A tale of vacation boyfriends

BY PETUNIA PAP SMEAR

The road to Yellowstone National Park is fraught with danger and excitement.

Last month I put on opera-length driving gloves, my best traveling caftan — one that won’t wrinkle when wearing a seat belt — and some sensible shoes (I know that makes me sound like a lesbian, but as I have achieved senior queen status, wearing sensible shoes is literally a lifesaving concept), loaded up my faithful land yacht, Queertanic, and went on a vacation to Yellowstone National Park.

It had been several years since I visited the park and I longed to get away from the city and all this coronavirus crap and experience nature. And by “experience nature” I mean driving on paved roads to a scenic overlook and gazing out at the magnificent beauty of God’s creations while remaining securely ensconced in air-conditioned, insect- and dirt-free comfort in the front seat of Queertanic.

On the way into the park, Queertanic ran into a traffic jam caused by a herd of buffalo casually grazing alongside the road. As the car slowly inched past the largest of the beasts, I happened to look at him and our eyes met. The look in his eyes suddenly brightened and glinted in the shining sunlight. With great horror, I noticed a look of familiarity, and it suddenly donned on me that this was the very same buffalo that had made amorous advances towards me on a previous visit to the park, low these many years ago. He began to follow alongside Queertanic to try and rub up against the car, snorting and bobbing his head and emitting a low rumbly growl. He licked the window, just a mere six inches from my mouth. I nearly rear-ended the car in front of me trying to getaway.

Once free of the “bison boyfriend,” my first destination inside the park was the Fountain Paint Pots. I was excited because it sounded like the most appropriate destination for a drag queen that’s used to using copious amounts of paint and mud. Upon arriving at the steaming pools of sludge, I was distressed to discover that it was necessary to actually get out of the car and walk. Fortunately, the Park Service has constructed very lovely boardwalks so that I need not get my sensible shoes dirty.

I marveled at the many varied and vibrant colors of mud in the numerous gurgling pools of sludge. I thought that just by adding some glitter to these unique muds, they would make glorious additions to the color pallet in my makeup trunk. Therefore, I reached in my purse and withdrew some small specimen jars which I always carry, just in case.

Finding myself alone on the boardwalk, I bent down and tried to reach into the gurgling mud pie to retrieve a sample. Frustratingly, my arms were just not long enough to reach the brilliantly colored molten mass. I reached into my purse and withdrew an extendable selfie stick and attached a specimen jar to the business end and made another attempt. Again, my reach fell short of the goal. In final desperation, I attached the selfie stick to the end of my right breasticle, contorting myself into a pretzel for this attempted reach. Regrettably, all I retrieved was a small chip of buffalo dung. Not wanting to attract another amorous bison, I quickly threw it back.

Subsequently, I was also disturbed to learn that as I walked through a cloud of steam rising from the mud, there was a great stench of rotten eggs. I held my nose in disgust and hurried through the cloud. Looking for a bright side to the noxious fumes, I determined that it would be safe to release the pent- up gaseous anomaly that was accumulating in my buttocus rotundus for the last hour and no one would smell it.

Consequently, I let loose a forceful booty bomb. I forgot to consider the thunderclap of anal acoustics produced with such an act, not to mention the volume of air that inflated my caftan into a distorted bell shape, oddly resembling a demented hoop skirt. The inflated skirt swayed slightly to-and-fro in the gentle breeze.

Just then, a veil of the noxious mud fumes enveloped me, as if I were in a cloud from a fog machine on the ballroom floor of Dancing with the Stars ready to perform a Viennese Waltz. In that magical moment, I lost my head and looked about for the dance partner of my dreams, Derek Hough. Surely, we would win the coveted mirror ball trophy. I nearly swooned.

When I regained my composure, I sheepishly noticed that a horrified father was trying to quickly herd his children away from me to safety, while his wife looke at me with absolute disgust before she fled with her family. Dejectedly, I returned to the safety of Queertanic. To be continued…

This story leaves us with several important questions:

1. Should I have given the buffalo another chance at love?

2. Do you think those children will suffer any brain damage due to oxygen deprivation?

3. Do I need to print up generic apology cards to hand out to innocent victims of my travels, and carry them in my purse?

4. Should I join Dancing with the Stars as a contestant?

5. Would my breasticles get in the way of performing a tango?

6. Did I nearly swoon from images of Derek Hough or because I was holding my breath from the stinky fumes?

7. Can buffaloes dance the tango?

8. Which one of us would hold the rose in our mouth?

These and other eternal questions will be answered in future chapters of The Perils of Petunia Pap Smear.