What I Think About By The Side Of The Road In The Middle Of Nowhere When My Car Is On Fire
On a warm summer day, quite a few years ago, my right hand was gripping the steering wheel and my left elbow was resting on the door of a ridiculously overpowered piece of Detroit Iron in the shape of a 1978 Camaro Z 28. I had shifted through to it’s top gear and my foot held the gas pedal to the floor. I held a half-smoked joint in my left hand.
I was stoned. I was beautiful.
How fast was I going? There was no way to tell. The speedometer, the gas gauge, and a few other important automobile monitoring devices were not working, including the clock. However, every single warning light was burning so brightly on the dashboard that the glare of them was searing them into my brain. Do I smell smoke? And, what is that weird grinding noise?
BANG!
I don’t know much about cars. I used to be able to change the oil in my vehicle, as well as change the spark-plugs and wires, replace brake pads and bleed the brake lines; just able to maintain the automobile. However, I do know this: I was (literally and figuratively) zooming down the highway when suddenly I have no engine, very little brakes, and with smoke billowing out from under the hood.
Dark smoke. THICK smoke.
Expensive smoke.
This can’t be good.
I managed to get the hulking mass of steel and rubber over to the side of the road, and I grabbed the only two things of worth that I had in the car: a pipe and a bag of a small, misdemeanor-ly amount of weed and got out of the car.
That’s when I saw the flames.
Since I was in the middle of nowhere and I had no fire extinguisher, I walked a few feet away from the car to watch it burn and think about the kind of weird, improbable, and demented things I have done to bring me to this particular reality. Then I grasped the totality of the situation and moved quite a few more yards away from the FIRE has ALMOST ENGULFED my CAR!
Things were not turning out as I had planned.
I thought of all the things I could do, like yell and curse and kick rocks that lay beside the road, but the car still burned.
For the last couple of years, my parents had given me a Triple-A card (AAA) as a Christmas present and now, if this wasn’t the king-hell of a good time to use the card, I don’t know when would be.
That’s Right! We are going to stop this story RIGHT HERE because at this point I’m going to be a few minutes talking to the pre-programmed Triple-A yob so I can get a tow truck out here, where ever here is, and get this burning mass of car to its final resting place, and then I’ll be sitting on the side of the ditch, waiting for the tow and watching the car burn, waving to people speeding past who are wondering what all the hubbub is about, blowing their horns in some weird parade of spergs who are just realizing that, while their day is going bad, it’s not going “Sitting By The Side Of The Road Watching My Car Burn” bad.
By the way: “Sitting By The Side Of The Road (Watching My Car Burn)” was to be Otis Redding’s next single before he died in a plane crash.
Anyway- I am going to be stopping this story here so I can invite you inside my head and you can see how my mind works under these kind of “pressure” situations.
Come on! It’ll be FUN!
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Doc: Hello! My name is Doc, and I will be your guide through the shadowy and bizarre mind of a complete raving lunatic. Careful of your step there, Sir.
There are various doors here leading to different rooms of varying sizes that are home to the parts of this carbon-based bonehead’s psychic make-up. For instance, behind this door…IS THE MUSIC ROOM. AS YOU CAN HEAR, THE MUSIC IS LOUD AND INFINITE, AS IS THE ROOM. IT CONTINUES ON, UNENDING, AND HAS SINCE THE EARLIEST MEMORIES OF THIS HUMAN. LET ME CLOSE THE DOOR.
Behind this door is his paranoia….
PARANOIA: AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHSTEELBEAMSCAN’TMELTRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWWWWWNEWCCTVCAMERASATSANDYHOOKTHATWERENOTONAAAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHHHHFACEBOOKTWITTERGOOGLEYOUTUBEAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGFACERECOGNITIONWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOEEEEEEEEAREMYFAMILYANDFRIENDSJUSTPRETENDINGTOLIKEMEAAAAUUUUUGHHHHHH…….
Doc: Well, that was nasty! Fortunately, that room is very small, and the Paranoia is claustrophobic.
Now then, THIS door, the one that is locked, glued shut, and has the wooden boards nailed across the doorway, is the room where his "feminine side" lives. Take note of the restraining order taped to the door right under the picture of John Wayne.
Right here is the humor closet. As you can see, the only thing in there is a caveman slipping on a banana peel, a wind up monkey slamming cymbals together, a picture of Groucho Marx, and one of those weird mechanical birds that slowly bends over to drink water; the one that filmmakers focus on to foreshadow the countdown to the brutal murder of whatever character in the movie needs to die.
Yes, I know.
Right here is the Creativity Room. AS YOU CAN SEE, IT IS A FUNHOUSE FILLED WITH ALL KINDS OF ASSORTED RIDES, GAMES, PUZZLES, TOYS, AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, AND BEHIND ALL THAT IS THE MACHINERY THAT ACTUALLY COMPOSES THE MUSIC, WRITES THE PROSE, OR OTHERWISE CREATES SOME FORM OF EXPRESSION. I’M GOING TO SHUT THE DOOR NOW, BUT PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE IMMACULATE COLLECTION OF MATCHBOX CARS, THE WIDE SCREEN ON THE WALL PLAYING CLASSIC CARTOONS 24 HOURS A DAY, AND…A HUGE WIND-UP GORILLA SLAMMING TWO CYMBALS TOGETHER. THIS WAY PLEASE! I’LL GET THE DOOR CLOSED…
The machinery in the Creativity Room is powered by the boilers, located directly under this room. The boilers send raw, unfiltered anger up to the Creativity Room via iron pipes. Then, the machinery takes the anger and, according to the program, it will turn the anger into something a bit more useful; a song, a piece of writing, or a life-sized sculpture, carved in butter, of Francis E. Dec.
Fortunately, that thing isn’t here anymore.
Why there is so much anger is a mystery. The source has never been found but, apparently, it appears to be inexhaustible.
Now- If you’ll follow me…watch out there; don’t step on that…ladies, I have no idea what that is, but as you can hear, it is laughing and it will look up your skirt if you are wearing one.
Further down the hall, we have what is known as the “Magic Sword of Pleasure” room, which is full off…weirdness. We won’t open that one.
If we open the door over here, conveniently across the hall from the Sword Room, is the Party Room. As you can see, the place is a mess, and I’m not sure what that horrific smell is…fish?...sour milk?...barn full of diarrheic cows? Oh yes, of course: It’s Id! AVERT YOUR EYES, LADIES. HE’S NOT WEARING PANTS!
ID: We HAVE to go to the COAST!
Doc: Coast? What Coast?
ID: The coast.
Doc: Yes, but WHICH coast?
ID: It doesn’t MATTER! We need to see an Ocean!
Doc: An Ocean?
ID: Yes! Of COURSE! We need to get weird, get into a fast car, and go SEE an OCEAN!
Doc: We are NOT going to go SEE an OCEAN!
ID: YES!
Doc: NO! YOU were the one that got us into this MESS in the FIRST PLACE! YOU were the one who managed to get the WIFE to RUN OFF SCREAMING INTO THE NIGHT after NINE MONTHS OF MARRIAGE! Once she made it clear that she didn’t want to be married to a freak like you and after her brothers got involved to try to FORCE you to go back to her, YOU punch one in the face and tell the OTHER two to FUCK OFF! THAT’S what started this whole drive back across the country! To get AWAY from that MESS! Now, we are stuck in the middle of nowhere, our car is a burnt-out husk, we have NO IDEA where we are going, and we have a bunch of very nice people who would like to carry on with the tour, if you don’t MIND very MUCH, THANK YOU!
ID: But I want to rub up against something and inject vodka into my temple!
Doc: WHY do you SAY things like that? Go back in there! Get drunk, do some downers, whatever you have to do to STAY OUT OF MY WAY!
ID: Asshole!
Doc: Very sorry about that Ladies and Gentlemen. Unfortunately, he is one of the big problems keeping us from living entirely within the boundaries of civilized society.
Now, down here we have various storage rooms, mostly for information; most of it useless unless we somehow get on “Jeopardy!”. In fact, the rooms are so stuffed with useless information there is currently no room for things more important, like passwords and email addresses, all of which are currently sitting here in stacks in the hallway, waiting until there is more room built onto the already existing rooms.
Finally, here we are at the Head Office. If we open the door here, we can meet the owner and operator and the person who occupies this being…
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
There you are!
Well, as you can see, I am sitting on my front porch looking through the car adds. Eventually, a wrecker picked up the wreck and, coincidentally, the police picked ME up, though only to take me to the bus station. I picked up a ticket and went down the street to a bar to wait for the bus.
I decided to head East and go home. I needed to rest and take care of some business.
Obviously.
But soon, I will be back at it. It’s going to take a lot of work, but maybe I will write and record some good music, have some fun playing all over the country, I’ll get married and we’ll stay married and have children and I will become a cripple and write funny stuff for a humor blog.
It’s enough to make you want to rub up against something and shoot vodka into your temple.
Or not.
Probably not.
Comments
Post a Comment