Gatlinburg, Day 2: Part 2 (Where My Magi Alter Ego Comes Out)

Chooch, coming out of the bedroom: “Here, I brought out the mystery book.”
Everyone in unison: “Uh, that’s the Bible.”

**********

When we arrived in Tennessee Saturday evening, Bill had us meet them in the parking lot of the most amazing place in the whole universe, called MagiQuest, so we could follow them to the resort without losing our way.

(Bill did that for us, though.)

It was a pretty cruel place to have us meet because Chooch and I were immediately obsessed. Hello, it’s a BIG CASTLE and you just know it holds BIG FUN.

Thank god we finally got to go there after two days of whining.

Basically, everyone gets a wand and you run around all these rooms solving shit to collect runes and complete quests. Bill helped me out in the beginning because as usual, I wasn’t paying attention to the instructions and got schooled by some preteen wizard elitist who, upon witnessing me flicking my wand at some object, yelled, “That won’t work unless you’re a master magi!” like I was the embodiment of “n00b.” (I probably did look pretty clueless though.) She said it with such loathsome condescension and even flipped her plain hair over her pointy shoulder.

I wanted to break her Potter glasses.

After awhile, I caught on to the basic premise of the game and was able to go off on my own. I passed Bill at one point and he started to ask if I knew where something was and without even pausing to look at him, I said, “Yeah, like I’m going to help you!”

EVERY ERIN FOR HERSELF.

Meanwhile, Henry was trying to play for himself AND Chooch, who was really into the castle ambiance but not really grasping the concept. And Jessi had the most intense, competitive expression on her face every time I saw her. I asked her for help at one point and half expected her to push me out of her, but she broke character and pleasantly helped me.

Probably because she knew there was no way in hell I was going to come close to beating her.

Apparently, this was a timed quest, which I would have known if I had been paying attention. As it turns out, I didn’t discover this until Tammy mentioned it and by then I only had 4 minutes left with two quests remaining. Sad times.

There was a massive mirror maze which came with our package, and that more than dried my tears. It was actually pretty challenging, to use my brother Corey’s review of the dinky funhouse mirror maze at the Butler County Fair. WE EVEN GOT TO WEAR PLASTIC GLOVES TO KEEP OUT PRINTS OFF THE “MIRRORS.” (Henry kept his. He’s really into jacking off into gloves.)

Somehow I made it onto a few top scoreboards (as Somnambulant Saffron). I wish that little geek know-it-all was still there so I could run her face in it. (I hated her geek parents too; they were consistently in my way.)

Bill, who used his and Chooch’s pet name for each other, was audibly dismayed that his name on the scoreboard had been changed from Douche Cup to Deuce. (The guy who entered his name was standing right there when Bill called him an asshole eight different ways, but we didn’t tell Bill until later.)

Furthermore, I like how Bill just assumed that he would be on the scoreboard at all, like he’s a champion or something. Someone else there could have been using the name Deuce!

It was Henry’s turn to make dinner that night and he decided to do fish tacos. I was so scared he was going to fuck it up, but it was good. He made corn on the cob too and then berated me when I asked him to scrape mine off the cob. (I had braces for 8 years; eating it this way has stuck with me.)

Everyone hung out in our room for awhile after that while Chooch used Bill as a landing pad. Inevitably, Chooch got hurt. Then Bill actually tried to be responsible at one point, which confused Chooch and sent him into a temper tantrum. He shut himself in the bathroom, told Bill he hated him and wanted him to leave. Meanwhile, Jessi had found herself sucked into the Hannah Montana movie (Disney Channel has been on since we got here Saturday night. Kill me.) while Tammy and I watched Henry clean up and then make more pico de gallo with roasted corn.

We were all pretty much zombies by the time the day was over.

Still havent seen any bears in the Smokies, but I’m about to see Christ today. More soon!

(I give Henry until the end of the week before he’s dressing like this.)