Denver. The Mile High City. The Queen City of the Plains. The glistening jewel in the crown of the Rocky Mountain Empire. The best place in the entire world. Or so the city would have you believe. I’ve lived here for five years now, and I really don’t need to hear another word about Denver.

Everyone in this country knows that Denver exists. Many of them may even think it’s a cool place, or a nice place to live. These people are wrong. Granted, the city is located in a beautiful setting just outside the mountains, and the weather here is incredibly mild 99 percent of the time. That, however, is where Denver’s positive aspects end. It would be a great place without all the people who live here, but you can’t really get rid of them. They are Colorado natives, and by God, they’re going to let you know it. From the bumper stickers on the cars, to the newspapers, to the evening news, to the way they talk, they’ll bluster ’til they turn blue about how they were born and raised here, and how all the rich Californians (like Denver has an income problem) are coming in and ruining their little utopia. Come now, Denver. Surely the Californians can’t be the only ones responsible for the layer of smog over the city, the numerous traffic deaths each day on the incredibly cramped freeways, and the hostile attitudes that most residents display. Try to explain this to Denverites, though, and the response will usually go something like this: “Well, that’s not OUR fault, it’s because of . . .

The city of Denver is an old hand at passing the buck. I remember a front-page headline on the Denver Post that read something like this: Latest Import From China: Haze. That’s right. Haze. The front page picture was a shot of downtown Denver surrounded in a brown haze. The picture looked exactly like every other picture of Denver that you’ve ever seen (excluding the ones that have been doctored for publicity purposes), and you could look out the window and see the same thing. Trouble is, the accompanying article said that the haze was a result of dust storms in China the previous week that had somehow traveled across the Pacific Ocean, halfway across the entire world, and managed to come to a rest in one condensed cloud in and around the city of Denver.

Right. Stuff like that happens all the time.

This may sound absurd to a normal person, but to Denver residents, it’s a perfectly plausible explanation for the thick smog that surrounds their beloved city. As long as they can blame it on someone else, it doesn’t have to make sense.