Make America Functional Again
Make America Functional Again
Sheep droppings from the loneliest road in the land of hucksters and diabetics.
(Girly upspeak voice) Hi, thanks for calling Hucksters Inc. Just say what you’re calling about. For example, if you’re calling about your—
Customer service agent!
I’m sorry. Did I hear you right? Did you say that you are calling about custom service prices?
Human-Agent! Bitch!
I’m sorry. Did I hear you right? Did you say that you are calling about management plans?
Pump n’ Smack
The girl behind the counter wishes she had a boyfriend with a Harley. The way she’s ogling the tattooed bikers who just strutted in, she’s gonna need a shammy at her feet.
She’s young and restless, trapped ringing up diabetics at the top of a hill in the middle of a desert, inside an airconditioned pump n’ smack in get-me-outta-here Nevada.
Pump your gas—fill your tank. Grab your junk smack—fill your waistline.
There isn’t a healthy choice for food within two hundred miles and we’re all out of fruit, nuts, and protein bars. I grab some peppered Jerky cured in Montana. It looks edible and maybe even a rare find. I trust things from Montana.
She looks at the Jerky, and then the T-Shirt I drop on the counter. Army green with black font: “I Survived The Loneliest Road In America.” I’m a sucker for impulse memento buys in unusual places.
We’re just starting on Highway 50 so technically I haven’t survived it yet. The shirts are for those coming up from Vegas with empty pockets.
“The baby blue ones are 20% off,” she timidly tells me while still eyeing the leathered-up rough riders.
The way she says blue, holding the u and e as if humming a tune sounds like she ran away from somewhere in the south.
I shake my head side-to-side. I don’t want to think of her escape, of a potential coming transformation, a rotten stereotype, but it’s the future I see based on her awe for the bikers.
After too much time in Portland surrounded by green-haired gender-indeterminate goblins of groomer lagoon, she’s the first attractive female I’ve seen since passing through LAX a month earlier.
She’s still young and fresh, but once she cracks the escape code to get back at her Daddy, her arms will be filled with dermal maladies they call art, and everything innocent and beautiful about her will be sacrificed for her revenge plot.
What the hell brings us to Nowhereville, Nevada?
“No Problem!”
Some hucksters in the “moving business” have ruined our national parks tour. And some asshole name Mark or Marek or Marcel, a “transport manager” in Seattle who says “no problem” to everything really should be locked in a freezer truck for a week.
“We have all your teeengs in Arizona in two days no problem—no problem.”
“But we were told 7-8 days at the soonest and we planned a trip.”
“No-no. Two days no problem. It goes direct. You will be there yes?”
“But we have a road trip planned for six days Marek, and you want us there in two days?”
“Yes, two days, no problem. No problem. You be there, yes or no?”
We haven’t made any reservations yet for hotels or homes.
“Okay, fine. We’ll be there.”
The entire exotic tour of national parks gets tossed on Marek's deception. No Bryce Canyon. No Monument Valley. No Grand Canyon. No Flagstaff or Sedona.
The F1 route has been called up, but Marcel, or whatever he's called is just another huckster in a long line of them in the “moving business.”