Elise Haynes chronicles family life in her blog Haynes Family Yard Sale. The opinions stated in this article are solely her own and not those of St. George News.
HUMOR – They clean the toilet. They studied at Stanford and BYU. They drive the carpool. They work the graveyard shift at Intermountain. They eat cupcakes at 25 Main. Aside from a few appendectomies, they have most of their original parts. They are the Real Housewives of Washington County.
I recently surveyed a not-so-random sample of my female Facebook friends who reside in Washington County to find out what makes them tick. In the interest of fairness, I tried to keep the proportions the same as what I imagine they are in our county. Correct me if I’m wrong – you haven’t let me down yet – but our local population is roughly 91 percent Caucasian, 7 percent Hispanic, 1 percent African-American, 1 percent Asian, and 3 percent people who are checking my math. That is my estimate based on the people I saw in line at Café Rio this afternoon.
Therefore, my sample group contained the following proportions: 90 percent are Caucasian, 70 percent are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 20 percent are tired of being recruited by the Mormons, and 10 percent prefer pork barbacoa salad with black beans, house dressing, and extra pico de gallo. There is clearly an enormous margin of error here, but I’m too bored with thinking about percentages to figure it out. You can see that this entire process was very scientific.
I asked the sample group four questions: What do you love about living in St. George, what is the most irritating thing about living in St. George, what causes you the most stress, and if you were to run away, where is the best hiding place in St. George?
I’ve spent a grueling 10 minutes reading and analyzing their responses. I will summarize them briefly so that you can get back to reading the real news. Answers to my first question were almost unanimous. Everyone loves the Southern Utah scenery – the red cliffs, blue sky, and air that is not opaque with smog. Almost every respondent mentioned the beautiful, fair weather. Interestingly, when asked what they disliked about life in Utah’s Dixie, quite a few respondents mentioned the scorching, surface-of-the-sun heat. As far as stressors in the lives of southern Utah housewives, the answers varied – everything from marital problems, religious obligations, work issues to incurable vertigo were mentioned. Can’t find your Real Washington County Housewife? I know where to track her down. When asked where they would hide if they were to run away, about 75 percent of those surveyed said that they would head for our pretty red hills to hike or climb. My friend Tara, who accounts for 6 percent of my sample group, said that she runs away to her back yard. Heads up, Tara’s husband – check your backyard.
In the interest of fairness, and because I didn’t pull off a B-minus in Advanced Placement Statistics for nothing, I decided to watch a nine minute YouTube clip of The Real Housewives of Orange County as my control group. After watching three minutes of our Orange County counterparts, I decided I’d rather be thrown into a cauldron of boiling canola oil than watch another minute. Needless to say, I didn’t make it the full nine minutes.
One benefit of watching that three minute train wreck was that it made me more appreciative of my fellow Washington County housewives. They’re kind. They’re real. They like to go camping and eat chocolate, just like me. My cousin Melissa – who also makes up 6 percent of my sample group – said it best: “Baggy clothes, no makeup, no hair dryer, and melted chocolate over a hot fire. Doesn’t get any better than that.”
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