The land of flat and plenty

So.

We were sailing across the mirror-smooth ocean that is Kansas. I remember saying to Aaron that "this is the closest that I've ever been to the sky." The clouds seemed to be within reach - there was not a single vertical distraction to put the sky into context.

Aaron and I were on our way to see Monte in Tennessee, via Boulder, Colorado. Via I-80.

One enters Kansas from east Colorado, and you know immediately that you have entered the "low country". The signs help: "Pull over to see the world's largest prairie dog!", "One night only - the fistulated cow!", "You think your ball of twine is big - check this shit out!", "Remember that thing that you thought you saw on the highway, then decided that you were high and just let it go? -- we have the world's only female!!"

As near as I can figure, Kansas is approximately 400 miles of desperate one-upmanship.

Aaron and I were cool, man. We had our half-ounce of bud hidden in a Crybaby Wah-wah pedal. Oh yeah. The cops would never look there, man. The dogs would never sniff there, man. It would be totally invisible, seeing as we didn't also carry a guitar, man. Yeah, we were cool.

I was able to take about 5 minutes of Kansas before I told Aaron "Open up that wah, and let's get us high!"

Dude rolled a wrist-thick joint, I tell you. Then he put "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" on the CD player. I had never heard this album before, but kept promising myself that I would, one day.

That day was now. Err, then.

One can drive pretty fast in Kansas. Even when one drives a Festiva. The terminally stagnant, flat "landscape" sped past our windows as we accelerated from giddy, to high, to baked, to balls-out stupid. Eyes quarter-mast, we grooved to the Clapton and Waters. Something deep was happening - the music entered my soul.

On the other hand, I have not listened to that album in 10 years, and I don't remember a damn thing about it. But I digress.

I think that it was cotton-mouth, what made us stop. We needed something to drink. Luckily, before we lost the ability to read, Aaron noticed a sign that read something to the effect of "Historical site - all the brass replicas of shit that wasn't actually in the Civil War and that you've never heard of, anyway." It seemed as good a place to stop as any in the Star-Trek extras and locations that is anywhere, Kansas.

"Dude, heh. Let's pull over here. Heh...uhhh."
"Hunh? What? Heh."

Yup. That's as concrete a decision as one can expect from two guys who are balls-out, stupid high.

Imagine a Viking long-house. Now populate this house with brass knicknacks. Rows of them. Stories of them. Dewey-decimal-'s of them. Let's now zoom to the visual abuse that is the bathroom gauntlet. Let's follow KOM as he snickers and weaves, trying to find the restroom. Slowly, he has found the trail. He opens a door and finds the urinal. KOM shuts the door behind him, and expects the next few seconds to be non-eventful, at best. Non-intrusive at least.

Halfway through the oh-so-sweet, liberating pee, he came. I don't know how y'all grow your boys in Kansas, but he was 12 if he was 80. Kid had a squeegee and he leapt into the room like a fucking circus midget and screamed "Whatamayayafolrumstiolskin!"

I screamed myself, and turning while still pissing said something like "Whatthefuckdidyoujustaaahhhwhatareyoutryingtodo?!!"

Crazy frog-boy promptly back-leg leapt to the counter top and squeegee'd my piss off of the "looking glass". Eyes wide like an Anglican grotesque, he perched on the faucet and waited for me to make a move. I tried to head-fake a couple of times, but it was to no use. I finally ran screaming from the bathroom like a banshee, knocking over any pregnant woman and brass civil-war chess set that was in my way.

Aaron had just about fueled up the Festiva.

To this day, I have never smoked grass in Kansas again. I have never stopped in Kansas again. I have never been in Kansas again. Fucking X-files, man. I'm shivering as I write this. Crazy shit, man. Crazy shit.