Gandhi #5: Detrimental

Almost Comatose
by Gandhi Mangler


August's longest foray outside the house was spent writing notes for this article. It's not so odd, thinking as you may be, if I were Ralph Waldo Emerson and his Walden. Of course that is not the case. I was at a self-proclaimed "amusement park" in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It's a land between two large sets of mountains and so surely, I thought, there would be some "mountain people." Fate did not disappoint.

Nevermind how I was tricked into becoming another faceless patron of the park whose theme is permanent county fair rides. That's a secret that will be kept until I get revenge. What is important is what I learned and what I learned is very important.

I had no intention of riding any of the rides and I didn't. I needed to kill time. But how? Though I thought I could sit on a bench for hours staring up into the branches of two trees, I couldn't continuously do it for more than thirty minutes. Nature is too dull for my picture-tube-drugged mind. I need to see things move.

Nothing moves better than Granny Alzheimer. (Purses and keys have been lost forever in her house. She moves things into secret places better than anyone I know.) Sporting her pink t-shirt with teddy bear and the words "granny's bunch," brown unisex pants, and prescription old fogey sunglasses, Granny Alzheimer still only weighs eighty pounds. But she's hours of fun. The simplest question, such as "How old are you?", can turn into twenty minutes of entertainment. Sometimes she's the one asking questions. "Who is that?" Granny asked me while pointing a finger toward the boy raiding the cooler. I replied, "your grandson." Her facial expression was the quintessence of astonishment, but maybe that's because he is actually her great-grandson.

The problem with doing this for long periods of time is that it is the same joke: Grandma can't remember anything, ha ha. It gets old. Besides, my mom led her away from the picnic table to go sit around on the park benches located near each ride. The reason escapes me, but I surmise that few things in life are better than walking and sitting in the sun at noon on the hottest day of the year without u.v. protection. So I was alone at the table with paper and pen observing the rural Appalachian folk who came to take advantage of the one-dollar-admission attendance-padding day.

Immediately I spotted an old fat man on a bench who had the biggest pit stains that I've ever seen. It wasn't wise of him to wear blue jeans in this 100-degree-indexed heat. Later his family came to sit with him. All of them--including the female--could easily be named "Cletus."

Time passes in rigid fashion. The back of my hand glistens with sweat despite my presence in the shade. After drinking forty ounces of various liquid substances, I realize that I will have to "hold it" for several hours more to avoid using the park's restrooms. Later, I realize that I forgot to wash my naval in the shower that morning. It is particularly bad news because some of the previous night's spooge crept into it. Overall, my situation was like the plot of every Daria cartoon, except I didn't eventually conform to what my peers were doing.

Around 1:30, I find a spider on my neck but it's small. A few seconds later, I spot an enormous lady with a hospital cane and a "Jesus is Life" t-shirt hobbling toward the restroom. I estimated that it's a thirty-yard distance, right after wondering if Jesus is slang for "donut." Instead of God's House, she has been worshipping at the House of Pancakes. Two-to-one odds are that she has been to one of those Benny Hinn healing preacher shows. "This behemoth has been healed! Praise Jesus!" Oh really? Did Jesus convert the five-hundred pounds of fat into water weight and all that's left is for her to piss away the weight?

She stayed in the restroom for fifteen minutes, so it was probably only a false alarm. On her return trip, she had to stop at a park bench situated at the halfway mark from the pavilion. She eventually got back there to sit inside with her humongous family. Even the young children were immense. A few hours later, they packed their belongings and left. She rode on the park's courtesy golf cart.

Observing mountain people for hours has bad consequences. They are, after all, the same people who don't buy napkins because "we gots a hand." So even if the girl at mini-golf stand accepted my offer ("Do you want to have sex?"), I probably wouldn't have been able to get it up.

Lessons around which hilarious paragraphs would be formed if I were diligent (and if my eyes didn't hurt):
1. Humpbacks are people too. I saw a hunchback. He seemed friendly. He's okay. We're okay. Humpbacks don't quite rock, but they're people too.
2. When I'm alone, I like to say "Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis." It's fun. I swear.
3. When two young teenage boys walk around together like they're joined at the hip, they're not necessarily homosexuals. They're just afraid of girls because girls are scary. They'll get over it (maybe).
4. Self-imposed quarantine is the only sane way to live.
5. To keep bees away from you, sit at one end of the table. Spill a bit of soda on the table. Move to the opposite end of the table for the rest of the picnic.

Most important, however, is this: Potent drugs are necessary and sometimes mandatory. I, for the first time in my life, wished I had some drugs. The phrase "bored out of my fucking skull" makes complete sense to me. Drugs are good, very good. That is what I learned from my trip to the amusement park.

Postscript: For many weeks, I promised this article would be completed "soon." Due to the intimidating size of my notes--all three pages-- I procrastinated. I finally began to cohere the raw material while my family was at a picnic without me. Hey, if I want bad conversation and worse food, I'd take my mom to McDonald's for her birthday.



"Any episode of TV Funhouse is a hundred times better than this amusement park." - Gandhi Mangler

"I went barefoot like Tom Sawyer for ten entire days. Is that unusual for a twenty-year-old boy?" - Gandhi Mangler