the state it's actually kind of beautiful! But....once you get closer to Salt Lake it gets progressively worse. The highways were lined with God knows how many refineries. They had these huge smokestacks that belched oily black gas hundreds of feet into the sky. Some of them even spewed flames. Looked like what hell must look like to Green Party members! I swear to you everything had an orange tint to it. Frighteningly enough I was breathing this crap.
Bet you think it couldn't get any worse, huh? As we neared the City the most God awful rotten egg smell started permeating the air. That was Salt Lake. I guess the salt content does that. I sat there in the van wondering who could possibly live in this forsaken state. I was to find out the next day.
I slept like the dead the night before we started work. I had no dreams.
I woke up bright and early the next day. It wasn't by choice. Tiny and I were to the point I was pretty much living in him and Jeff's room. This dude was a morning person from hell. I mean wake-up-at-5AM-and-start-singing morning person. That was the one thing that killed me about him. Anyone who knows me is aware that I am Satan before 2 cups of coffee.
I was so very hopeful that a different state would do me a world of good. Maybe people from Colorado just hated me for some reason. So I was assigned to Tiny's van (of course! Forgot to mention he was a car handler, driving, picking hoods, and making drops) It's a very good thing when your boyfriend is in charge of choosing where you sell!
The first city we hit was Provo, south of SLC. Tiny waited till last to drop me. He dropped me in the best kind of neighborhood, upper middle class young couples and college students.
So I knocked on my first door. The door was opened by this shiny blond in a twinset. She was smiling so brightly MY face hurt just looking at her. I told her what I was doing and she invited me in.
We sat at her kitchen table as I got out my sales packet. It seemed like a plate of cookies and coffee just materialized in front of me. I finished my spiel and she asked me, "Have you read the Book of Mormon?" I was a bit gobsmacked for a second, I've never had anyone be that direct about religion. So I'm like, "Uh, no, I'm a sinner, God doesn't want me." I was actually just cracking a joke but she thought I was for real! So she bought a subscription on the condition that I take a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it.
So I walked out of her house slightly dazed and headed next door.
An equally shiny brunette answered at this house. She invited me in to the living room (these people are not very suspicious, what if I was an axe murderer?!) I gave her my pitch and her eyes trailed down to the Book of Mormon I had in my hand. She said, "Have you read that yet?" I told her I had just received it. She said she would buy a magazine if I took another Book and "shared" it with a friend. I agreed....a plan was forming in my head.
By the end of the week I had sold 43 subscriptions and I had 27 copies of the Book of Mormon.
People in Utah are incredibly nice, TOO nice. It's in a creepy Stepford kind of way. I was relieved when we pulled up stakes and moved on to Washington State.
Next time, my FAVORITE place on earth, visiting Aberdeen and hearing about Kurt from people he grew up with, log-choked rivers, and sitting under THAT bridge! As always thanks for listening and God bless!

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