GEORGE MICHAEL WAS FRAMED! Not all photo jobs are titties and tiaras. Sometimes the old man has to take the less glamorous route and do an anniversary party, real estate or amateur sporting event. One company would send me and another guy here, there and everywhere for everything from Hoop It Up to kids’ soccer games. This occasion had myself and previously mentioned friend, Joe (name changed to protect the guilty) trekking to Midland in the dead of night from Dallas. We hoped to arrive sometime before dawn so that we could set up before all the soccer games had begun. Joe is a loud boisterous type standing about 6’2” barrel chested ex-marine from Gulf War one. He’s also crazier than the proverbial outhouse rat and pretty much not afraid of anything. He’d seen the Highway of Death between Kuwait and Basra back in 1991 when U.S. coalition forces annihilated the retreating Iraqi army so bar room toughs and surly red necks would often find themselves on their backs, staring at the ceiling when push came to shove. A very handy friend to have when you have the mouth/brain disconnect in full effect like I happen to have. Mid way to Midland, I decided Joe had enough to drink and that he was becoming a menace enough for me to brave a punch in the eye by insisting that I drive. So after a brief 65mph front seat wrestling match, I had managed to plunk down behind the steering wheel. It probably looked like Perez Hilton and Foster Brooks swatting at a bumblebee in the front seat of a Buick. But for the purposes of this story, I want you to think James Bond fighting Richard Kiel (JAWS). The bottom line was that I won and I was satisfied. Satisfied that one: I had bested him with a deft slap on the throat and Two: proved that he was drunk because I couldn’t have gotten the upper hand if he wasn’t at least partially pickled. We listened to bad music, discussed the merits of Dos Equis vs. Corona and talked about fights we’d won and lost in life. I didn’t bring up the one he just lost to me because like I said, he was a little loony and I knew that plus his Dos Equis could equal a rematch that could send us headlong in to a ditch or make us a fine hood ornament for an oncoming tractor-trailer. 
At some point Joe decides that he has to pee and wants to pull over. I have to go too but I’m neurotic and pee shy. So I tell him to wait because I don’t want to get attacked by coyotes on the side of the road-a valid concern but one superceded by my whizzing in the open-air issues. Just before Joe was about to hang it out the window we came upon a rest stop. I pulled in and before the car was in park Joe was out with his willie in his hand. He made it halfway up the walk before he started watering everything in sight. Thank goodness it was almost 2am. I went into the rest stop and took care of business like an actual member of the human race. I came back out to the sight of Joe, pants bunched up around his ankles continuing his public watering service. I shook my head and headed back to the car. “Hey man, check this out!” He shouted. “No thanks.” “I think I drowned the biggest scorpion ever. It’s the size of a baby’s hand.” That got my attention. I’m always up for looking at giant bugs. I trotted back up the walk to where Joe was finally finishing. “Where?” I asked. “Over there. Near the grass.” I got down on my hands and knees and saw it. Not as big as a baby’s hand but still a nice sized big black fully doused scorpion. Very cool. It was at this perfect moment that the floodlights from the police cruiser were turned on. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” The voice boomed from the megaphone. Joe muttered something obscene. A uniformed policewoman made her way slowly up the walk. Out of the side of my mouth I said, “Joe you’re gonna get a public intoxication citation.” “Just what are you gentlemen doing out here?” I didn’t like the way she said gentlemen. I said in a hoarse whisper, “You are so busted. I told you why you needed to go inside the bathroom like a civilized person.” He looked at me the way Archie Bunker sometimes looked at Edith whenever she said something stupid. “Dude, she doesn’t care that I pissed all over the walk.” Then it dawned on me. I was on my knees, in front of a man, with his pants down around his ankles, in the middle of the night, at a rest stop. I shot straight up like a rocket startling the cop whose hand went to her waist. “Hold it, hold it, hold on!” This is not what it looks like.” “Oh really?” “There was a giant scorpion!” was all I could think of in the heat of the moment. She cop smirked. She knew I was flustered and was mildly amused. What she thought of old Joe standing there with his pecker shriveling in the wind I couldn’t tell you. I went on, “I always pee in doors and Joe couldn’t make it.” “Joe can pee any where – I’m pee shy for chrissakes!” She raised an eyebrow and said that we didn’t look too shy to her. This was just when I could tell Joe was getting a little annoyed because he didn’t even ask if he could start reaching for his pants when he did. I had visions of Joe flipping out on the cop and then a scene of us burying her body in a shallow grave and then pissing on it just to prove that he could piss anywhere anytime. But he just started giggling. “Sir, what’s so funny?” “Mike’s gonna have a heart attack because he thinks, you think he was blowin’ me!” Peals of laughter followed. Between the tears and giggles Joe somehow pointed to the piss, the dead scorpion and got his point across. Before all was said and done both Joe and the cop were busting a gut over my coyote theory, my looking guilty when I got nervous and everything that had transpired. Nice lady cop walked us to the car after running our information. It turned out her brother was in Gulf War one as well. Joe got in the driver’s seat and gave me a look that said, “Just try to get in the driver’s seat now sucker.” We could see the officer in the rear view mirror waving goodbye under the moonlit sky as Joe lurched out of the parking lot. And just as we made the turn to get on the main highway I heard it. A coyote was howling not too far away. Mike Wilshin (www.mspace.com/old_man_mike) www.wilshinphotography.com | 
