Shoveling it to the public

Dex Rexter: Slinging The Slop

When people talk about relaxing vacations, most people think of Hawaii, Bermuda or Newark. Well America, prepare to add a new destination to that list: Gila Bend, Arizona. That's right! Gila Bend, Arizona. The BilgeBucket staff was on vacation last week at the Space Age Lodge in beautiful downtown Gila Bend and all I can say is, eat your heart out Las Vegas.

We had an auspicious start. All four of us piled into my roomy Geo Prism at 8:00 am and headed to Gila Bend 80 miles away. Beulah mistakenly took some Ex-lax instead of her hormone pills before we left, so we ended up stopping at every gas station between Cactus Corners and Gila Bend. Finally, we reached the Space Age Lodge at 5:00pm. The courteous staff gave us our keys and we made ourselves at home for the week.

Chester Einstein spent his week doing various interesting things. On Monday and Tuesday, he planted himself on a bar stool in the motel's coffee shop and proceeded to regale anyone within earshot of his memories of the good old days and the various jobs he's had over the years. By Wednesday, most of the regular customers were frequenting Morty's Breakfast Nook down the road and the manager asked Chester to kindly not hang around anymore. Feeling a bit bored, Chester had me drop him off at the Interstate 8-Highway 85 interchange and he walked back to the motel tabulating the roadkill along the way. He was very excited when he spotted a coatimundi lying feet skyward next to a road sign. He also gathered up a gila monster, a roadrunner and coyote. He wanted to take the petrified varmints home with him, but fortunately for the rest of us, there wasn't room in the car. He spent most of the rest of the week wandering from convenience store to convenience store, buying Scratcher tickets, drinking coffee and enthralling the locals to tears.

Beulah Snodgrass was highly motivated to get some sun on her calves. She donned her stylish 1925 bathing costume and sat out by the motel's wonderful pool sipping margaritas and making passes at every male in the vicinity. I do mean every male. Even the 60 year old Mexican groundskeeper, who spoke no English and probably hadn't had sex in twenty years. Somehow she managed to lure him into her room. Two minutes later, the man ran out screaming, "Dios Mio! Ayúdeme! Ayúdeme!" Beulah did manage to get some exercise. Wednesday afternoon, she donned her favorite blue dress and her floppy straw hat and went skateboarding with the local youths near the Circle K. However, after a couple of ollies, kick flips and a mind boggling 360, the humbled lads flipped her off and stormed over to the elementary school playground. Beulah was not deterred. She was going to have a good time damn it, and someone would have to pay the piper. She put on her best long red cotton dress, her best pill box hat and her best white high heels and sauntered into the motel restaurant. She surveyed the room and picked out her victim. She strolled up to a 40ish bearded trucker who was dining alone, enjoying his meatloaf and mashed potatoes. When he looked up from his meal she conked the poor sap over the head with her shoe. He slumped forward into his gravy. Beulah paid his bill. She then dragged him back to her room for an evening of passion. About three in the morning, a bloodcurdling scream permeated the air. There was the sound of running cowboy boots in the parking lot followed by a door slam and a rig starting it's engine and hauling ass toward the Interstate. That Beulah! How she has fun!

Gomy Dinkman spent his vacation time well. He parked his caboose in front of the video games in the Space Age Motel's lobby. It didn't matter to Gomy that the video games were 1980's staples, Galaxians and Ms. Pac Man. He played them the whole week stopping only long enough to eat, sleep, and eliminate bodily fluids. At least he got the top ten high scores on both machines. What an absolute waste of neurons and flesh! But he is Beulah's third cousin, seven times removed. Have I mentioned nepotism sucks!

Now I spent my vacation in high style. My plan was to cruise the Highway 85 business loop, looking for the fine felines of Gila Bend. And I'm not talking about cats. I hit the jackpot right off the bat. Juanita Juarez. What a hot tamale she was! It was Monday and she had just gotten off of work at a little restaurant nearby called Taco Heaven where she worked as the senior waitress/angel. When she heard I was the editor of the BilgeBucket Gazette, she nearly jumped out of her size 18 jeans. Juanita tripped my trigger and not just because she smelled like fish tacos. She was easy as Sunday morning! She had dark brown smoldering eyes and luscious, flowing dark hair. I admit the moustache was a bit of a turnoff, but after a while I got used to the tickle. We spent the whole week together. We watched telenovelas on Univision with her parents. We went to the Gila Bend Historical Museum and made out by the Hohokam exhibits. We hung out at the laundrymat and each of us took a spin in the dryer when the manager wasn't looking. Good times! She wanted to come back with me to Cactus Corners but I told her no. Being the girlfriend of a webzine editor was no life for her and she concurred. On Friday we drove into the desert and spent the night together on the hood of my car doing the nasty, counting stars and watching the UFOs dart across the sky.

The staff did manage to take a side trip on Saturday to Dateland, a community off Interstate 8, 50 miles southwest of Gila Bend. Gomy thought it was another kind of date land and that he might actually have contact with a human woman. He was vastly disappointed when it turned out to be just a date farm. He was even more disenchanted when there weren't any video games or computers in sight. He actually had to converse with us. But we managed to avoid this unpleasantness by gorging ourselves on dates, drinking refreshing date shakes, and admiring the beautiful desert palms. Chester indulged us for the umptininth time about the time during World War II when he served as cannon fodder out on the nearby gunnery range. Then it was time to head back to Gila Bend. Our stress relieving week was about to end. So I told every one to stay in their room and I went over to Juanita's for one last quickie. Then it was back to the reality of running a big city webzine.

We set out at 8:00am Sunday morning for the 80 mile ride back to Phoenix. Unfortunately, Gomy thought Beulah's Ex-lax was chocolate. So we ended up stopping at every gas station or cactus between Gila Bend and Cactus Corners. We finally pulled up to our office in the Cactus Dream strip mall at 5:00pm. I dumped everybody out on the curb and sped home to my studio apartment so I could watch Fox's new show America's Funniest Decapitations; the perfect end to a perfect vacation.