Go for the Gold

When I first came to New Mexico I was young, bored, stoned out of my gourd, and pretty much stupid.

It was the early 70’s, a time of drug induced happiness and false optimism for young adults. Idealism was a plague upon the culture and everyone wanted to change things that they could do nothing about. Cults were a growing cultural phenomenon and especially popular in remote areas like New Mexico. Communes were full to overflowing and the worship of all drugs great and small was the diet of the dazed.

Weird religions have always fascinated me. So when I saw the flier in the shop window I was sucked in like a fly to feces. It informed anyone that was interested that there would be a meeting for the unenlightened and admission was FREE!

I just HAD to attend.

This meeting was actually a recruitment seminar for the comet people. You know the ones I mean, the people that believe that if you are one of the ‘enlightened’ you will get the privilege to get zapped magically off to the whatever comet happens to be passing by if you are a good and obedient boy or girl and also good at committing suicide on command.

They were totally sincere and believable to a malleable personality. They actually believed what they were preaching and seemed truly concerned for the ‘souls’ of the uninitiated. They had a ‘reason’ for everything and everything had a reason. They were very convincing. They were inspiring. They were on a mission.

I will never forget one of the speakers. She was a rather attractive young blonde, about my age, zaftig, and as insecure as they come. You could see that she was scared out of her wits but dedicated to the cause and determined to do what was required of her. As the other speakers were explaining the future and how to avoid an awful demise among the unenlightened, she was sitting there, rapt, idly picking her nose and not realizing that people were watching her.

I was in lust.

When it came her time to speak she stammered and shook and failed to impress anyone at all with her speaking skills. I was still in lust. She had an impressive bust line and jiggled in all the right places.

I really wanted to meet her, but something stood in my way; my roommate. He was taken in by all this bullshit and really wanted to JOIN the comet people and become an enlightened beam of light living on a comet zooming through space. He had fallen for this bullshit and was having an emotional crisis right then and there and if I did not do something he was going to commit himself to things we both did not fully understand.

Frankly, I could not believe that he fell for this crap. I spent the time that I should have spent chatting up an attractive blonde (And trying to get into her bed) in trying to convince him that he should give a life changing decision like this a little time to settle in.

I eventually got him to change his mind by pointing out that his dog would be left behind when the comet came. Fortunately he was very emotionally attached to his dog and knew he had to act responsibly toward his canine friend.

In doing so I probably saved myself from a really weird relationship with a total wacko and the influence of her friends that were all insane and destined to die tragically, leaving me wracked with guilt for years.

It’s funny how things work out in life. I barely missed an opportunity to grow up even more fucked up and bitter than I am.