Laughing at the wrong time

This is a very stupid story.

For you.

There I was doing a poo.

I got the signal and as I told my doctor that means get up and go right now! Do not tarry. Don't sit there thinking, "Is this really a true signal?" No. Don't think that. Get up and go. Best to error on the side of safety because here's the thing. It takes me so long to get up and go there is no time at all to waste on thinking. It takes time to convince the various body parts to cooperate into coordinated movement.

All those words starting with "co" don't come easily.

And it usually goes very quickly. There is no time to read anything.

The reading material is practically useless.

Still, there is a stack of Arizona Highways magazines that haven't been read.

These are the magazines Joe bought me.

He bought all his friends subscriptions to Sunset magazine and none of us appreciate those. We talk about Joe subscribing the maginze for us and we talk about not reading them. They're all about piss-elegant crap we don't care about. They're for young hipsters. Not us. We don't do the things the magazine suggests.

I told this to Joe and he said, "I thought you might like the recipes."

But the recipes are all crap. They're all hipster conceits with hipster ingredients like grains that nobody sensible uses and specialized olive oils and such. And they involve techniques that hipsters think of, things that are weird, things with already established techniques worked out over time, but Sunset cooks prefer their own silly shortcuts. All the recipes I read are veritably useless.

Except for a few.

So I told Joe the Arizona Highways magazine at a Breckenridge home that was used quite a lot for skiing condo had a stack of Arizona Highways magazines that were thoroughly read by everyone. There were other stacks of other magazines, but the Arizona Highways were the most interesting. It was a bit surprising because, come on ... Highways? Turns out to be a renowned photography magazine. It's not actually about highways.

Other states try to copy them but fall short. I don't understand this. Colorado has 5280 Magazine and it's just not the same. It doesn't have the same panache. It lacks the same status. It lacks history and it lacks famous photographers. It lacks the intensity of acute focus.

So instead of Arizona Highways magazine replacing Sunset magazine as I had intended, now I receive two subscriptions. But now Joe is dead so maybe they'll stop.

And maybe Joe paid in advance.

So now I'm in the bathroom called there by faint signal but interpreted as urgent.

We get a bit wiser as we get a bit older. It's experience that does that.

I'm ashamed to admit this but for the longest time I made no connection between the things that I ate and the things that I pooped.

I pick up a magazine, an old one, July 2018, and open it to Arizona's ULTIMATE Road Trip.

The article begins with this map that goes around the whole state.

I read all the words and look at all the little pictures.

It's got Monument Valley and Grand Canyon south rim. 

Flagstaff, Prescott and Phoenix. 

Ajo. Come on. That means "garlic." A place called Garlic?

Tuscon. I was there one time. Holdover from Shreveport to Denver.

Nogales. That means "walnuts." 

Chiricahua National Monument. Chiricahua is Apache Indian. 

Then Hannagan Meadow depicted by deer. I recalled an earlier drawing similar to these deer and I cracked up laughing all over again. 

Right as poop was coming out of my butt.

Laughing and pooping do not go together. 

But there I am pooping and laughing my ass off. 

Then that becomes funny and I cannot stop it. 

I laugh and laugh and laugh and poop and poop and poop.

Dear Psychiatrist, I'm losing it.

But that presumes I had it to lose.

Nobody sensible laughs while they're pooping so that means I'm just not sensible. 

But come on this drawing is hilarious. 

The cops are asking the guy to draw the accident. They're expecting something schematic, something like a map. But instead the guy draws what he sees. He draws the windshield, the dashboard, the stuff inside the vehicle and the deer on the road that he saw when they collided. It's the stupidest f'k'n deer with the look of alarm with the realization it's about to be hit by a car. 

That's the drawing the guy put on the police report. 

And I die laughing all over again. Poop. 

Poop.  Poop. 

These things don't go together.

And I can't stop laughing at that.

See? The deer are similar.

Incidentally, the Arizona Highways article is very good with outstanding photography.

It blows my mind.

These are my quick photographs of their careful photographs. The originals are much better than these.

Part 1: The Borderlands
Day 1: Squeegees, UFOs and a mining town

Q: Favorite hotel/lodge?
A: Hacienda Corona de Guevavi, Nogales

Day 2: A glorious stretch of nothing and no one.

Day 3: A stagecoach on a side street and a harlot on a Harley 

Q: What snack did you keep in the car?

A Lightly salted almonds, apples, oranges, pecan bars from Gathering Grounds in Patagonia, Barbaras's Morning Oat Crunch cereal, Clif Builder's protein bars and Luna bars.

What? No Cheetos? No potato chips? No Coca Cola?

Part 2: Into the High Country

Day 4: Bales of cotton and coconut-milk macchiato

Q: Did you ever think Boy, it sure would be nice to have a C.B. right now?

A: Maybe at Sardine Saddle, between Morenci and Hannagan Meadow. We were really ready to get off the road and we didn't have any service, as I remember.

Day 5: Phytosaurs wrestle next to a tropical swamp.

Q: Did you see any wildlife?

A: Elk, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, coyotes, coatis, ringtails, sandhill cranes, a dead mountain lion, ravens, assorted lizards and red-tailed hawks

Part 3: The Navajo Nation

Days 6 & 7: Chicken fajitas and restocking our fruit cache 

Day 8: A sacred landscape of rocks

Days 9 & 10: Everything looks like a condor

Q: What music did you listen to?

A: I hate to say it, but we listened to a lot of talk radio. As for music, Linda Ronstadt, Heart Like a Wheel, Calexico, Feast of Wire, Buddy Holly, The very Best of Buddy Holly and the Crickets, and Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Part 4: Beyond the Canyon

Day 11: We put Gene and Bob in my backpack

(Gene and Bob died. Their ashes were brought from California to Arizona to be spread around in a spot with the peaks in the distance.)

Day 12: After all the planning ...

Q: Total Miles?

A: 2,107