SOUTH OF THE BORDER
While browsing through his local chain bookstore in Fort Myers, Florida, Kevin Irons spied this misplaced New Mexico map, stopped in his tracks, and laughed aloud.

SIMPLY GAULING
This past June, Manuel Florez and his wife traveled to Normandy, France. The memorable trip was made more so by an incident at Charles de Gaulle airport. At one of the many stations where they had to produce passports, a woman directed travelers to the correct lines to obtain boarding clearance receipts.

“I showed her mine,” Florez says, “and she gave it a slow, careful look. She then looked at me and said, “Artesia, New Mexico, is an interesting birthplace—is it close to the equator, near Central America?” He couldn’t help but laugh, and explained that New Mexico is located in the U.S. between Texas and Arizona.

HAWAII UH-OH
At the airport in Honolulu, Steven Black and his wife ran into a snag. After their flight from Oahu to the Big Island, a TSA agent checked his driver’s license, which gave Black’s address in Albuquerque. He stopped Black, saying, “I’m sorry, but do you have a passport?” Steven said, “Not with me.” To his surprise, the agent said, “Well, you can’t proceed without one!”

“At this point I noticed my wife passing through the adjacent lane without a problem, laughing her head off at my comical situation,” Steven says. He proceeded to calmly explain to the agent that New Mexico is a U.S. state, just like Hawaii, but he was unmoved. The man called over a supervisor, who took a look at the license and whispered to the agent, “New Mexico is a state. Let him through.”

GOTHAM GAFFE
Bella Pori recently moved from her hometown of Albuquerque to New York City, where a photo ID is needed to get into schools. When Pori presented her New Mexico driver’s license, the security guard told her that she couldn’t accept foreign identification. “Thankfully, her desk partner had been helping her daughter with state capitals,” says Pori, “and allowed me to go in.”

WHAT A CROCK
In an end-of-year roundup of 2015's best recipes for all U.S. states, Betty Crocker’s December newsletter jumped from New Jersey to New York, leaving New Mexico out of the mix. After disgruntled home cooks complained, New Mexico was added ... with a recipe for “Three Ingredient Lemon Loaf.” The last time we checked, lemon loaves were no staple of New Mexico cuisine.

HAVE A “MISSING” MOMENT?
Send it to fifty@nmmagazine.com or Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Include your name, hometown, and state. Thanks! 

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