Oh, Lordy
When Jon and I first started dating we made each other promise that 1) we'd never go back to the Mormon church and 2) we'd never live in Utah again. It's safe to say that if you don't do one of these things, you won't likely do the other one. Mormons are Utah. Utah is Mormons.
Three months into this marriage and we're already breaking one of our solemn promises: Jon and I are moving back to Utah.
The Lord can't be happy with us.
So, Lord, I present to you the following reasons why Jon and Heather need to move back to Utah:
- Heather wants to have a baby and if there ever were a place on earth where people know how to have babies that place would be colonized by Mormons.
- Chuck needs a backyard and the average price of a backyard in Los Angeles is $480,000.
- Jon and I are down to our last couple dollars and a gallon of milk in Utah costs less than a couple dollars.
- My mother, the Avon World Sales Leader, lives in Utah and can give us free shampoo.
- They have weather in Utah.
- My sister's hair lives in Utah.
We're not sure exactly when this move will take place, only that it has to take place within the next 30 to 60 days. Which means I get 30 to 60 days to squeeze every last ounce of sin from the luscious limbs of Los Angeles.
First on our to-do list is renting a U-haul and stocking it to the ceiling with coffee and shlitz malt liquor.
Second, you need to talk me out of this.
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FM Living
Mal said:
Can't say that I'm the best person for "talking out" but if you need someone on the other side to do apartment/house hunting for you, I can try to be of service. Anything I can do?
11.05.02 - 07:09 AM / 1poop on a stick said:
don't please don't.......
my friend moved there and now he is a card carrying member of AA...
he has been brainwashed...
please please please don't.....
11.05.02 - 07:12 AM / 2Shoefly said:
Dooce, note this:
Title 76, Chapter 5 of the Utah State Code says that Oral sex is illegal.
Have you really weighed the consequences here?
11.05.02 - 07:15 AM / 3stace said:
spent a week in utah last spring (capital?/capitol? reef national park? is that the name of it?). it is the most beautiful place i've ever seen! had to drive a couple hours for a starbucks, however. northern utah seemed pretty civilized from what i saw. best of both worlds!
11.05.02 - 07:16 AM / 4eggbert said:
i just saw bowling for columbine, and i too am moving from los angeles, taking poor ingrid with me. we'll probably end up in vancouver, where there is snowboarding in the winter and wonderful concrete skateparks in the summer, and i can fly home to see mom n pop back here in hell.
11.05.02 - 07:17 AM / 5dooce said:
oral sex may be illegal, but the Utah State Code says nothing about bukkake.
11.05.02 - 07:19 AM / 6Bono said:
Shlitz Malt Liquor is indeed, all that you can't leave behind.
11.05.02 - 07:19 AM / 7beezlebubba said:
You gotta do what you gotta do. Hell-Ay ain't no place for a baby or the cutest of dogs. And they have snow there, you're right. And as for the dry counties, isn't that what the internet is for? Ordering booze and coffee?
11.05.02 - 07:22 AM / 8se said:
My husband grew up in SLC as a non-Mormon, his brother converted to marry a "girl" in a temple wedding, we go back to visit and we've driven through Utah many times on our way to other places. Utah is a scary, hive-minded place in a lot of ways. I think it would be incredibly hard to resist the church's influence living there. I think people tend to either be swayed by the church or reactionary to it--either way it's influencing you. If you do move, at least you'll still have Disney Land--what with the church's efforts to make life seem like Disney Land. "Everybody smile now. Life is all happiness and light." "Let's make sure everything is *enlightening*!" You'll still have the castle-thingy like Disney Land--ala The Temple. And you'll still have Tinkerbell--the mormon version, Moroni. Sincerely, a Complete Stranger Saying Don't Move.
11.05.02 - 07:28 AM / 9slackjaw said:
LA or Utah? These are the choices?
I'm not sure I could lift my head off the pillow in the morning if that were the case...
Does Utah really need more babies?
11.05.02 - 07:34 AM / 10Naaman said:
That sucks! Although, if there ever was something I missed now that I'm living in California, it's seasonal changes!
11.05.02 - 07:34 AM / 11se said:
Now I can't remember if the chorus I heard in my English classes was for enlightening or uplifting. As in, "Why are we reading _The Grapes of Wrath_, _All Quiet on the Western Front_, _A Separate Peace_, etc.? Why don't we read something enlightening/uplifting?" I'm thinking it must be "uplifting". Which ever, just make sure you smile.
11.05.02 - 07:34 AM / 12Dave Thomas said:
Good hell, if I had to worry about succumbing completely to foreign influences wherever I went, I would never leave the house. Actually, I wouldn't go home, either. We have ants. Talk about hive-mindedness.
11.05.02 - 07:37 AM / 13paula said:
If there's ONE thing I've learned from simply observing my friends' procreation efforts, is that there is nothing quite like the built-in baby-sitting aspect of having family close by. No one will ever love your baby more. Although, speaking for myself only, I do tend to worry about the brainwashing efforts my family might initiate toward converting our child into a bible-owning Catholic, but still...free baby-sitting! Also, if it doesn't work out, you can always move back before the child is old enough to be assimilated. :-)
11.05.02 - 07:41 AM / 14April said:
This, now that I'm moving north to Huntington Beach?! I won't have any cool blogger neighbors!
11.05.02 - 07:47 AM / 15se said:
Dave Thomas
You're funny. I'm talking about a pretty monochromatic, far-reaching influence. Want to learn about influence, spend a chunk of time in Utah. I wouldn't worry about the ants back home, unless they vote, teach your children, carry a gun, decide who gets hired, etc.
11.05.02 - 07:48 AM / 16yesno0001 said:
The Utah state dance is the Square Dance. In California, it's the West Coast Swing.
Case closed.
11.05.02 - 07:50 AM / 17scared of mullets said:
hmmm... haven't been to Northern Utah, but went through Southern Utah, and must say it was a hotbed of mullet activity, as well as a haven for those with dubious showering habits... Have you considered moving elsewhere in California? A suburb perhaps, or Nothern California?
11.05.02 - 07:51 AM / 18ex southern babtist said:
Shoefly has a point...do you really want to limit yourselves to only traditional methods?
11.05.02 - 07:52 AM / 19chris said:
i love utah. where else can you get a 2 bedroom apartment for 425 dollars a month? besides the summer i think the weather is really nice. Totally Awesome ComputersÆ commercials are always entertaining. Trax is an clean, cheap way to get downtown. I get excited when i go to utah just so i can eat at some of the restaurants. Evergreen cafe, Bangkok Thai, Chuck O' Rama, Tucci's, Oasis... there's some more but i can't think of them all right now. Anyways, don't be such a pessimist.
11.05.02 - 07:54 AM / 20Ariel said:
While this saddens me on a purely selfish "all-about-me" level (I move to LA...and then you two move away!), I absolutely understand the cost efficiency of Utah, and the pragmatism of free childcare and familial support. I have every intention of being back on Bainbridge Island, WA, when I pop my little wiggler out. Whenever that may be. (And please do not tell my parents that we discussed this -- they would get too excited.)
11.05.02 - 08:04 AM / 21how did you know my name was Dirty? said:
Say it isn't so!!
I swore when I turned 18 that I would move away from all that is hick (St. Mary's County, MD) and never look back. Five years later I found myself moving back east.
My compromise? Live in an urban area and never, I mean n-e-v-e-r again live within an hour's drive of what I lovingly call "The Fah-ma-lee".
11.05.02 - 08:07 AM / 22helenjane said:
I will heretofore submit a solemn request for you to move to Portland, Oregon, where we are moving.
I promise, the futurehusband and I will not hardly be creepy at all, hardly.
Boozy scrabble nights.
Crashing on our floor "till you find a place."
We wouldn't hardly notice your procreatin' at all...
11.05.02 - 08:13 AM / 23ryan said:
anywhere, anywhere... anywhere but Utah...
11.05.02 - 08:18 AM / 24LK said:
you're right, ms. dooce, LA is no place to raise a kid... but where else are you gonna have movie stars come into your kitchen to take scavenger hunt pictures and where else are you gonna see them make out in front of a crowded elevator? :D
ahh well.
11.05.02 - 08:19 AM / 25Scotty The Body said:
I actually think Salt Lake City is a fine town (I'm originally from Colorado). I try to convince my wife that we could sell our house in Atlanta, buy a nice bungalow in SLC and get good jobs with nice weather and outdoor activities and clean air and all that. Mormon's may be a bit "boring," but, on the whole, they are nice, friendly, hard-working and common sense enabled. Except for that whole part about the angel on the Temple blowing his horn and having all the Mormons bring him their powdered milk. That's a little strange.
11.05.02 - 08:22 AM / 26Zan said:
Well, at least there's good skiing in Utah (not much skiing in LA proper, I suppose).
11.05.02 - 08:25 AM / 27Ex-liontamer said:
Dooce, I understand the need for an "achievable" lifestyle. That's why I live in Baltimore (Hey, Hon!), and not North Jersey (T'sup, dude!) I can dig that. As far as the Utah/Mormon tip, I can only speak on conjecture, not experience. Personally I would have a secret glee telling all my funny-underwear-havin' neighbors there is no magic man in the clouds and his (allegedly) only begotten son was a Buddhist. Tee-hee! I'm welling up with Atheistic contempt already! Somebody pour me a cuppa joe and light me a smoke... I'M GOING IN! Yeeee-haaa!
11.05.02 - 08:26 AM / 28jess said:
ack, you can't actually be serious, can you? you don't want to go back to utah. you really really really don't.
find... a baby expert in california. they have to have at least one hiding somewhere.
oh well. i guess there's always shlitz malt liquor. i think i might even have some somewhere...
11.05.02 - 08:28 AM / 29Wayne said:
Don't go to Utah because you'll have to deal with this:
(A direct quote from a woman interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition:)
"We're not illiterate. We're smart people. There's some mighty smart people that lives in the Utah."
God bless her, she's absolutely correct.
Then again, your sisterís hair has that incredible gravitational attraction....
11.05.02 - 08:38 AM / 30