Whenever I was in Arizona doing retail audits and visiting my former boyfriend and his kids, there were several things I had to make sure I hit up that I don’t have in Texas. The combination of them is almost worth another trip back in the not so distant future. Or is it? Idk.
The first thing is SAS Fabrics. This is not like any other fabric store, and we don’t have anything like it in Texas that I know of. It’s all industry remnants and very cheap. There are three locations in the Phoenix area. The amount of money I would save if I got a good enough haul would be worth the trip alone. I still am very creative and strive to have a nice Etsy shop one day. 🤞🏽
The second thing might be controversial. It’s a psychic named Adam Beaudoin. I know psychics are largely scammers. I think Adam is on the spectrum and sometimes uses scammy lingo, but I’ve gone to him a handful of times, and he was right on every time. Not going to go in to the things he was so spot on about, but it was several. He’s a little strange, but I think he’s the real thing- at least as real as a psychic can be.
The third thing is Sonoran style Mexican food in the Mexican restaurants. Arizona and Texas both have amazing Mexican restaurants, both being border states- but the Sonoran style in Arizona is way better than Tex mex. That’s my opinion. Of course I could always learn Sonoran style myself and cook it at home. Even the salsa in Arizona is better. They put more cilantro.
The fourth thing is the extremely high concentration of Mormon churches, especially in the Mesa Gilbert area. One of the audit apps I do as a side job wants pictures of landscaping around Mormon churches on a month long rotation. The Mesa Gilbert area just west of Phoenix has a Mormon population as high as Utah. So there are churches everywhere, which makes it easy to make $50-$70 an hour doing the landscaping pic jobs. I do have an aunt and uncle that live in Gilbert. I remember doing the handful of churches in their immediate area and being afraid that they’d drive by, see me and be like “Is that our niece taking pictures of a Mormon church?” Not sure what they’d be more mad about- the possible assumption that that means I turned Mormon or the fact that I didn’t tell them I was in town. I never tell them when I’m there.
The fifth thing that’s nice about being in Phoenix is the high concentration of liquor display jobs. Texas and Arizona have different laws about selling liquor. In Texas, the big box stores can’t carry it. They can sell beer and wine but not hard liquor. You have to go to a small liquor store if you want it. The display jobs are harder in the small liquor stores because there are obviously more displays and it’s much harder to hide what you’re doing from the clerks. In Arizona, the big box stores sell hard liquor. So there are a lot of the jobs in one area, and each store usually has no more than one or two liquor displays. It’s a lot easier to conceal taking pics in a big box store, plus the big box store workers mostly don’t care.
The sixth thing about going to Arizona is the amazing souvenir stores in the in between state which is New Mexico. From Texas to Arizona on I-10, there is 162 miles of New Mexico. The towns you go through are Las Cruces, Deming, and Lordsburg. The souvenirs are CUTE. I’m a rock nerd and bought a lot of rocks from the souvenir shops in New Mexico. My wallet is a New Mexico flag wallet. I love New Mexico. Also the Walmart super center in Deming always has the best clearance items (including a lot of pioneer woman stuff) and I’ve always slept in the car at the Walmart in Deming. There are a lot of RV’s and campers that do too. It’s safe.
The seventh thing is that my former boyfriend would always give me two gallons of 100 proof isopropyl alcohol. I don’t use it to clean but I use it to sanitize after cleaning. They go for $80 a gallon, and he refills the two gallons I have if I keep the jugs. I fill spray bottles with it. Lately I’ve been getting low so I add 70% to it that I get from the stores. My mom has one, I have one, and we each keep one in our cars. Would he still give it to me free even if I am not there to see him? Maybe. He and I are still friendly. He claims to be ok with my new relationship, because he knows that I wanted so much more out of a relationship than he wanted to, or was able, to give me. The jealousy and sadness is still apparent tho. If he makes me pay for the good isopropyl, I would understand lol.
My new boyfriend Kevin used to live in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is on the way to Phoenix. He also has one sister there. Would it be funny/weird if I was there with him? Kind of, maybe.
With my old boyfriend, if I couldn’t stay at his house for whatever reason, I would stay at a certain motel that was very close to an Indian reservation and run by the tribe. We always called it “GNAM” which is an acronym for the Ghetto Native American Motel. I think the actual name is crazy 8? Something like that. They have hundreds of rooms and a lot of ppl there. Me and Kevin might stay at GNAM if we went together. How funny would that be? And why does that damn place drag me back so weirdly? Maybe me and Kevin would camp in New Mexico. We’ve talked about that. I just can’t believe how much has changed and how much has stayed the same.
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