Politics, Religion and "Wi-Fly" Access

Bob and I spent the last few days in Green Valley, Arizona, visiting his 85 year old mother. Green Valley is a retirement community that among other things, is about a decade behind in technology. We needed to access the internet to check a few things so we went out to look for a place with wi-fi access. We heard the local McDonalds would be a good place to try. We were in luck, they had it for about $3. Oh sure, it's not Marymoor dog park where wi-fi is free, but we were willing to pay for it.

We went in, ordered a Diet Coke and fries and sat down to check the internet. A nice older man sitting at the table next to us decided to make conversation by asking us what we were doing and where we were from. He was having dinner with his wife. When we said we were from Washington, she turned around with her big Barack Obama button and told us how much she "liked our politics". Bob welcomed the opportunity to get into a heated political discussion that drew in lots of old folks in the McDonalds Lobby. If that wasn't enough, there were flies everywhere. I thought a horse had wandered into the dining room but it turned out to just be filthy. I didn't have a camera handy to take my picture, but this is close to what I, along with anyone else who braved the dining room looked like.

I don't know what was worse, the heated (but civil) discussion on policy, ethics, war and drilling in Anwar, or feeling like I was in Ethiopia. All the while I was begging Bob to stop but he just smiled and said he was having fun.

Finally the political discussion wound down to my own relief and I'm sure the relief of others swatting their own share of flies. The nice old man asked us why we were in town. We told them we were visiting Bob's mother and that our next stop would be Utah to see the kids. Of course the next question was "Oh, are you LDS"? (Oh swell, here we go again!) It turned out they had joined the church at one point but they retired from church along with work. Now we got to look back on everything we said and hope we said the right things. They shared all of their reasons that they just couldn't bring themselves to get up on Sunday and go to church themselves, but Their son had served a mission in Rochester, NY several years ago. He had been hit by a bus and badly injured while on his mission, but chose to remain until the end. He now serves actively in his ward and has 6 kids. Fortunately they both had positive feelings about the church. At the end of the discussion we all agreed that we had a lot in common and that we had just been to the filthiest McDonalds we had ever seen. We went back the next day with our camera in hand. We hoped to photograph the flies. We had to laugh when the first thing we saw was a man sitting outside (where there were less flies) with a fly swatter in hand.

Looking over my shoulder in the photo below, you will see that they were also smart enough to bring bug spray.

I don't know about you but if I have to bring the fly killing gear to lunch, I think I'll go someplace else.