One of my favorite bloggers, Downtown Paul, always call the suburbs of Memphis East Bumblefuck because well, it sucks like shit sometime.

And with my job being far away from the bright lights and bums of Downtown and in the shadow of FedEx's world headquarters, I ask myself every weekend that I head out that way, is working in an area that is filled with hot girls and bigger wallets every weekend better than an area with bums, corner stores, soul food, and quirky characters that make my sometime boring life a little interesting.

In the area I once worked in for three years, which was the Downtown/Uptown area, I could always head to Maxine's on North Manassas Street to fetch snacks for the people who worked in my department as well as myself.

If I was near the WIC clinic on Manassas and Galloway, there was Lane Ave. Grocery at the corner of Lane Avenue and North Manassas for corn dogs and Faygo.

Out east where I currently work, the closest thing that resembles those two places would be the gas station at Winchester and Hacks Cross Road, which is a nice-sized place but doesn't have the feel of a corner store in the Uptown area.

For soul food during my days in Uptown, there was Roxie's on North Third Street, Cozy Corner and their barbecue on North Parkway, and my personal favorite the Midtown Fish Market on Chelsea Avenue near North Thomas Street.

In East Bumblefuck, there's Southwind Fish in the same shopping center I work in, a place that I ate at on the same day I was hired at my job. It's a great atmosphere, but the scene of all these FedEx bigwigs coming in to eat instead of Joe Public doesn't sit well with me. I like to eat somewhere where it's not too corporate and not too homey.

As far as bums go, the Uptown area was filled with them parading up and down North Manassas Street. In fact, I remembered an incident during the summer of 2005 in which one of the bums down on Manassas near Keel Avenue flagged someone down from MLGW. Of course as I look at it now, I don't think they were talking about their light bill.

East Bumblefuck?

No bums whatsoever. I don't even think that many bums would consider going that far out to panhandle. Probably the closest thing I've had to deal with as far as bums are concerned out there is the idiot guy I ran into the same day I was hired at my current job at Starbucks on Winchester. Problem is, the guy had a house out there.

During the three years I worked at Porter-Leath, there was no shortage of characters that made my workday a bit interesting as well as people around the Uptown area that made working in the area fun and exciting.

Out east, I have yet to find anything like that.

Maybe one day it'll come.