Every month the New Mexico Magazine has a one page feature with this title. It is about problems people have with others in the US understanding that New Mexico isn't a foreign country. Mostly it involves getting something shipped to the state. Mostly it involves the northern part of the US and especially the east coast not knowing we are a state. There are some funny stories about people's experiences. I have never had this problem until this afternoon. My son-in-law recently purchased a Henry Goldenboy in .17 HMR and decided he needs something better than the iron sights. I told him Henry has a scope mount for it and we looked it up on Henry's website. When he clicked to order it he got this message "We are sorry but we cannot ship orders to Canada or other areas outside of the United States". Tried it three times and that came up every time. He's going to call them Tuesday and see if he can convince them that New Mexico is indeed in the US and get a scope mount.
When I was still gainfully employed United Health Care provided our medical insurance and for years I had a problem almost as annoying. Every year we would get a book with the doctors for our area listed. Since the area code for NM was the same for the whole state then and they went by area code all the doctors with a contract with them were in the Albuquerque-Santa Fe area. I would call and explain that I didn't live there. It was nearly a 300 mile trip up there. I would ask for a directory for the Midland, TX area since that was much closer and my wife's cardiologist is located there. The United offices were in White Plains, NY and they didn't have a clue where I was talking about even with the zip code and area code. I would get "Is it close to Lubbock? No it is south of Lubbock. Is it close to El Paso? No, it's nearly 300 miles east of there. How about Dallas? Is it close to there? No, you are close to 300 miles too far east." Eventually they would get it straightened out and I would get the correct directory. The next year it was the same old thing until the company I worked for switched insurance companies and we quit getting anything.
