Sitting and chatting in my living room

niece #1: I heard a colonic takes a few days

me: Nah, you can knock it out in a few hours. It’s a fill and flush three times. Your sister has had one and said she felt slimmer for days.

niece #1: No shit

me: exactly

Picking up a niece at the airport

me: Sorry I was late. Are you cold?

niece #2: No, I’m fine

me: I was expecting to see you in a white pashmina and jeans

niece #2: Oh, that’s so 5 years ago

me: Please, if it were a renewable fabric or if you could turn the garment back to the manufacturer so it could be turned into another garment, it would be en vogue. Green is the new black.

niece #2: Hmm good to know

Kitchen

snuff: Hon, can you get that large bowl from the basement.

me: Why? This is your people’s holiday.

snuff: Just get it.

me: No, this is your people’s holiday (making my way to the basement door).

snuff mom: Are you going to eat with us?

me: Yes! (from the stairwell)

Another year, another title, another seemingly bodged report based on FBI facts, another sucker punch to Detroit. After losing to St. Louis last year, CQ Press a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc, used FBI crime statistics and elevated my home town to No. 1 – “Most Dangerous US City”. This dubious “score” of 407 to St. Louis’ 406 must be irritating to mayors and crime officials alike, as this has been touted as a gross misuse and inaccurate interpretation of data.

Since moving further into the suburbs, I am no longer toting this crypto-facto-brication with pride. When I went to school and regularly attended events downtown, I fancied myself as a hardened city-dweller. I rarely ever find myself in Detroit proper, save for the two miles that I drive through to get to my home. Now that I live in the bubble of suburbia (granted 500 yards from the border) I wait until people question their own city’s safety. They talk of their crime, and in some cases they have more dangerous cities, but I have aggregated crime data forged into a number on an unregulated scale calling me… a badass in a dangerous town.

The Associated Press: Detroit Declared Most Dangerous US City [link]