Spa boot

by Colin Gee


I wear the spa boot as we are calling it since the accident as we are calling it, not because it was our decision to hump this thing around, but because of the policies of the spa people. Spa people we are calling them because they literally crawl all over this spa. There is one now. Spa boy three we are calling him, he gets tips for rubbing the diddies’ feet extra hard, he is part of the popcorn klatch in the mini theater. Popcorn nazis more like it. He and spa girl one and spa girl four, the hogs. They are quite the little oinkers, no refills on iced tea! One little unbuttered bag per person! Look at me, do I look like one person? Meanwhile they smoke up on their breaks behind the theater, you can smell it on them, they reek of doobie. Anyway, it was not really an accident, come on tell them George, see it was New Year’s and we were at the Launders’, they had their youngest kids at the grandparents. Her mother had died and left her a chunk of money, a good piece, so we let our hair down a bit on their tab, they invited us. I mean I did, George literally does not have any hair, ha ha. No baby, I will not cool it, as we are calling it, I am fine sitting here in my spa boot while you cook in the tub. You all look like you are about to come out on a plate at Red Lobster. There are no secrets at the Springdale Wellness Spa, anyhoo, we are all perfect strangers! Mister Launders is of course a semi-professional axe thrower, this man is a Viking, stands six foot four in his socks, not that I would know nudge nudge, winkie twinkie. Shut up George. Anyway no, I AM just joshing about that, Mister Launders is a small, mild-mannered family man. He is five foot five and uses hair oil and stutters. How do people even get the babies in there you have to ask yourself sometimes. Ask Missus Launders sometime, GEORGIE BOY. Mister Launders runs the local supermarket like he was the nazi in charge of snacktime at Auschwitz. He has steak in his freezer from 1975. His father died of a heart attack that year and it would take a pickaxe to get that meat out. I WILL say the expression MEAT OUT, George, ever so much as it bothers you. Georgie here han’t got his meat out in a long time, tell em Georgie, we are all friends here, bubbling in the same stew. Since his father’s death Launders has been a mama’s boy, pampered by the grotesque widow, and yet paying for everything. They eat his meat free since legally they can’t sell it after the expiry date, even though it is always just fine, like the red-faced meatpoles pushing fifty you see in the all-night weight rooms here out west. We saw it out the station wagon windows, did we not George. Gone to jaw with their gym buddies in just their shorts! Georgie here does not like the gym, do you George. Georgie feels intimidated by red-faced meatpoles, going meat out, as meet each other to meat each other. Well we stood there in Mister Launder’s garage and looked at the block of meat steaming from the top. Plop into the freezer with it, like daddy into the cold ugly ground, fringed by grotesque fake green grass. And their kids, Jesus do not get me started on the little goblins, Sherry and Kevin the two oldest who MEAT OUT with us. George thought her name was Cherry for about six months, boy can he be a headache. You can dress em up, yes sir, but you can not get them to think or tell a sophisticated joke. Yes, over here spa boy, you got the right rhinoceros. There we go. George pass me the EF EL AY ES KAY if you would be such a nice boy. So, as I was saying, we were getting the big tour of the gayrage chest freezer when in through the open door, out of the night sky, swoops this huge black shape. Georgie here screams like a girl and ducks as the horrendous apparition screeches three times in and out of the Launders’ gayrage. George is going to tell you this thing was a bat, but have you ever seen a bat as tall as Mister Launders? Small for a man, tall for a bat! With evil red eyes and a beak, and it swooped up Kevin in its horrible claws. I too screamed but was secretly happy, knowing I had been spared because of my tremendous heart. I run the charity bake sale every year at First Methodist, not everyone knows that. No secrets here, not even from spa boy three, with his cute little paper hat. Damn that hits the spot, George honey, sugar-free lemonade my cankery little heinie. Damn. In fact, I only crouched down to gather my strength before lunging at the creature in an attempt to save the day, from the goodness of my heart, was how the shelves came off the wall and a full bucket of paint, blue, hit me square in the ankle. Snapped it like a twig! Yowww! Little Kevin goes caterwauling off into the night in the clutches of the bat creature and Missus Launders puts up a howling of her own on the front lawn, but I knew immediately and I swear on my spa boot as we are calling it, knew immediately what was up for real by the look on Mister Launders face, a real self-satisfied expression beneath a mask of shit-eating surprise. That man is a worse actor than Steven Seagal, pray you never see him in action. Launders as we are calling him grabs for a broom and scrambles too late after the form of his son which quickly disappears over the neighbor’s roof between two trees, and is gone. George says, We got to get that bat, and I said Tweren’t no bat, that was a minion of Satan, though I had already spied the glint of the wire. Missus Launders and Sherry were cowering by their Oldsmobile and I volunteered to phone the cops. That was when the acting which is what we are calling it on Mister Launders’ part got truly despicable. No police, he retorted, this is bigger than the government. I just laughed in his face where I sat lying in a pool of paint, and demanded that Georgie take me to the hospital, which is where they put me into the spa boot, which is what we are calling it. Tried to take it off and they shouted at me. George you gonna let Mister Launders swoop me off into the night on one of his circus wires, you such a crybaby? Damn this is good VEE OH DEE KAY AY, limonada as we are calling it. Tell them about the ransom we all split to get the boy back, George, from the grieving daughter’s big fat bank account, how neither you nor Missus Launders ever glimpsed the wire, or noticed to sniff the aftershave on the bat, and both was gone by breakfast. How you won’t be visiting her no more, George. Yes, spa boy three, I SHALL have that foot rub now, which is how we ended up at the health spa together, what we are calling it, as seemed a good idea at the time. Did it not my darling little husband, forever be mine. Yes, right there, rub it spa boy, rub it good.





Photo of Colin Gee

BIO: Colin Gee (@ColinMGee on X) is founder and editor of The Gorko Gazette.

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