by Welcome Wagon Willy in space #38

I can't believe I spent Christmas Day in the nuthatch. You can't open gifts when you're straitjacketed.

You know how that tsunami rushed in and demolished all them islands in the Indian Ocean last month? It was in all over the TV. Well, one thing the TV didn't say  is that the sight of nekkid mud-wrestlin' womenfolk can rush in through your eyeballs and wash over your brain and demolish it like a tsunami. When that happens, you get a ride to the nuthatch in the red ambulance.

I was down on the shore of the duckpond, staring out over the water and pining over Maudine marrying Marshal and not me. Carl Bailey walked up with some meth he said Arliss gave him to try out, from a batch that Eddie and Arliss had just cooked up. Carl loaded his little glass pipe and handed it to me.

That's when the singing parade showed up.

A bunch of neighbors apparently had been trick-or-treating, only for booze and dope instead of candy. By the time they reached me, Carl, and the meth pipe, every last one of them had gone completely sideways on various intoxicants. By the time they reached the duckpond, they was all stumbling and singing and barking and meowing. Fatty Daddy was carrying a bong and grunting like a gorilla to the tune of O Christmas Tree<, emitting a little puff of pot smoke through his nostrils with each grunt.

That singing, barking, meowing, smoking, grunting parade stumbled right past us and into the duckpond. The pond's a freezing-ass cold place to be on Christmas Eve, I tell you what. I just stood there, eyeballs protruding and jaw agape, as the womenfolk started shimmying all over the place. Oops, I mean shivering.

I heard a spoosh-SPOOSH-spoosh-SPOOSH-spoosh-SPOOSH noise out there in the duckpond. Them twin old ladies that live next door to me was bouncing up and down, like a couple of little wind-up hopping toys in the water. I think they was trying to keep warm, but all their bouncing around did was heat ME up. In fact, I think it might have been what done overheated me.

Fatty Daddy seen Pearline and Earline boinging around in the water too. He pulled a shrimp skewer out of his pocket and started beating on the bong with it. When he got enough people's attention, he hollered, "It's a TIE! I now pronounce twins Pearline and Earline winners of the first annual Tinbox Acres Christmas Eve Wet T-shirt contest!"

That asshole stole my line. And my ladies, right along with it. Again.

None of the other chicks even knew their hooters was being judged. Some wasn't even wearing T-shirts. A few ladies had on hooded sweatshirts and whatnot, so they didn't feel they'd been judged properly.

Next thing I knew, wet women's clothing was flying everywhere and a massive catfight broke out in the duckpond. I thought I was gonna die, standing there watching all them wet, filthy chicks go apeshit like that right in front of me. I didn't die, but I did wind up strapped to a papoose board and riding to the nuthatch in a red ambulance.

I think what finally made me blow a brain gasket was when the catfight evolved into a mud rasslin' match. The ladies got medieval all over each other. They even grabbed fistfuls of mud and smeared it in each other's hair. I never seen anything that glorious in my entire life, and my eyeballs couldn't open wide enough to take it all in.

With my eyeballs bulging to the point to where I was seriously afraid they'd fall out of my head, it happened. I started seeing stars, the world started spinning, and I fell over.The sight of all the womenfolk mud rasslin' in the duckpond on a freezing-ass cold Christmas Eve with all their headlights on at once must have overloaded my central nervous system.

My legs went out from under me and I fell backward with a SPLAT in the dirt, not unlike falling backward into a pool, only instead of a splash, I sent up a POOF of dirt. Then my eyes started blinking uncontrollably and asynchronously, while every muscle in my body jumped and twitched.

Then the red ambulance showed up.

It took all four of the men in white coats to strap me down. By the time they was done, the only parts of me I could twitch effectively was my fingers, toes, and eyelids. The red ambulance took me to the nuthatch for 72 hours observation.

After being observed for 72 hours, the nuthatch staff unstrapped me and turned me loose in the unrestrained inmate section.

In the week and a half I been in here, I have developed deep, long-lasting family-type relationships with my fellow inmates. Jimmy is like my bro, and Kendra is like the little sister I have to look out for. All the guys in here want Kendra, and it's all I can do to monitor what goes into and comes out of her panties, I swear. Little sis certainly is a handful, and I'm grateful for my bro Jimmy's help in that department.  Ol' Doc is like a father to me, and Nurse Eva won't stop mothering me.

I even found my doppelganger in here. I'm serious. Albert and I look exactly alike, we dress the same, we walk alike, have the same mannerisms, the whole enchilada. The only reason the other inmates can tell us apart is Albert has a Scottish accent and he's missing some fingers. Albert blowed them fingers off back when he was a bomb technician.

Me and Albert sit together on smoke breaks. We lean down at the same time and light our cigarettes together from the same flame on Nurse Eva's lighter. Like Mom, Nurse Eva can tell me and Albert apart, even when we're sitting on our hands and not saying nothing.

Doc says I should be released any day now, just as soon as the state quits footing my bill. Doc jokes around like that. I know I'm going to be graduating soon because I've eaten everything on my plate at every meal for the last three days, and they grade you on that in here, you know. I know I've made straight-A's for three straight days, and for that they have to let you graduate and go home.

I sure am going to miss my new family here in the nuthatch. But we've all promised to keep in contact with each other and get together on holidays and whatnot, so it's all good.

Besides, my nuthatch family (Jimmy, Kendra, Albert, even Doc and Nurse Eva) are always welcome to come live in my trailer if they ever get turned loose.  

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