Chicks Dig Venn Diagrams

When you live in your van, sometimes you find yourself in weird places that you can't get out of. In the past three months, I've been stranded in the desert with a car that won't start, stalled on a highway in Oregon with a flat tire, and out of battery power on the Burning Man playa. Now, I'm stuck in Provo, Utah.

This time, it's actually not Martin "Van" Buren's fault. It's AT&T's. In order to write this blog consistently (and, of course, to keep up my myspace profile) I got that wireless plan that offers internet access virtually anywhere in the United States.

The commercial shows a guy accessing the internet on a deserted island. In reality, it doesn't work everywhere in Salt Lake City. But it's still an important cog of this project. And now the wireless card won't work.

So I head into the local AT&T store to replace the malfunctioning card only to find that the stores don't carry replacements. Instead, they mail the product to you. Seeing as my mailing address is currently "Van," this requires me to stay in town until a replacement wireless card can be sent to the local store.

So I'm stuck in Provo, Utah. Better make the most of it. Here's what I currently know about Provo:

+ It is located right next to Orem, Utah, which has a suitable Walmart to call home the next few days.

+ That Walmart is swarming with children. At eight in the morning, I head into the store to use the restroom. As I head out, a young woman to my right is carrying a baby. Another young woman to my left is carrying another baby. Straight ahead, a young couple is pushing a shopping cart with two toddlers and yet another baby. Off in the distance, a van opens and a family of eight piles out.

I am reasonably certain that Provo's chief export is baby. I am positive that it is the perfect place to open a toy store.

+ Provo is best known as the home of Brigham Young University, a private school owned by the Mormon Church. By most accounts, a pretty good school, but not the best college town if you plan to throw a kegger.

Knowing this, I call my best friend Ryan, who happens to be Mormon.

"Hey, I'm stuck in Provo."

"Wow. Really? Hey, if you're going to be stuck somewhere, Provo is the best place in the world to be stuck... Well, either there or Vegas."

I'm pretty sure my friend is the only person alive who has narrowed his two favorite destinations on the planet to Provo and Vegas.

If one were to draw a Venn Diagram on the subject, it would likely look something like this:


"So is there any place in Provo that's a must see? You know, besides BYU?"

"Besides BYU?"

"Yeah."

"No. Not really."

"But it's still the best place on the planet to be stuck?"

"Sure."

"You know you don't make sense, right?"

"You know you have the penmanship of a first grader, right?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, I just told you that my two favorite places in the world are Provo and Vegas. Knowing you, that'll probably result in a Venn Diagram on your blog. And we both know you're not good with computers, so you'll probably draw it out crudely and just snap a picture of your drawing. In which case, I'd like to point out that you have handwriting that could easily pass as that of a slowly developing six-year-old."

"Fair enough. Hey, is it okay if I take severe artistic liberty with our conversation in my blog, even going so far as to completely fabricate the second half of our conversation? I mean, to be honest, I'm pretty sure you don't even know what a Venn Diagram is."

"I don't see why not. After all, you're stuck in Provo. What else are you going to do with your time?"

"Thanks buddy."

"Any time. Hey, I'll talk to you later. I've gotta lay a bet on the big BYU game."

"Of course you do. Of course you do."

"Oh, and watch out for all the babies. They're like locusts out there."

And scene.

Check back tomorrow to read this blog's 100th post. You won't regret it.

You know, unless you will.