I was in Costa Rica the other day making connections, paying off the local policia and what not, and I saw this mule.  Not that this mule has anything to do with this, but it was the only way I could introduce the actual topic of this paper.  I was sitting here writing this paper when all of a sudden my co-writer's brain fell out of his head.  The next thing you know his girlfriend, running up to him to shower him with affection, stepped right on it.  Oooooo what a mess.  Luckily, while she is around he doesn't use it anyway.
    So there was this mule and his name was Erty Wascat, but everyone called him Betty.  Except Betty didn't call him Betty because that would just confuse her.  You see, Betty wasn't too bright.  Anyway, Betty called him Bob.  So let me just recap this whole scenario.  Erty Wascat is Betty, but Betty calls Betty Bob, who is in love with Joan, who disapproves of Wayne's way of showing his affection towards two day old produce at Safe Way right there in the middle of aisle four.  You can find him there every Saturday between the dog biscuits and the Snapple.  Give him a nice tip for me.  Boy, can he put on a show.  Let me tell you how he started this little floor show.  Wayne is blind, so he's not too good at seeing colors very well, so he'd be there swinging his red and white (or is it blue and green?) stick around trying to locate his favorite jerky treat by sound.  When he gets really desperate he just hits everything really hard so that it breaks, and then he goes by smell.  One time a rabbit got loose from the meat department and good ol' Wayne tracked the bugger down.  He found it in the breakfast cereal aisle sniffing at a box of Trix.  But anyway, Wayne would be there with his stick until the manager would have to come and find the package of jerky treats for him.  You'd think that after the fifth or sixth time, they'd be running to fetch that pesky package as soon as they saw Wayne coming, but maybe they liked the floor show too, and the other customers don't seem to mind so much.  Oh, and he masturbates with the rutabagas, and occasionally a kumquat or two.  They get a kick out of him there.  Wayne used to be a Lounge Singer at the Rusty Spur.  He didn't last there very long.  He could only sing "I've Got Friends in Low Places" so many times before he would double over and puke on stage.  He liked to sing the Bee Gee's "Staying Alive" every now and then just to hear the look of confusion on the hicks' faces.  Wayne had an interesting sense of humor.  One time while on a ferry boat he went around pinching every males' bottom.  When asked why he had done that he replied, "well, it's a fairy boat, isn't it?  When in Rome..."  They threw him overboard for that one, and he was swallowed by a whale.  He claims he found some ancient writing carved in the whale's stomach, but no one really believed him.  Not until he produced the evidence.  Jonah's driver's license.  Amazing what that Wayne can do.  He's sort of like our own personal Indiana Jones, only without the whip.
    I met Wayne in Costa Rica.  He was just flying in from Algeria where he'd had the most amazing adventure.  That night we shared a bottle of Blind Man's Rum and he told me all about it.
    "There I was," he said, "knee deep in wooden legs when all of a sudden out of nowhere this flaming Brahma came charging down upon me, sending scorching heat and flames all about me and singing and charring every prosthetic limb in it's path.  After it's trail of fiery destruction was done, it stopped just six feet from me.  That is when I noticed the large chariot made of solid gold.  Its shiny goldish red color reflected the burning sight of fake limbs, and upon this blazon chariot rode a woman of great power and super mundane beauty.  Her name was Edna and she was the Demi-Goddess of truck stop waitresses.  She stepped down from her gilded craft as lightly as a two hundred pound anvil dropped from a third story window.  In her left hand she held the serving tray of truth, and in her right hand she brought before me the coffee pot of mercy, displaying her pastel pink mantle of office in all of its slightly wrinkled majesty (little is known about this ancient and powerful demi-being, but it is believed that she is still worshipped today by a few Greek Orthodox Multi-Unitarian Pantheon Southern Baptists).
    There I was in front of one of the most powerful cosmic entities in this universe when she said to me 'hey you...That's right, you, the one hiding behind the three day old cucumber.  Where's the can?'  To which I replied, 'first door on the right.  Please lift the seat.'
    Before she left to release her heavenly load she bestowed upon me a plate of liver and onions with a side of chitlins.
    'But I didn't order this,' I said.  She merely laughed sadistically as she closed the bathroom door, and I waited.  One second...two...and there it was, her blood-curdling screams.  That's the problem with metal toilet seats in air conditioned bathrooms.  They get damned cold.  I once knew a little boy named Ahmed.  His friends dared him to lick a toilet seat one especially warm day.  The air conditioners were set at their highest.  Ahmed's tongue stuck to the seat.  The poor boy died of embarrassment when a large man entered the bathroom stall and, not noticing him struggling on the seat, accidentally sat on him.  It wasn't until the man was half finished that he noticed poor Ahmed.  By then it was too late.  Ahmed was buried the next day.  You have to bury them quick in those warm climates.  They rot quicker.  In fact, I was accidentally buried once outside of New Delhi.  I was sleeping off a powerful drunk one night, dead to the world.  Next morning I didn't wake up right away so they thought I was dead.  Nice people, really.  When I clawed my way out from under the all the sand and staggered back to the hotel, they returned everything they'd taken from my pockets, except for my roll of Certs.  I never did get those back.  Certs saved my life once you know.  Yes, there I was in the jungles of Brazil, trying to find some good macadamia nuts, when all of a sudden I was confronted by the largest tiger I had ever seen.  He crept up on me slowly and I resolved to keep my composure.  I had no intention of dying like a coward.  Finally, it pounced, knocking me to the ground, its muzzle mere inches from my face.  I wrinkled my nose and turned my head, looking thoroughly disgusted.  The tiger looked confused.  I waved my hand in front of his mouth, indicating that he had terrible breath.  He gave me a sheepish look, and so I reached for the Certs and offered him one, which he took, rather embarrassed by the whole ordeal.  Then the tiger suddenly reared back, screeched once, and fell over dead.  Tigers, as everyone knows, are allergic to Rhetsyn, the special ingredients in Certs."
    Ah that Wayne, such a colorful individual.  But I wondered about something.  How was it that he spoke so much of seeing, and yet was totally and completely blind?  I asked him this and and he gave me an answer almost as incredible as his other stories.
    "Well," he said, "I was in Bangkok some twenty years ago or so, visiting my favorite opium dens, and I got hold of a special derivative.  You see, I've been blind for as long as I can remember, since perhaps the age of four.  While at one of the opium dens (which one I cannot say), I was given a different pipe.  It had such an alien feel to it.  I couldn't recognize the material from which it had been crafted, but it was very cold to the touch.  I inhaled the thick succulent spicy smoke, and it was unlike any I'd been privileged to before.  I felt its effects almost before I'd drawn the first plume into my lungs.  Everything felt green and blue, spirals of lusty zig zags, iridescent pinks, purples, and turquoise.  At the time I had no idea what these colors were called.  I'd never seen them before, but I could certainly see them then, and what's more, I could touch them, taste them, draw them into me.  I was on an intimate level with everything, and it was the most wonderful feeling I'd ever known.  It only lasted a few seconds, but when the effects were gone I realized I could see.  I could see everything.  At first I thought it was merely the after effects, but when I woke up the next morning it was still there.  I could see.  It was amazing!  I spent the entire day visiting every park, every museum, every sight I could possible see.  And women!  My God, the women.  They are such beautiful creatures.  I never knew...Imagine my shock when I woke, and it was all gone.  No more sight.  For a while I convinced myself that the sight I had was merely a dream, or possibly the drug I'd taken into my body.  I could not believe that I had seen, I could not believe it because it seemed so incredibly unfair to be given the gift of sight so briefly, a gift that all others took for granted, and then have it taken away so unexpectedly.  If someone had told me 'We will let you see for 24 hours, and then you shall be blind again for ever more,' I would have taken the gift with the utmost of joy and relinquished it happily, but it was all so unexpected.  I felt cheated, manipulated.  I was bitter and resentful.  Ah, but I was much younger then.  You see, that was not the last of it.  It comes and goes.  My vision, that is.  Sometimes I have it, most times I don't, but I've learned to accept that.  If it does not come back, well, I've enjoyed myself with the last sight I had.  I remember every sunrise, every sunset, every thorn on every rose.  I remember the beauty of a woman, the reflection of the moon on a drop of dew.  I am at peace with my sight, and all is well with the world."
    That is what Wayne had to say.  Of course, we were halfway through our third bottle of rum and ol' Wayne was drunk off his ass.  I guess I was pretty tuned at that point as well.  It all seemed so poetic and true.  So beautiful.  Then again, Wayne's just full of shit.  He means well, but he's one of the greats.  One of the greatest Bullshitters of all time.  Still, he's the best guy in the world to get drunk with.  He can keep you entertained for hours, never telling the same tale twice.  In fact, I got a million more of Wayne's stories if you ever feel like hearing them on a cold, boring night.  Maybe they will make you smile.  But then, that's what Wayne's stories are meant to do.
    I still see Wayne every now and again, and we have coffee together, or perhaps a little Blind Man's Rum, and he tells me stories and I laugh and play along.  But it's weird sometimes.  Sometimes I'll catch him glancing out the window, peering over the rim of his black glasses and smiling, as if he were watching the sunset.  Yup, he's one of the best.