Spank That Pudding

Fictionus Maximus

Steve: "Sixty eight dollars? Sixty eight ferking dollars to fill my gas tank?!" I hollered at the pump attendant. I knew it wasn't his fault, nor did he care about my plight. I was just venting because I was still pissed that I got my toe caught in the...
Shirl: custom dual chrome-tipped exhaust pipes on my hot muscle car. I was only trying to wipe out the carbon collecting in them without getting my hands dirty. Man...you'd think I was paying for the gas fumes too.
Steve: "No problem, sir," the attendant jovially acceded. "Here, I'll get that for you." From his back pocket he pulled a Swiss Army knife. Then the real trouble began.
Shirl: As he was sawing away at my big toe, I kept munching on my potato chips, when all of a sudden, he got through the thick callous, and I screamed, "Ok, thats enough!". And just like the princess with the glass slipper, out slipped my friggin' big toe.
Steve: "Good news for you!" my benevolent attendant exclaimed. "Tuesdays all customers get their toes half off!" I wasn't amused. I pulled out my credit card and stuck it in...
Shirl: between my toes to scrape off the black carbon wedged therein. The thick black sooty chemical had penetrated my toe nail. I wanted a refund of my half off. "Oh bother", I thought. I passed the attendant the carbon laden credit card and told him he could....
Steve: "use it to make DIAMONDS if he squeezed it between his BUTT CHEEKS hard enough!" Then I relented. I apologized to the young man, for I knew he was just trying to make a living. And after all, his parents raised me from the age of two. I always knew this brother of mine was not pasted together correctly, but once again I had to cut him some slack. I was already diabetic. I didn't need lack-toes intolerance too.
Shirl: Speaking of lack-toes, he came this close to removing my toe //. The lackey! I motioned for him to speed it up, by snapping my now blackened fingers together, and demanded free coffee.
Steve: He balked. "Steve, you're always so demanding....hhhh.... Take this token and go to the next window for your stupid-ass coffee. Mom will hate you for that caffeine thing, you know..."
Shirl: "Man I hate it when my bro scolds me like that!" I thought of a plan to retaliate...
Steve: With a gasoline nozzle in one hand and a Diesel in the other, I charged the cashier's booth. Then I remembered he had the charge card.
Shirl: He saw me coming and grabbed a tire and swung it up over and down my shoulders, capturing me by pinning my arms to my sides. Our nozzle hoses are longer than most and now I know why, dammit. He always seemed to be 'one up' on me. Just then a beautiful blonde girl drove up in a Bentley. Did I feel stupid or what? She smiled at me and asked me if I was in a contest to pump gas while I was handicapped. My face turned red.
Steve: "No," I calmly stated. "You are the first to notice. Congratulations. You will be on the first episode of our new reality show, Dumbasses at Gas Stations. Unimpressed, she uttered a muffled "whatever" and pulled away as her chauffeur tittered, leaving me in the embarrassing predicament. "Screw these rich assholes," I mused.
Shirl: I decided to leave the situation and squirmed and wriggled out of the tire. Red-faced and black-toed, I slithered into the seat of my car and vamoosed out of there. I drove to my buddy's place, a biker with degreaser, not only for his hair and motorcycle but for my toe too. We decided to have a smoke and "shoot the shit." We reminisced about the old days, and of one particular episode....
Steve: I was waiting for him to bring it up. I knew it would eventually be discussed again. The 'weed eater' incident of 1987. Lyle had unresolved issues with that one.
Shirl: It was a hash brownie event like no other. The three of us had combined our hash and marijuana, and baked a pound of brownies. The odor as it was baking was enough to hallucinate on. We purchased a case of beer, and took the pan of brownies out to our special place down by the river and...
Steve: Lyle had that goddamned fit of guilt like he always did whenever we were about to party and try to have just a little bit of fun. Threw the pan into the river. I was still waiting for him to broach the subject. If he wouldn't, I would. I was still pissed about that too. I paid for that hash.
Shirl: Lyle never had any money. You can't get blood out of a stone, I thought to myself. Hey Hogi, where is Lyle these days, out of prison yet?, I asked. I only asked on the remote chance that I might get back some money. Hogi took a puff on his cigarette and pointed to the freezer. I walked over and looked in. To my surprise, there was literally some cold hard cash inside. I wondered....
Steve: "Is that really Johnny Cash's corpse?" I turned back and looked at Hogi. He was pretending to watch 'Jeopardy'. There was no TV in the house.
Shirl: "Nah", he replied, "just some uneviscerated turkey buzzards. Good old Lyle is on the lam and his stolen money is stored here, ya want some?" I couldn't believe my good fortune. I stuffed my shirt with some bills that were frozen together with turkey buzzard feathers on them. The coolness of them made me shiver. I felt like turkey under glass, whatever that is.
Steve: I watched Hogi and waited. As he nodded off during the final Jeopardy answer, I made my move. Exiting through the south attic cupola to avoid detection, I gracefully tripped and fell onto the neighbor's compost pile, which to my chagrin, contained a pitchfork. At the other end of said implement was the grip of one surprised six foot four inch African-American can o' whoop-ass.
Shirl: His breath was overpowering as he maneuvered around my legs which had embraced his neck in my fall.

"WTF!," he bellowed. I scrambled to remove my legs lest they be crushed or get pricked by the garden implement now coming my way. "I'm sorry sir, please take this 100 dollars as my apology," I said as I backed away.

Steve: "OK," he chuckled as he tucked the bill in his shirt. "Hell, I get two or three of you guys a week. But you're the first to offer me compensation." I sensed he knew something about Hogi's frozen stash.
Shirl: I nodded politely, then scurried off, glancing over my shoulders as feathers flew out from my shirt. A bird in flight i thought. Damn. I jumped into my car and drove back to the gas station. Something told me that wasn't the last I'd see of that guy. I took out a cig and played with my toe. As I sat in my car at the lot of the station, a shadow cast over me and I looked up. It was Lyle. He was wearing a Salvation Army uniform and had a basket held out.

Steve: "Look Steve," he said with a lowly hung head, "I've finally decided to repay you for that river hash thing. I'm collecting this money under the guise of charity, but all the proceeds will go to you until I get the full six hundred dollars." Needless to say, I was dumbfounded. I grabbed the basket. There was a $20, a $50, and miscellaneous $1 bills. I snapped, "That'll do, Lyle!" and sped off.
Shirl: He yelled back at me, "Don't leave, I have more to say". I didn't want to hear it, and dismissed him. I saw the blonde in the Bentley drive by, so I decided to follow her. With potato chip bag in one hand, the other on the wheel, I drove into rush hour traffic with her tail lights within a few cars lengths ahead. My hands were greasy from the chips and the wheel slipped going around a corner. I drove up over the curb, over a grassy knoll, slammed over another curb and onto the road again, back into the flow of traffic only to find I was now in front of her.
Steve: The glare of her headlights blinded me, even though I had no rear view mirror and it was noon. Somehow I knew my tail lights would have an effect on her too. I tapped out Morse code on my brake pedal, spelling "want to visit my web site? Go to "http://herbutsmelz.blogspot.com" Then I realized I didn't know how to tap out the forward slash in Morse Code. Besides, it was wordy and distracting to other drivers, and just plain unsafe.
Shirl: She pulled up along side my car and winked at me. I was fixated by her beauty. She rolled down her power window and said, "Meet me at the Tanning Salon in the next block." Could I be dreaming? I wiped the grease and chip crumbs off my lips, and looked down at my festering toe and winced.
Steve: How did she know? How? I thought my fetish for ultraviolet light was a closely guarded secret. Strange girls in Bentleys that want to tan with me. Now that's an afternoon I can deal with. "I hope she likes tater chips and salsa in the booth", I said unconsciously.
Shirl: I recalled a movie with Clint Eastwood in which he says, "I kinda like tater tots". I laughed. I was Clint Eastwood, she was Suzanne Somers (or your choice here). Actually more like Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow. The anticipation was more than I could contain, I thought I was going to piss my pants. My mouth salivated.
Steve: I wasn't ready for the receptionist at the front desk in the tanning salon. Short, swarthy, and smelling of potpourri, she introduced herself.
Shirl: "Well hello there young man, my name is Heidi. Would you like to come upstairs?" I looked around, and wondered where the blonde had gone. "What's upstairs?", I quizzed her. She batted her eyelashes, "Oh, you'll find out".
Steve: I spun around and scanned the parking lot. The Bentley blonde was gone. My boner wilted. "All right then," I shrugged. I opted to follow this shrunken odoriferous troll upstairs to see what the mystery was.
Shirl: We started up a dark narrow passageway of creaking wooden steps. There was a door at the top and she took out a key and opened it. To my surprise, there....
Steve: was a room filled with nothing but inflated Orson Welles dolls, all anatomically correct. I turned to the woman with a jerk. "What the hell is this all about?" I queried. Her eyes flashed and she gave me a puzzled look. "You don't know?" she said. "I have a long list of prominent local folks who come here regularly. If you don't understand, then get out!"
Shirl: I decided to take an in-depth look. I swaggered in as if knowing what she meant. I found some lyrics penned by Jim Morrison that one of the dolls had been reading (if it had had its eyeglasses on). "Do you know we are being led to slaughter by placid admirals...& that fat slow generals are getting obscene on young blood...Do you know we are ruled by T.V.?" I scratched my head and looked further, finding a....
Steve: copy of 'Citizen Kane' on Beta format, tucked in the cleavage of one of the dolls. I looked at the back cover. In fine print at the bottom, it read...
Shirl: "the gods have predicted that the swines of the earth shall inherit the mud."
Steve: With the revelation that I now had the wisdom of the ages at my disposal, I thanked the woman, whose name had escaped me. "It's HEIDI, ya freak!!," she rasped, "and that will be $73.00."
Shirl: I decided to high-tail it outa that joint and look for my old pal Gumba, he would have the answers i was looking for from birth.

Steve: Johnny Cash's corpse, offended and compelled by the heathenous light, arose and spoke. "YOU... GUMBA!!" Gumba arose from his quieted postion.
Shirl: His sequined jacket glistened in the moonlight and the perky handkerchief protruding from the pocket offered no menacing act, only a titter of folly could be discerned from this act of fictional comboobatry he thought. His cold clammy hands clenched themselves around Cash's death ridden neck as he winced out a pinch...
Steve: "I walked the line for you," Johnny's disembodied voice intoned, "yet you had no respect. Beloved faith in June, Carter, and all the months of the year and former presidents passed you by. I fear that the lord will have no mercy on your soul." And with that, Gumba was laid to the hereafter by his mighty hand.
Shirl: I decided to look for the girl in the Bentley one last time. I started back towards the gas station where it all began. My toe was taking on a greenish mushroom color. There she was, shaaaawing! I was 'bent' on the girl in the Bentley and there she was at the pawnshop. I sauntered over and knocked on her now open passenger window and she recoiled "knock on wood?" as my knuckles wrapped on her noggin.
Steve: "Jeez," I said sheepishly. "I knew you reminded me of my kid sister." I never had one, but I always knew that..... Then I gazed into her eyes. She was hiding something. Obviously it was...


Shirl:... a man dressed in drag. I wondered aloud as I thought about my friend Steve's beliefs, those being, "Don't get me started. All men have queer thoughts, just like all women have the same." So i decided to hump him anyways. That Bentley was soon giving its suspension system a workout. I digress. I wanted the car more than him/her. Too late, off they sped without me.