<Hysterical laughter, read as old drunk telling a tale>

I was driving across the desert,
(minding my own business, and all)
when up ahead I saw a devil-duster...
a twister....
a whatchamacall.

I saw it pick up speed and hurl up big rocks
I saw it grind up cactus
and felt it tug at my big wooly sox.

It wandered up close and I trembled inside
But I leapt from my truck and run straight for it,
I wanted to have my own personal ride!

I jumped right on in,
in the middle, in the eye
I started to run,
I felt I could fly.

I jumped high in the air
and I never came down.
That vacuum just sucked me up
with hardly a sound.

I suddenly got sad and I started to cry
I thought of all them things I'd be now saying Goodbye.

Like my job, and my family, and even my sense of pride.
Green grass and a good piece of meat,
and someplace calm for me to reside.

I felt so foolish, so helpless, and so alone
I started to wish that some good soul would come along
and just bring me back home.

------

And just as I thought I would never get back
I touched hard on the earth with a thump
and a smack.

I was still moving forward though at the greatest of speed
When up ahead...in my path,..."Oh", I screamed, "Sweet Gee!".

A canyon so wide I could not see the next bank
So deep that to Hell the bottom must of sank.

I thought to myself, I can do this, I can
I can scale this canyon and again feel I'm the man
that I know that I am.

It came up on me quick and I let out a yell
And to my surprise I became airborne,
this time quite well.

I cleared the canyon, or so it seemed
'Cause my next thought was different, confusing indeed.

I reached back and felt my legs all twisted in knots
And all over my body was growing these awful painful spots.

I was lucky, I thought, that the canyon so wide
Was nothing but a gully, a rut,
just an ally full of others with no future;
certainly nothing I could provide.

------

So I laid there in the sand all bruised and all battered
    But it was where my head was at that seemed most to matter.

It was stuck in a hole clean up to my neck
In a Prairie Dog home,
I was their front deck!

I opened my eyes and to my delight
Was a room full of fine furnishings
and plenty of light.

There were Prairie Dogs all in a row
They were watching the top Dog,
he was giving a show.

It seemed that he had proposed a controversial plan
To dig a deep tunnel to house the likeness of man.

Man built houses and farmed and used up all the grass
They were unsightly, uneducated and
quite frankly, a big pain in the ass.

At least that's how it had always been described
By the civilized,
the proper and the compassionate,
well mannered Prairie Dog scribe.

So, just as he was making his final decree
my head burst in - so they now they all could see.

He screeched and he hollered and he pointed straight at my face
"See, there is an example of that dirty human race."

I was surprised and I started to grin,
imagine me the example of all that is sin?

But the truth is, and I am happy to say
I was so damn proud to help him make his point,
that I decided to stay.

(c) Steve Wood: October 8, 2000

Note: In October 2000, a San Francisco Supervisor candidate proposed hiring the homeless to dig a tunnel under the Tenderloin area, and then to house the homeless in that tunnel -- socially inhumane and a not even a practical measure.