Bill Keyes posted:

El Dupree blinked hard, shook his head, and when the vision did not
vanish in a shimmer of heat haze, rubbed his eyes with the backs of
his grimy hands (though this, of course, would hardly suit to clear
one's vision!).

It was still there.

Miles and miles of open southwestern desert.  The occassional cactus
reached blindly up towards the sun, swimming in a sea of white-blue.
Scrub brush rattled dryly in the baking breeze.  A lizard regarded
him with fierce but sleepy black eyes.

And in the center of this magnificent desolation, sat a small, whitewashed
bungaloo.  It was surrounded by a perfect square of brilliant green
lawn, a few azalia bushes covered with red flowers, and even a small
pink flamingo sitting placidly next to the cobblestone sidewalk.

El Dupree, fearless wanderer of the western plains, felt his blood run
cold.  There was something unnatural about this place.  Every instinct
in his body screamed for him to flee... but he was thirsty.  He would
die soon in this parched desert if he didn't find water.

Slowly, he plodded up to the shady front of the house, and read the
small plaque hanging on the white picket fence.  "Juan Flanders y 
Familia," it read.  Steeling himself, our hero opened the small gate
and walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.

The door was opened almost instantly, and El Dupree took an involuntary
step back.  Before him was a hispanic man, perhaps 30 years old, wearing
a green sweater, a pair of Dockers courderoy pants, and penny loafers.

"Buenos-ding-dong-diddly-Dios, senor!" the man said in a frighteningly
cheerful tone.  He did not shy away from the Master's powerful aura
(or odor!), and instead stepped back and made a gesture of welcome.
"Come in, mi amigo!" he said.  "Mi casa es su casa!"

In a daze, El Dupree crossed the threshold.  He saw arrayed before him
a woman with a kind (and somehow terrifying) face, and two smiling but
blank-eyed children.  "Senor," Juan Flanders said, "Allow me to introduce
mi familia.  My wife, Mari, and our two bambinos, Rodrigo and Tojo."

The Sage of the Plains gasped in horror when one of the children jumped
up and in the whiniest voice El Dupree had ever heard, "Can I annoint the
sores on hees feet, Papa?"

"Si, of course jou can, Tojo," Juan answered with a wink.  "But first,
our guest looks thirsty.  What can I get for jou, senor?"

El Dupree licked his cracked lips.  "Tequila," he said at last.

Juan almost hid the look of horror on his face.  "Well, senor, we do not
have any tequila.  How about a right-dandy glass of iced tea?  Coming
right up-si-doodly!"

The preternatural familia rushed in all directions, Juan to fix their
guest a glass of tea, Mari to find him a comfortable place to sit, and
Rodrigo and Tojo ran upstairs to draw a bath for him.

But when la familia returned to the door with El Dupree's refreshments,
they found him nowhere.  The door was left swinging open in the hot 
desert breeze, one grungy handprint on the doorknob.

No one at the Flanders hacienda was enlightened.

Bill. ("But El Dupree did escape.")