Finding Zen in the Desert

It was just after nightfall, and I had been playing the tom-tom drums.
An owl hooted in the distance and I stopped.
I looked around and took out my kazoo and felt the weight of the instrument in my hand before blasting a loud wheeze into the night with the hopes that the owl would shut up already.
I had been living in the desert for months. And when I say months, I mean hours.
Long hours. Hard hours.
The car had broken down sixty miles back, and then the scooter broke down, then the guy I was hitchhiking with dropped me off in the desert when I hit him with the kazoo so that he would shut up already.
He was talking to me about sponges. Sponges of all things! In the desert!
He sold them and I had just spilled a bottle of Night Train on the car seat and he was telling me all about where they were and how to put water on them and where the water for the sponges was and how I had no time to play the kazoo-
You get the point.
So, in the desert I vowed to find myself. The thinking was, if I found myself, I could find the guy who picked me up, the scooter that broke down, and then the car.
At that point I would probably need to find gas.
But I was getting ahead of myself.
"Self?" I asked.
Not even the kindly owl that I scared away would answer.
There was no self. Like the thing that the Chinese believe. I believe it's called Zen.
I believe there's a Bush song about it.
But Bush blows, so then I realized that I still needed to find myself.
But where?
I searched my mind for the answer and came up blank.
There wasn't much going on up there – I have to be honest with you. Most of it was about how I was hungry or needed to fart.
Is that Self?
If that's self, there's really not much to find. Which made me think out loud "This is gonna be fucking easy!"
So, I thought about how I needed food and then I farted and then I started looking for that guy with the sponges.
But he was long gone. I mean, long. I mean, like, he was sitting in his car about a yard away cleaning up the Thunderbird I spilled.
So, I walked up to him and told him I was hungry. He didn't answer and just kept cleaning up my mess.
This angered me and I told him so.
He finally lost it and threw a sponge at me and I started crying. I screamed "I am Self!" And then he really got mad and started hitting me.
I woke up in the desert alone and realized I really shouldn't have gone looking for my Self. I needed someone else.
So, I started wondering the desert again and I ran back into that guy with the sponges.
He offered to give me a lift into town and apologized for beating me up. Then he started talking about how he lost his wife and how he was "Not right with God."
That's when I hit him with the kazoo.
Again, alone in the desert, the sponge man long gone, I devised a plan.
But it was super shitty and made no sense, so I devised another one.
After like nine plans I was REALLY hungry and walked to the Taco Bell that was just on the outskirts of the desert.
"Could I have a T3, please?" That was the meal with the three soft tacos.
The large frog dropped three tacos into my hands and I ate them with relish.
Frog?
Dropped?
That's right – it was all a mirage.
Or was it just a French man who worked at a Taco Bell?
Time will tell. But I will tell you this – I learned something that day.
I learned that a man is not a man if
I learned that the goose always gets
OK. I'm still in the desert and I'm still hungry. If you get this notice, please send food. But no sponges!