Time for some frank talk, SCV

It's time we had a talk. 

Something has gone rotten with you Santa Clarita. And I can't put my finger on it. 

Most folks probably have gotten used to it, but I can't, and nor should I! You should have better standards for yourself.

You see SCV, the frightening truth is that this summer, particularly in the months of August & September, you have really started to stink. Literally. You smell. 

It's Sunday night. I'm on a late errand run to pick up some diapers and such at the Walmart on the hill (that's our affectionate nickname for the WalMart near Highway 126 & Copperhill). I walk out of WalMarts air-conditioned environment, arms full of sundries and diapers, and bang, it hits me. 

Rotten eggs. Or human waste. Or some combination thereof. The awful stench smacks me upside the head, as if it intended to wake me up from a peaceful slumber. It's a stench, most foul, perhaps even more foul than that which will come to occupy the diapers I hold in my hands soon enough.

Is it Chiquita Canyon in nearby-but-forgotten Val Verde? Is it the CLWA reclamation plant on the Old Road, that has always stunk up the area around Magic Mountain, but has never, to my knowledge, smelled this bad at a place so far away? What in the world is that awful stink? 

I'm not afraid to get down and dirty for the SCV, so I do the brave thing and follow this disgusting scent through the rolled down windows of my Japanese hybrid car. I follow it all the way up the pristine super-road that is the celebrated Cross Valley Connector, past the shiny new buildings & hotels, and onto the 126. At the light before I jump on the 5 South, I inhale deeply.

"Yep," still there, I think to myself, resisting every urge to roll up the windows. Why does this place smell like rotting, human feces? 

The smell stays