It's a mad, mad, mad, mad 'burb!

Earlier this week, I thought it would be amusing to attend a wannabe city council meeting in Suburbia. The main topic was the age-old issue of whether a major retailer locating in your area would be a bad thing.

As expected, the community "leaders" running the meeting (as well as the silent Union reps from the grocery giants) demonstrated everything but truth, trust, and transparency—and the people of Suburbia didn't really know why they were there.

Twelve years ago, the same folks had the same argument. In the end, the retail giant opened, and instead of the mom and pop shops closing, the giant actually brought business to the area, allowing the mom and pops to thrive on the spill-over.

Today, Suburbia's population has exploded and a retail store could work on the other side of town. Since the old arguments no longer work, the community complained about the recreational vehicles.

"This store will be open 24-hours a day, and they allow retired people in RVs to park in their parking lot. This is horrible. RVs increase crime and bring down our property values."

I left the meeting scratching my head, thinking: we live in a strange world, with strange people, who have really strange ideas. There were SUVs in the parking lot bigger than some of the RVs I'd seen.

Driving away, I wondered if everyone in Suburbia had gone mad.

Pulling into a drive-through, I knew I would find normalcy—some minimum-wage high-school book-worm, trying to learn responsibility.

"Hi. Can I have a diet Coca-Cola please?"

"Is diet Coke okay?"

"Huh?"

"We don't have diet Coca-Cola. Is diet Coke okay?"

Some nights, I should just stay home.