But Dad, Mexican Drug Dealers Get Cold Too!

My dad is in the desert right now at the Quartzite, Arizona gem and mineral trade show. He goes every year to buy precious stones and jewelry for his business, Naturally Mine of Foresthill. But Papa Hutch wasn't always a jeweler. He used to be a cop. And a damn fine one at that. Which is why he got suspicious when he noticed tire tracks leading out to a shallow grave in the middle of the desert.

Not actually my dad. But just so you get a visual going.

That's right. A shallow grave.

It's like something straight out of Bones! SOOO COOL! Naturally he called me right away. We don't talk on the phone that often, so you know this is a big deal. He says, "In all my years of going out to the desert, I've always wondered if I would come across a dead body. And I think I finally found one!" He was practically giddy with excitement. He called the local sheriff around 10 this morning to come out and investigate the grave. I've been waiting in agony all day to find out if life really is like it is in the procedural cop shows. Some random passerby in the desert stumbles upon the remains of some high-class hooker, caught up in a high-ranking politico sex scandal. So that's what my brain has been working on all day.

I imagine this is what the Sheriff and her Deputy looked like.

I sent my dad a text a few hours ago, unable to stand the suspense. "Was it a dead body?" He just called me now.

"GRUESOME BODY PARTS EVERYWHERE!"

My dad is pretty twisted sometimes. It runs in the family. But no, he was just kidding. The sheriff arrived to check out the grave. She (yes, a kickass female sheriff) approached the site slowly, also with a bad feeling about what she was about to find there. She peeled back layers of plastic to discover...

Jackets. Sweaters. Blankets. Buried in a shallow grave. (Insert signature Law and Order DUN DUN sound here).

The Mexican drug dealers are very well-dressed in my mind.

What the what? Apparently that strip of desert is a known corridor for Mexican drug runners. The weather has been so cold lately that in addition to caches for food, water and supplies, the American side of the operation was kind enough to include warm outerwear. Awww, aren't we sweet?

So no dead bodies. Sad. But at least it was an interesting day for the desert.