BEFORE YOU MOVE TO ARIZONA . . .

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Before you move to Arizona, read this blog bit once and then think twice.
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The following joke, which I made up years ago, pretty much tells the whole story:
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When I moved to Arizona the state’s collective I.Q. doubled.
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To begin with, bear in mind that only an idiot would move here, so I’m hardly boasting about my I.Q. with that joke.

Arizona – or “Airheadzona” as I call it – has often been the target of my un-Christian remarks about slow thinking, slow moving maroons. I have often been critical of everything Arizona, and Here, Here, Here, and Here is just a small sample of my expressed alarm regarding the stupidity of people in what must surely be one of the dumbest states in the union.

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Now some of y’all probably thought it was just me being overly impatient with these Airheadzonans, but the video below proves that it’s not just me. The bloke who posted this video at YouTube seems to have simply reached the end of his patience with Airheadzona drivers on a Phoenix phreeway. He wrote:

It rained today QUITE heavily for only a matter of moments but the damage that it did was inconceivable... widespread shit-tardism and dumb-assedness ran rampant in the valley from drop number one...

After watching his video, I posted a comment for him at YouTube:

Ha! Oh, dude, you had me howling with laughter. My Brother and I are constantly complaining about the retardation of "Airheadzonans". How many times have you had to honk at the first car in the left turn lane to alert the driver that the green-friggin'-arrow is lit?! Most Airheadzonans couldn't beat a dead dog lying by the side of the road in an I.Q. contest!

Be forewarned that this driver’s commentary is (understandably) about 95% profanity, but it’s also about 95% funny so, to me, the profanity is balanced by the entertainment factor:

The Arizona rain causes retardation and stupidity.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMc4i11cLJ8

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But it’s not just on the roads that we see clear indications of Arizona’s airheadism; the stupidty pervades the entire state in every conceivable aspect of life. Below is something I wrote in SEX, TATTOOS & VIOLENCE R US - #7 :

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Turning briefly to The Sports Section . . .

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LOCAL YOKELS 1 – WORLD SERIES 0

I noticed in the Wednesday, October 27th edition of ‘The Airheadzona Repugnant’, under the category “Today On Radio” it said: “MLB: World Series (Game 1) – Rangers at Giants, joined in progress, 6 p.m., 620 AM”

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620 AM is KTAR, a local Sports Talk radio station and an ESPN affiliate. Weekdays from 2 to 6 is the sports talk program of Dumbo And Ass... er, I mean, Gambo And Ash. Phoenix is just a wide spot in the desert pretending to be cosmopolitan and here our Airheadzona radio programmers evidently think it’s more important to carry Gambo And Ash yakking about sports in general than it is to carry Game 1 of the World Series from the very first pitch. KTAR won’t turn their attention to The World Series until six o’clock, when the game is already in the third inning and the score is Rangers 2, Giants 0. Only in Airheadzona, I tell ya!

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This was the only radio station in the Phoenix area carrying the World Series and the station gave precedence to two local yokels yakking until sometime in the third inning of 

Game One.

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If you’re thinking about moving to Airheadzona, do yourself a favor: DON’T!

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Well, today I want to tell you a true story of Arizona airheadism designed to keep you in . . .  ANXIETY!

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All of the following is absolutely true, and it was experienced by a friend of mine who related all the details to me late last year. I took notes for this blog bit that I knew I’d eventually have to write. I want it understood, however, that the person whom I will call “Mister B” is not anyone who has ever read or posted a comment on my blog, but here is his true story of Airheadzona airheadism:

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In August of 1989, Mister B was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DUI). As a result, his driver’s license was suspended for 90 days; he was required to attend 10 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and Traffic School; and he paid over $500. for Alcohol Screening (whatever that is) and for court fees. His driver’s license was reinstated after the 90 day suspension.

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In October of the year 2000, Mister B was again arrested for DUI – 11 years after his first conviction for the same offense. This time, his driver’s license was suspended for 90 days; he had to attend 30 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; he also again paid over $500. for Alcohol Screening and court fees, plus it cost him $1,500 for a lawyer, and he was required to spend 5 days in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City jail.

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In February, 2001, when Mister B presented himself to the law enforcement authorities for his Tent City incarceration, he discovered that they had his name recorded incorrectly. Also, he was denied the right to bring a jacket in with him because he was told that he’d be wearing prison stripes and have a jacket assigned to him.

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When Mr. B discovered that he was not in fact put in stripes and had NO jacket assigned to him, he called his parents and asked them to bring him a jacket because he was freezing in the February desert night. When his parents brought a jacket to the law enforcement folks, they were told that Mr. B was not available to receive it because he was not at the facility, having been transferred due to an off-premises work furlough. This was either a deliberate lie or another instance of Airheadzona airheadism, because Mr. B was at the Tent City jail the entire time, and freezing his keister off at night.

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After Mr. B was released from Sheriff Joe’s Tent City jail, and after the 90 day suspension of his driver’s license expired, he went to Airheadzona’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) to reapply for a driver’s license. He told the state government employee there that according to the judge who convicted him, he was required to have an Intoxalock installed on his car for a period of one year. This is a lock that will not permit a car to be started until the driver has blown into an alcohol/blood content evaluation device and proven his sobriety. The representative at the MVD told Mr. B that there was no notation of that requirement on their paperwork from the court and therefore he should just disregard it. The MVD assigned Mr. B a new driver’s license on February 9, 2001.

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As a result of his punishment and due to some wising up, Mr. B quit drinking altogether, and to this day he has not had so much as a single sip of beer since the day he was arrested for his second DUI – that’s nearly 12 years without a drink. (Personally, just the thought of 12 straight years of total sobriety makes me feel faint.)

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[It’s an Airheadzona thang; you wouldn’t understand.]

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On June 21, 2011, nearly eleven years after Mr. B was released from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Tent City jail and had his driver’s license reinstated, he suddenly received in the mail a notification from the Arizona court that he was not in compliance with the Intoxalock requirement. Yes, you read that correctly! Eleven years after his release, and after 11 years of living a teetotaler’s life, Mr. B was in trouble because he’d not had an Intoxalock installed on his car 11 years earlier when the MVD told him to disregard it because the court had not mentioned it on his paperwork. (Surely there must be a statute of limitations on a matter like this!)

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Mr. B tried to clear the issue up but got an aggravating runaround, being bounced back and forth from the court to the MVD and from the MVD to the court, several times.

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He filed for a hearing on the matter with the Airheadzona Department Of Transportation (ADOT) and was told he would be notified by mail of a date and time for the hearing. In the meantime he was advised to get an Intoxalock device put on his vehicle because if he was pulled over by the police for any reason, their records would indicate that he was noncompliant with the order and he would probably be arrested.

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So Mr. B had the Intoxalock installed on his car, at a rental charge of $90.86 for the first month and $81. per month thereafter, to be automatically deducted from his checking account. He had also been told that he needed to have his driver’s license updated to indicate that he was required to have an Intoxalock on his vehicle. When he went to apply for the updated driver’s license, he was informed that he could not have that license assigned to him as long as there was a pending hearing with ADOT.

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When Mr. B faxed a request to cancel the ADOT hearing so he could get the new “Intoxalock Driver’s License” he learned that his older license had been suspended, so had he been pulled over, he would have been arrested, Intoxalock or not.

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After countless phone calls made, messages left and ignored, and phone disconnections (which Mr. B began to suspect were deliberate) he did eventually receive a call saying that his hearing cancellation request had been received so he could get the Intoxalock license. After which he had to reapply for a hearing.

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One of the damnable things about an Intoxalock is that every 15 to 20 minutes, while the car is being driven, a beeping alarm goes off and the driver is required to punch in a code that indicates he’s still present and operating the vehicle in a sober manner. So, every single day Mr. B was being aggravated by this beeping that forced him to pull over and address it.

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While waiting to be informed of his date and time for the rescheduled hearing, Mr. B blew an unacceptable reading into his Intoxalock and it was noted by the authorities. He had previously been informed that certain types of food (including yogurt and stale bakery items) recently eaten might cause the Intoxalock to register a faulty “intoxicated” reading. And wouldn’t you know it, sure enough that’s what happened one day after Mr. B had eaten a sandwich for lunch which had apparently been made with bread that wasn’t quite fresh enough.

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Due to the misreading, Mr. B had to take his Intoxalock into an Arizona state agency to have it recalibrated, at a cost to him of $97. While he was having the recalibration work done, he was informed by a state employee at the site that according to their records, his Intoxalock had been disconnected for five and a half hours on 7/14/2011 and that this was a serious violation that would be reported to the court. Mr. B told them that it had been disconnected on that date because he’d taken the car into an auto mechanic to repair an overheating problem. Furthermore, he told them that he had reported the need to disconnect the device beforehand to Arizona Mobile Access Technologies (AZMAT), as required.

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After much investigation, Mr. B was found to have told the truth because someone finally did manage to locate a record of his having reported the need to disconnect the Intoxalock for car repair work on that date. Unfortunately, he also learned that if his contention that after 11 years he shouldn’t be required to use an Intoxalock was not accepted by the judge at his future hearing, all of this time spent enduring the cost and inconvenience of the Intoxalock PRIOR to the hearing would NOT be counted against his one-year order to use the device!

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Finally, on August 10th, Mr. B received notification that he had a telephone hearing scheduled for Sept. 8th. On that date, he discussed the situation with a female judge via telephone, stating his case, laying out all of the facts for the judge to consider and reminding her that every two years for eleven years, the Arizona MVD allowed him to re-register his vehicle as required by law, and never once made an issue about the lack of an Intoxalock. The judge said she would make her decision in 3 to 5 working days and Mr. B would be notified of it. Again, that was Sept. 8th.

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On Sept. 23rd, Mr. B had still not heard a peep from the court about the judgment. My guess is that the female judge was exercising her prerogative to change her mind... over and over and over again. (“The partitions of the houses were so thin we could hear the women occupants of adjoining rooms changing their minds.” ~Mark Twain, attributed)

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At this point, Mr. B contacted the lawyer who had represented him during his second DUI arrest back in Oct. of 2000. This, incidentally, is the exact thing I had told him he should do at the very beginning of this Airheadzona fiasco and travesty of justice, but does anyone listen to me? The lawyer told Mr. B to fax all of the pertinent paperwork to his office.

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On Sept. 29th, Mr. B’s lawyer contacted someone who apparently had much more authority than did the judge in this case, because on Oct. 1st, Mr. B received notification that the action against him was being terminated. That was certainly good news, and what made it even better is that the lawyer did not charge Mr. B anything for his service.

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However, the Airheadzona fiasco wasn’t quite over yet for Mr. B. Taking his car in to have the Intoxalock removed, he was at first told that they had not been notified that he was allowed to have it removed. After another big runaround, the bureaucrats found that Mr. B was correct but, regardless, he had to pay a $200. fee for early termination of the one-year lease he had on the Intoxalock device. He paid it. And you remember the $81.00 monthly rental fee that was being automatically deducted from his checking account? Well, you guessed it! For two months after the removal of the Intoxalock, that money was still being deducted from Mr. B’s account and each time he had to make numerous phone calls, speaking with various people in order to get that money credited back into his account.

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In money, this whole Airheadzona episode cost Mr. B over $540. But what about his time? What about all the hassles ‘n’ headaches? What about all the pulling over to the side of the road every day for months to punch a code into the beeping Intoxalock and breathe into it? Sorry, Bub, but that’s just the price you pay for living amongst airheads in Airheadzona.

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As of this date, everything seems to have finally been resolved, but I told Mr. B that he shouldn’t be surprised if eleven years from now he hears from the state again, telling him that he is in violation of some court order. There really is no end to the hell in Hell, Airheadzona (a.k.a. Phoenix, Arizona).

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And now, dear reader, you have some idea why I consider my move to Arizona to have been the biggest mistake of my nearly 53-year-long life. In almost every imaginable way, Airheadzona is like Hell, with the daytime and nighttime temperatures being just the most obvious comparison. 

Oh, but... it’s a dry heat.

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~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.

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