The Comprehensive Plan

Yesterday, at a place that shall remain nameless, I may or may not have been bored out of my mind and took advantage of unauthorized access to a high-speed internet computer to download and print off part of the Mathews County Comprehensive Plan, specifically pages 1:1 -1:15.

(I need to pause to catch my breath. While we're taking this brief respite from sentences which stretch from here to Tallahassee, I'd like to clarify to my boss anyone reading that I was on a break and had some other business to tend to on that particular computer. Ahem.)

This particular document is chock full of facts and figures, some of which are fascinating, some of which are like reading an instruction manual on how to set up a Barbie Townhouse--in Japanese.

Anywho, since time was of the essence and this particular document is about 140 pages long, I only sent the first 15 pages to the printer, because I heard footsteps approaching they seemed to be most relevant to what I am researching at home, on my own time, after hours.

What I didn't realize was that page 15 ends mid-sentence, and it's a very important part of the previous paragraph. Take a look for yourself:

Table 1.10
Comparison of Income and Sales

1997 Personal Income ($ millions)
Virginia: 175,911
Mathews Co: 227

1998 Taxable Sales ($ millions)
Virginia: 60,114
Mathews Co: 24

Sales as Percent of Income
Virginia: 34.2
Mathews: 10.5

(i.e. We only spent 10-ish% of our income on stuff in Mathews. The rest went to Wal-Mutant in Gloucester. p.s. This is not the comprehensive plan talking, it's an imcomprehensible CBW, fyi.)

The plan goes on to say, "A comparison of sales as a percentage of personal income for the state as a whole with Mathews County indicates the weakness of the County's retail sector.

Statewide, people spent about one-third of their personal income on retail sales.

Mathews County residents probably do too, but only 10.5 percent is spent within the County. The rest goes to outside market areas such as Wal-Mutant, Bangkok Noi Restaurant, Dollar Tree and Peebles Department Store. p.s. The Comprehensive Plan didn't say this particular part.

One reason for this is that Mathews County is at the end of the "highway" rather than at a "crossroads" location and not likely to_______."

(Continued on page 16, which CBW neglected to print.)

So for those of you still awake, please take a stab at filling in that blank.

Here are my guesses:

"Mathews is at the end of the 'highway' rather than at a 'crossroads' location (except for the intersection at Get N Zip)and not likely to draw additional dollars from people passing through, because you don't pass through Mathews, you come here and you drive until you hit a dead end, the water, the Food Lion parking lot or sometimes all of the above.

"Mathews is at the end of the 'highway' rather than at a 'crossroads' location and not likely to
convince me that we couldn't sustain a Golden Corral all-you-can-eat buffet, because I'm here to tell you the Chesapeake Bay Family (CB Parents in particular) would spend every discretionary cent to their name for the fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, clam chowder, collard greens, yeast rolls, krab (with a k) salad, and soft serve ice cream machine.

I could keep going but will stop for now. You're very welcome.

What do you think the rest of that sentence is?