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Back in the Saddle

by dustin sturges

Well, back in town actually. It’s pretty weird after being away so long. I am having a great time seeing all of the lunatics that one tends to call friends after too long a period in this town.

I was cordially invited to the Wild Utah employee party. That was a “far from sobering” experience. Rumor has it that one of our flock ended up puking all the way down the canyon (much to his designated driver/girlfriend’s chagrin). The Publisher got so drunk that his wife almost went into labor just from the fumes when he finally collapsed into bed. He probably won’t let that one out the door, but just in case, video cassettes of the whole shindig are available at beerbath.com or for $20 at the Wild Utah office.

My articles have always been about what’s going on in my life, so let me fill you in on what’s been going on. I own a house here, and I’ve rented it out. I have been on both sides of this agreement now and let me assure you—you are always better off being the screwer than the screwed.

I have renters straight out of a Stephen King novel. Alright they’re not that bad; but sitting in New Zealand with an overdrawn bank account and an outstanding camping bill with “Willie the mad camp director” is a learning experience. This is like figuring out that there is an exact position one has to assume to get his zipper up safely—very unpleasant.

For the most part though, I still have to assume that people are basically good. The problem is that some have very convenient lapses in conscience. I don’t like to name names or anything, but the pay sucks and if we here at Wild Utah weren’t able to exact merciless bloody revenge with a blunt object like the god’s honest truth, there wouldn’t be much point. So let me tell you about my ex-renter.

This bastion of human integrity couldn’t just be content to screw his landlord like the other three ex-renters (who shall remain nameless due to my benignant nature). He had to screw me and the poor girl who he got to cover his lease. This fine young man made it clear to me in a house meeting that he was leaving for Europe, and skipping out on his year lease; but that he was getting a replacement. I (very stupidly) had forgotten to get my phone disconnected before I left, and after making sure whom the phone belonged to, the dip-shit ran up an eight hundred-dollar phone bill on my tab.

I told him I wouldn’t press charges if he painted the house, he being a professional painter and all. The house now looks like Jackson Pollack had a monstrous orgasm in the middle of the living room. He is now in Europe, but I didn’t get the worst of it. Nooo- the young lady that he was getting to move in cut him a check thinking that he was paying the rent with it until the lease was switched over. He and her money were out on the next flight to Cleveland with a connecting one to Luxembourg.

Hope ole’ shit-bag doesn’t have to come back through Salt Lake City. He’s liable to find plenty of his blue suited friends waiting at the terminal for him. By the time he gets back, there will be plenty of proceedings to keep him occupied. That, however, is none of my business.

I finally found some great people to fill the space that dick-head and his buddies left, and am therefore pondering my own dilemma—the lack of a roof over my own head.

Rather than doing something drastic like getting a place here and a real job, I think my wife and I will go south with a snow shovel tied to the hood of our truck until someone asks us what it is. So begins the next section of our journey together- “On the Road.”