We arrived in Lancaster, PA around 3:30 and since the crappy Ramada check-in time wasn’t until 4PM, we decided to go get some motherfucking shoo-fly pie.
SHOO-FLY PIE!
Someone asked me at work WTF is a shoo-fly pie anyway, and all I could really say was, “Very gooey pie.” I mean, read the sign. Duh.
My family went to Lancaster when I was a kid, in some elementary school grade, and all I remember was eating at family-style smorgasbords—literally sharing a table and bowls of food with other restaurant patrons, passing the corn and butter for real, Amish people of course, and that sweet fucking shoo-fly pie. Years later, my mom found some mail order (pre-Internet, remember) shoo-fly pie place but it just wasn’t the same. You can’t eat that at home unless there is the stench of fresh cow shit in the country air and Amish fuckers giving you the hairy eyeball.
Everybody knows that. God!
Anyway, there are days when I DAYDREAM about shoo-fly pie. It’s not even that it’s the Best Pie In the World, but it reminds me of childhood.
And my immature obsession with the Amish community.
And Intercourse, PA.
And fucking someone through a hole cut in a sheet.
(What? That’s called Amish-style. Read a fucking sex book every once in awhile and you might learn something.)
We passed the hotel and drove straight to Dutch Haven, a local gift shop shaped like a windmill (not the kind I hate, but a real Holland-kind of windmill!) that sells all kinds of Amish crap and SHOO-FLY PIE. Bitch, best warm a slice up, Mama’s comin’.
OMFG you can’t even see the pie beneath that double-D whipped cream bosom. I would gladly drive 6 hours every Saturday for this to be my Weight Watchers splurge item. (Or have Henry drive me.)
They have other pies there too, but who needs that shit.
Chooch opted for a plate of chocolate chip cookies, because he has poor taste. This picture was taken right as he was coyly asking, “MOMMY WHAT DOES THAT SHIRT SAY!?” because it said something witty about Intercourse, PA and he wanted to hear me say it out loud, presumably so he could then ask loudly, “WHAT DOES INTERCOURSE MEAN?” when he clearly damn well knows, or else he wouldn’t have been asking me in that creepy, fake-innocent tone of his.
Masticating Amishly. (He’s so lucky that I was too distracted by Pierce the Veil to make any Weener Photos this times around.)
God, this place just injects me with joy-sperm! SO MUCH OF THE JOYFUL PENETRATION.
I wanted to eat at Jakey’s Amish Barbeque (even though I don’t do meat; I had my heart set on potato salad, yee haw) but it was CLOSED. Henry didn’t seem to care, but I was all bent out of shape about it.
“Over what? Macaroni and cheese?” he spat over top of my ad nauseum whining.
Potato salad. POTATO SALAD. P-O-T-A-T-O S-A-L-A-D.
I can’t tell you how many times during the six-hour car ride I said, “Gee willikers, I can’t wait to grind into some sexual, creamy potato salad at Jakey’s Amish BBQ.”
NOT MACARONI AND CHEESE.
This is proof that Henry doesn’t listen to me. At all.
We settled for Jennie’s Diner, mostly because it was:
- right down the street
- open
- not an overpriced smorgasbord with a parking lot full of tour buses carrying religious people
Henry immediately liked it because it boasted an Air Force wall clock. That’s the SERVICE that Henry was in back in the 80s, you guys! (1980s, not 1880s.) I didn’t actually check, but I bet Henry left the waitress a big tip.
(She actually was a really good waitress and even told Henry the best way to order his burger to save money. I bet she also likes Pierce the Veil. I’m good at stereotyping.)
Chooch deduced that our waitress’s boyfriend was sitting at the counter and kept speculating loudly about it. He had a neck tattoo so I asked Chooch to kindly STFU before he interpreted Chooch’s concern to mean that Henry had the hots for his woman.
I know, I know — like anyone would be threatened that Henry would steal their woman. But go talk to my ex-boyfriend Jeff. I’m sure he has a lot to opine on that topic.
Pre-Pierce the Veil fuelage.
We had about an hour to kill after we checked into our hotel, which was conveniently situated directly across the street from a very closed-for-the-season Dutch Wonderland, thanks for that, Henry.
Since Henry was unloading in the bathroom, Chooch and I decided to go exploring, which is the best part of staying in a hotel when you’re six and/or Erin. The game room was right down the hall from our room, so we scoped that out but there were lots of d-bag kids in there at the moment (plus, Henry gave us zero dollars for tokens), so we retreated. When we got to our room, I said, “Watch this, Chooch.” Knowing that Henry was definitely still pooping, I rapped on the door and yelled, “Room service.”
Then to Chooch, I screamed, “RUN!!!” So we ran like escaped orphans through the halls of the Lancaster Ramada, hugging corners and panting at the thrill of potentially being chased but really knowing that Henry was probably still sunk into the Room 306 commode and even if he was post-poop, he’s still a 47-year-old man who would rather turn on the Canadian DIY show “She’s Crafty” than search a stinky hotel for his missing child & faux-spouse.
Speaking of Canada, there was a Canadian-themed* hotel down the street and while I wasn’t quite sure what it could possibly have to offer other than poutine and cheap Nickelback CDs on the pillows, I was still pissed that Henry didn’t book us a room there. There were maple leaves all over the signage!
“It didn’t come up in the hotel listing!” Henry cried defensively.
THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY.
(*Maybe Canadians are a hot commodity in Lancaster, who the hell knows.)
While Henry was doing God only knows what in the hotel room (as if God even WANTS to know), Chooch and I had taken our tour of terror up another level — to the fourth floor, bitches.
It looked exactly the same as our third floor layout, but I noticed that one of the room number signs on the wall had rooms that started with a 5.
It became our mission to find the fifth floor and we were so confused because the staircase stopped on the fourth. We found a small ramp and door at the end of the hallway and realized that the fifth floor was really the four and a half floor. Still, it didn’t stop us from blowing through the door and barreling down the hall like heavyweight tumbleweeds.
There were a few rooms in that hallway, a random table and lamp and an elevator. And then we reached a dead end. On our walk back to the 4th floor ramp, a middle-aged, rotund little Asian man in a blazer walked through the door. My paranoia immediately prickled. I didn’t like his shifty gait and I didn’t like the way his one hand kept disappearing beneath the side of his blazer, like he was REACHING FOR SOMETHING.
“Chooch,” I whispered hoarsely. “I don’t trust this guy.”
“Can we get stuff out of the vending machine?” Chooch responded, not yet grasping the severity of the situation.
“DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT,” I coached him. When we passed him, me all stiff-limbed and Chooch walking like a normal human, I barked out a hollow, “HELLO.”
(I always hope that if I am friendly to someone who is considering assassinating me, it might change their mind.)
He smiled congenially and then stopped in front of the elevator. I kept trying to covertly shove Chooch along—he walks so slow, like he doesn’t know that we’re being HUNTED—and dared to look over my shoulder once. The man was still waiting for the elevator and didn’t seem to be paying attention to us anymore. Probably because he is THAT GOOD of an assassin.
When we reached the door at the end of the 5th floor ramp, I yelled, “RUN!!!!” and we sprinted all the way back to the stairwell and to our room, where we collided with Henry who did NOT look happy.
“Some Asian guy was going to kill us!” Chooch informed him and Henry just sighed deeply and I’m sure the idea of finishing Asian Guy’s job for him crossed Henry’s mind at least twice.
In case I haven’t mentioned lately how much Henry sucks, he got us a room with two double beds. DOUBLE BEDS.
Post-Assassination Attempt.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, en route to the Chameleon Club for the Pierce the Veil show, I said, “Hey Chooch, remember when that Asian guy was trying to kill us?”
And Henry mumbled, “You two are fucking idiots” for the 87th time that day.
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