Facts and Figures

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Once upon a time there was a slightly off-kilter bored under-utilized employee named Chesapeake Bay Woman. One day as she was reading a magazine perusing research material, she came across some very interesting facts about Mathews and the surrounding areas. By the way, Chesapeake Bay Woman has enough blog fodder for two new blogs in addition to Life in Mathews: one for work and the other one for personal drama, but let's get back to the story pertaining to this blog post, already in progress, which has to do with facts and figures, although how would you know since I've not told you anything thus far that wasn't off on a tangent?

(I am preparing my acceptance speech for the World's Most Ridiculous and Inane Paragraph Ever contest, which I seem to have won hands down with that first one.)

Anyway.

Let's take a look at what we have:

Gloucester County
2008 Population: 36,109
Change from 2007: 1.2%
Median income: $56,123
Median home value: $227,293
Median age: 39.7

Mathews County
2008 Population: 9,148
Change from 2007: 1.8%
Median income: $54,431
Median home value: $228,669
Median age: 47.7

Middlesex County
2008 Population: 10,277
Change from 2007: 0.4%
Median income: $45,583
Median home value: $226,617
Median age: 49.4

Source: Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, University of Virginia; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; U.S. Census Bureau and VA Association of Realtors

Now, before Chesapeake Bay Woman's circuitry overloads and all systems shut down, she'd like to make a few analytical statements, which is about all she's good for in any year--a few.

1. The houses are worth more in Mathews.

2. There are fewer people in Mathews, and we have an older population than Gloucester, but not as old as Middlesex.

3. There are four times as many people in Gloucester as in Mathews.

4. All of them go to the Gloucester Wal-Mart at the same time. And they all check out at the same time, which is exactly when Wal-Mart decides that it needs to send all its cashiers on break except the one 15-year-old who doesn't know what cilantro is or the elderly lady who wants to talk to you about her bunions, her chihuahuas and her hairdresser's boyfriend's cousin's twelve cats, one of which had kittens and kept her up all night.

The moral of all this in-depth analysis is as follows:

If you ever want to see a freak show, try sitting down on a bench inside that Gloucester Wal-Mart. Then you might understand why the Chesapeake Bay Family calls it Wal-Mutant.

The End.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog post does not claim to be any better than anyone from Gloucester, Middlesex or surrounding counties, nor does she claim to be bunion-free. Although she feels it is exceedingly important that everyone become well-acquainted with cilantro, she understands that not everyone is.

She does, however, feel very strongly that something is going on in that Gloucester Wal-Mart because she's never seen anything like it and wonders if it isn't some parallel universe unaccounted for on those population stats above.