The Ballad of the Bum Trip - Part Four, You Took my Car Keys and PHFFFT You Were Gone

When we stopped in Hagerstown, MD, we checked into a Best Western that had just been built. It was really nice. Up til then when we stopped for any long period of time, we would put Albert under the car, but this night we took him (I guess it was a him) to our room.

The next morning we went down for breakfast and left the alligator in the middle of the room. When we were coming back upstairs we heard a loud scream, and saw wheels and feet rush by above us on the outside hall. Larry said, "I think she found Albert!" We ran up to the room, grabbed our stuff and checked out in a hurry! Larry went to the lobby, and I ran to the car, trying not to look suspicious with an alligator under my arm.

As we were pulling out of the parking lot, a middle-aged guy came over to the car. He was wearing a gray suit coat and a pair of bright green pants that looked like they belonged to Tatoo on Fantasy Island. Add to this the fact that the part of his legs that were sticking out were really, really hairy, and you can understand why we just had to talk to him!

He asked us if we were going to Cleveland. We said we were going the other way. Then I said, "Where'd you get those pants!?" Well, it seems he had picked up a girl the night before, taken her to his room, and they put a big dent in a bottle of gin. When he woke up she was gone, along with his pants, his wallet, his car keys, and of course his brand new Thunderbird. I think it was the car that attracted her (he looked like Bozo the Clown with no makeup on.) He had gotten the green pants from a guy in the motel kitchen in exchange for his Elks tooth (I made that part up.) Larry said he was sorry we couldn't help. "Oh God!" says Bozo, "What am I going to tell my wife!" We drove off feeling sorry for the poor schlepp.

As we drove on to Richmond, we wrote the Ballad of the Bum Trip, to the tune of the HeeHaw cornfield song, "She took my money and phfft, she was gone" - about five or six choruses. We sang it for miles. When I saw Larry in the spring of this year, he remembered most of the words. But then we couldn't find his car.

- Adam Jones
11-18-07