Falling asleep and waking to the slow realization you are lying in a field of dog poops. It comes to you gradually because everyone of us thinks someone else is responsible for the off-odored air. Then it occurs to us we are resting in a sacred dog poop battlefield. Like a platoon of enlisted men trying to navigate their way out of a minefield we slowly make our way through dry and dusty almost decayed-back-to-soil past a pile of still-steaming my owner was a Great Dane the size of Denmark and ending up on pavement. 128 degrees hot but at least not smelly, pavement.
We’ve stopped because our driver is exhausted from 6 days of music festival food selling. Six days with maybe 2 hours of sleep in any 24 hour period. So we wait wondering if we are here forever or not. Forever would be hard because none of us has more than one pair of clean socks left and the tan lines we are all so proud of are really 6 days of hot Lower Peninsula Michigan dirt. Dirt so fine and dusty you could grow a 2 foot carrot in it. Not really, I think the carrot would probably say “too dang hot, I’m staying inside this seed shell where it’s air-conditioned.”
Forever would be hard because we stink. Not just stink. Stink that stanks. Stanky stink. The dog poops would probably have left if we didn’t. We’ve been camping with and selling food to a gazillion kids whose only purpose over the past 6 days was to get really stinky. They got the good stinky we got the bad. My head hurts, my feet stink and I don’t love Jesus. Well whether or not I love Jesus will have to wait for another day but I’m here to tell you there is stink. He who is without stink shall inherit something righteous. That ain’t going to be me. I stink.
Tried on day 5 to shave and shower. The shower had a mile long line so I settled for a shave. Next time I’d like to try it with a sharp razor, hot water and not sharing a bathroom built for 6 if there was a 3:2 ratio of guys going No.1 to guys taking a good healthy No.2. Wait, that would mean there was only room for 5 people. Well I’m counting the guy at the sink shaving (which would be me) with 25 guys watching. Shaving with a dull razor in front of 25 guys is like trying to start peeing in front of 25 guys. (It really is an organ with a mind of its‘ own). And it’s not like you can decide half through to say to hell with it and walk out. This horror movie has to be completed. Because let’s face it walking around with a half shaved face is really weird. Lock ‘em up weird. So I finish and make my way back to HQ dripping blood but relatively free of facial hair.
HQ is a combination of food trailer-concession stand-tent grove. Surrounded by a fence that after 3 days suddenly has a multitude of bras hanging from its’ chain-links. Shed as just one more layer of unneeded keep your body overheated clothing. The first to go when the temperature gets to the point at which even bacteria aren’t feeling frisky.
Saw my first painted boobie the evening of Day 2. I sort of wish I hadn’t. Things had started moving south for this woman and it wasn’t pretty. And it makes it hard for a guy who hands out burritos for a living. Maintaining eye contact is tough enough when there is a woman standing in front of you. It becomes a workout when she is not wearing anything over her upper body other than a thin layer of Benjamin Moore. A conversation between the brain and the eyes grows heated until one or the other wins out. You don’t want to get caught copping a look. I was good though, kept my eyes right where any decent gentleman keeps them. On the bug crawling across the tent ceiling.
The morning of day 6 is fun. It’s time to pack up and get the hell out. It’s the final morning and you see 50 year old men walking across the festival grounds heads down totally dejected because they have come to the realization they just spent the last week not getting laid. 4000 women, most all of whom have enough drugs flowing through their bodies they couldn’t name the third planet from the sun and you didn’t get any. Or the dazed look of the twenty-sumpin’s who did get lucky and now are wondering if it is okay to just drive away while what’s her name is in the Sunoco bathroom. What is her name anyway? Man I should have paid closer attention when that was being discussed. Yeah, it’s time to go home.
Or at least to a rest area somewhere between Rothbury, Michigan and the Green Mountain State. A rest area where we could walk our dog if we had one.
Love you all. Peace. Peter
No comments:
Post a Comment