[amead]

The hair spray cloud anecdote really added some superb color to this story, kudos.

It's very weird that your friend left you there originally because of a lizard. Doesn't the lizard have like, a cage and lizard food and stuff packed? Or was he bringing the lizard to Vegas in his glove compartment, at which point he'd need to gear it up immediately on arrival? I'd think the lizard could spend the night in a hotel room just as easily as it could live in Vegas.

Further, I only passed through Utah once on a bus from NY to Los Angeles, and it looked really bleak and uninhabitable, but like, isn't there a car rental place at some point in the marginal vacinity that you could have gotten a rig from, instead of renting it in Vegas and driving to Utah and back?

On the bright side, it sounds like your dad is pretty cool, and doesn't want to disown you for getting out of school and high-tailing it to Vegas.