Trippin' in the Woods
Holy crap! What a day I had yesterday. Well, I think it was
yesterday. My mind is still fuzzy, my stomach is queasy, and I have an
odd metallic taste in my mouth.
What was it? Two days ago it rained heavy, and I stayed in the house
and watched reruns of "I Love Lucy." It was a crummy day because I
couldn't get out of the house.
The next morning I got up early and went to the woods. The sun was out and the moist air felt so good. I was exhilarated. I decided to take the long trail through the meadow. Spring plants were coming up everywhere.
A ways down the trail was one of my favorite pooping spots because the elks use it and stir up the ground. After taking care of business, I noticed that some bright mushrooms had come up nearby. They had a reddish tinge, and they smelled good. So I ate them. (I'm not one to forgo forest delicacies.)
After walking further down the trail, I noticed that everything I saw had a shimmer to it. Colors were more intense, and the sky had changed to an iridescent magenta. What the heck? I walked on. The ground started moving, and the pine trees were swaying back and forth. My legs were wobbly, and I started hearing some strange sounds, like the trees were singing. Yes, they were singing Roy Orbison's Ooby Dooby:
♫ Well you wiggle to the left, you wiggle to the right
You do the ooby-dooby with all of your might
Ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby
Ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, dooby-do-wah-do-wah-do-wah ♫
OK, I said. I did eat some five-day old fish yesterday. That must be it. But things kept getting stranger. I looked up at the sky and saw Santa Claus in his sled with reindeer. They were plummeting to the ground. All of a sudden the reindeer disappeared and Santa Claus crashed right in front of me. He was totally dead and a bloody mess.
I started thinking, Who was Mona Lisa? Who was Mona Lisa? A mountain biker happened to ride by. I attacked him and took his cell phone. He ran away screaming. Why, I do not know.
Zoe: "Hello 911? This is an emergency. Santa Claus is dead."
911 Operator: "Ma'am? What are you talking about?"
Zoe: "He's dead as a door nail. I just saw it. Send an ambulance."
911 Operator. "Ma'am, you could get arrested for making a crank call."
Zoe: "No! No! He's dead. Send a paramedic or an undertaker."
911 Operator: "I'm calling the police. Your ass is grass."
Zoe: "Send 'em. Oh, no, an alien space ship has landed. Call whoever deals with aliens."
I threw down the cell phone and ran. Everything had a neon glow to it and was humming. The space ship disappeared, but up ahead was an ice cream stand with a little chipmunk wearing a white baseball cap. "Care for a tutti-frutti?" he said. "Eeeow!" I screamed and kept running. My heart was pounding. Everything was a blur.
Then, all of a sudden, everything stopped. I was in slow motion. I sat under a ponderosa pine. The humming and day-glow colors disappeared. Everything was peaceful. I smiled. I ate a few blades of grass. Then I transformed. Zoe was no more. I rose like a biscuit on a hot plate. A great calm embraced me, and I started laughing. "Ah, yes!" I said. "I am home. There is no me or you, just us." I looked around. I saw everything, and I was everything. "How simple it really is," I said. "Why didn't I see this before?"
Then I heard a high pitched noise. The next thing I knew I was pawcuffed in a police car. I rocked and rolled. I shimmied and shaked. I barfed. I lost consciousness.
I woke up in a jail cell smelling of urine. I wasn't alone. There was a big, mangy Rez dog peeing into the drain at the center of the floor. He mumbled something about his name was Hok'ee. My Navajo is a bit rusty, but I think that word means abandoned. So maybe he was trying to tell me his situation rather than his name.
There was another dog up against the wall talking to himself and swaying back and forth. I was in a daze. It seemed like forever, but finally my roommate Richard appeared. He bailed me out and drove me home. We didn’t talk at all that evening.
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
~ George Carlin