On the third night of our road trip, we had a quick dinner at Merriman’s Grill, where a waiter brought me a cup of coffee and enthusiastically told me that it was straight of a fresh pot and then kept lurking around our table with an unhinged smirk on his face like he was waiting for me to take the first sip and choke on hemlock. Totally weird. Henry ended up swapping dinners with Chooch, who wasn’t aware that ordering the kids spaghetti with marinara meant “kids spaghetti with sauce,” so he got to eat Henry’s huge bacon cheeseburger while Henry ate a child’s portion of spaghetti while slumped in his seat. It was incredibly funny to me.

We left straight from there to meet Bill & Jessi at their comic and game shop, Warriors3, which has grown exponentially since we were there for the grand opening 4 years ago. I’m so proud of them! Later that night, when we were back at their (new and amazing!) house, Bill was talking about something and offhandedly mentioned that we were going to Frankenmuth the next day.

SCRATCH THAT FUCKING RECORD FOR ME, PLEASE.

“Wait, what? WE’RE GOING TO FRANKENMUTH!?!??!” I screamed.

“Yes, I thought you knew that,” Bill calmly answered. “You said that’s what you wanted to do.”

“YEAH BUT I DIDN’T THINK WE WERE REALLY GOING TO GO!” I screamed again. You guys, I even sent away for a Frankenmuth brochure last year, that’s how down I am with the ‘Muth. “HOW AM I GOING TO SLEEP TONIGHT?!” I continued to scream, in spite of Henry’s full frontal frowning.

But first, we stopped at The Red Apple for breakfast the next morning and that place was a fucking delight: cheap, dimly-lit and definitely somewhere the Bunkers would have eaten on a 1970s road trip. I am so happy Bill and Jessi took us there, and I’m excited to go back the next time we’re in town, only this time late at night when the strippers get off the pole and come in from some black coffee and…what do strippers eat? Peanuts and Slim-Jims.

(This just reminded me of the time about 5 or 6 years ago when I decided I wanted to do a photoshoot/interview with washed up strippers and placed an ad on Craigslist but the only one who responded was like, “I will do this on my terms only and no photos” and I was like, “Oh well, fuck you then.” Maybe if my standards weren’t so rigid, I might have gotten some really important answers. You know, like what do they eat. Other than rotten dreams in tear-sauce.)

Chooch ate a hot dog for breakfast but none of us said anything because sometimes it’s a miracle to get Chooch to eat anything other than ice cream and paper (don’t ask), so sure, happy breakfast, Chooch. And then when he proceeded to get mustard ALL OVER HIMSELF, I just sat back and let Bill handle it because that’s the price you pay when you sit next to a kid at a restaurant.

It took about 90 minutes to get to Frankenmuth and the first thing we came upon was Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, the largest Christmas store in the world, even larger than the one in the North Pole! I don’t even give a shit about Christmas aside from getting presents, but even I was pretty stoked for this because when in Frankenmuth, you know?

Chooch immediately pointed to Giant Santa’s weener and then lamented the fact that he wasn’t tall enough to touch Santa’s nipples as well, and that is how I found myself thinking about Santa having nipples for the first time in my life. I clearly need to add more Christmas porn to the collection.

They have signs in every language because Santa loves you all. I mean, Jesus does.

CHRIST.

You guys, this place is so big that they have some angry old lady at a desk handing out maps as soon as you walk in, and even then, we managed to briefly lose Jessi when a rack of penguin ornaments sucked her in.

The store had this old, indescribable musty smell to it and it just followed us around every corner. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was equal parts comforting and sickening. There must have been a lot of old people there.

If this would have said, “DON’T YOU READ MY BLOG!!??!?!” I totally would have bought it. On that note, there is an ornament out there for everyone. (OK, not everyone. Cannibals and Nazis are screwed. Didn’t see anything relevant to death row inmates or manure packagers, either. Fuck it, Bronner’s, you DON’T have something for everyone.)

But if you know someone who is REALLY INTO Sudoku or Geocaching, then Bronner’s has got you covered. There were even ornaments for insurance agents, if you feel so inclined to get your insurance agent an ornament or if you ARE an insurance agent and want to buy one for yourself and pretend that you actually have a client who really gives a shit about you.

They had actual Easter bunny costume heads for sale but they were like $400! And Jessi and I learned that Nativity sets are really expensive and nothing is included! Not even one lousy camel.

Chooch found the cat section within 3 minutes.

I don’t even want to know what this place is like in November and December, holy shit. The shit stain of humanity under one roof, I’m sure.

It was impossible to walk 10 feet in that joint without stumbling upon some kind of historical shrine Mr. Bronner himself. There was even a presentation room with millions of Hummels behind glass where you could sit and watch documentaries about the Bronner legacy. It was in this room where we found a fan that was blowing puffs of that weird cinnamon/moth ball/1970s airport aroma. They must have had hundreds of those fans hidden around the store, because that stench was inescapable. Maybe it was supposed to be frankincense?

We managed to get out of there before Chooch had the chance to break anything (or before Bill had the chance to break Chooch). There were like 63946923875 ornaments I wanted to buy for our shitty Christmas tree, but in the end I wound up only buying a commemorative Bronner’s ornament because you can’t go to the world’s largest Christmas store without getting a souvenir. I also got a magnet for my cabinet-thing at work and I made sure to tell Glenn all about it when I stuck it on. He seemed pretty unimpressed. I wonder, if I made Christmas tree Glennaments,would Bronner’s sell them…

Down the street from Bronner’s is the Silent Night Memorial Chapel! OMG.

Currently under renovation, obviously.

Henry tried to run away. Maybe if it was the Faygo Vending Machine Chapel, he’d have been a bit more piqued.

I was just going to end this by saying that I can’t believe Bronner’s passed up the opportunity to hand out religious literature, but then I remembered that they slipped some pamphlet in our bag about the heavenly father and Chooch was like, “What does this have to do with Christmas decorations?”

We’re doing a fine job.

I read some reviews online (because that’s what I do: read amusement park reviews all day long; I don’t have any friends to occupy my time, remember?) that complained about the employees were terrible. This was definitely not the case on my visit, because they clearly know I have a blog and want all of the glowing words written about them. I will say that I didn’t have a single run-in with surly orange-shirts all day. And I even left the park with two favorites: the dude from the Lost Coaster ride and this sweet Russian broad from the Hoosier Hurricane.

The Lost Coaster guy reminded me of the Salute Your Shorts camp counselor, Ug, in that he thought he was way cooler than he was and tried to act tough by yelling things like, “LIKE DON’T SIT ON THE RAILING!” But I guess he was still more intimidating than me because Chooch never listens when I tell him to get off the rail but when Ug hollered it, Chooch hopped off with a quickness.

I accidentally left my phone on the ride and realized it about 3 minutes afterward. When I ran back up the exit ramp to the ride platform, he was checking the next riders’ seat belts and casually holding my pink cell phone and it just made me crack up so bad.

“Hey, that’s my phone,” I said in faux-outrage and he put his hands up.

“I tried to chase you down but you were already gone!” he explained, handing it back over and we both had a good laugh. Why, I’m not sure. But I think I probably was definitely in the beginning stages of heat stroke by then so everything was funny to me except for things that Henry said/did/didn’t do because those things just made me inexplicably ANGRY.

OK, now let’s talk about the Russian. (I mean, after I type out hundreds of words that seem totally unrelated to a Russian broad, of course.)

A few days before we left for our road trip, Chooch acquired some sort of cut/scrape thing on the top of his ankle. Something about he went to kick a soccer ball, missed, tripped over it, bent his foot all the back and scraped it against the sidewalk. Then he proceeded to wear Converse high-tops, which ended up rubbing his scrape raw while forming a blister all at the same time.

So now he had a mutant cut/blister injury in addition to his foot hurting in general from being bent all the way back. He would be fine in the morning, but once he started walking too much, it would aggravate the wound and make his ankle get all red and slightly swollen.

The humidity that day, and also the OINTMENT (I love that people hate that word) that Henry slathered on the wound, made Chooch’s ankle too MOIST (hahaha) for Band-Aids to stay adhered for very long. So when were walking up the metal-grated steps of the Hoosier Hurricane coaster, Chooch forgot how to walk and fell, banging his ankle against the metal edge of the step below him, knocking off the Band-Aid and making him wince in pain.

Henry wasn’t with us, since he wasn’t RIDING anything that day, so I had to try to be a mom and tell Chooch things like, “It’s probably going to be fine” and “You’ll probably still have a foot after all of this is over” and “PLEASE START WALKING, I REALLY WANT TO GO ON THIS ROLLER COASTER.” As soon as we made it into the station, a super sweet Russian girl took down the chain for us and said to Chooch, “Oh no! What is happened to you?” But Chooch was still blinking back tears so I had to do my best to make it look like I hadn’t abused my child.

“There is first aid down there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder. She was really concerned about Chooch’s ankle, which was really endearing. But then we got stuck standing awkwardly next to her while we waited for the coaster to come back, so she made broken-English small talk about the weather.

“It is hot,” she said in a staccato.

“Yeah,” I agreed, struggling for words. And then after a stretch of about 30 million acres of silence, I thought of something else to say. “That, uh, humidity makes it worse.”

“Oh yah! The humidity is worst!” she agreed, and I thanked the arrival of the coaster for interrupting our cliche weather discourse.

She made sure Chooch and I were safely buckled into our seats and then said, “Enjoy ride!” and I secretly hoped it was meant just for us and not any of the other sweaty bastards behind us.

After we got off the ride, Chooch ran ahead of Henry and me because he knows everything, including the way to the first aid trailer. Eight-year-olds don’t need parents, you guys. By the time we caught up and walked into the first aid trailer, Chooch and the park medic were just sitting there silently, Chooch on the edge of the bed and the medic at his desk.

“He just came in and sat down,” the medic explained. “Said he was waiting for some people.”

And then Chooch relayed the entire, sordid saga of the Origin of the Wound.

He loves to talk about it. Last night, as soon as we got to his piano lesson, he sighed and mumbled something about his foot hurting. (Side note: that fucker is pretty much healed by now, so I guess he’s experiencing fantasy pains similar to Henry’s imaginary war wounds that don’t exist because Henry was never in an actual war when he was in the SERVICE.) “Oh no, what did you do to it?” his piano teacher Cheryl asked.

“Ugh, why does everyone ask me about it?” Chooch cried and I was like, “OH OK, MY LEFT FOOT, MAYBE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T STOP BRINGING IT UP.”

Here’s Henry re-doing Chooch’s Band-Aid 3 minutes later.

There was another Russian girl working the Cornball Express, another roller coaster, but she wasn’t as nice. I mean, she wasn’t a dick head or anything, but she didn’t go out of her way to smother us with attention like Hoosier Hurricane did. The other Cornball Express girl routinely helped me unbuckle my seatbelt all 137 times we rode that coaster (honestly, there were no lines to wait in). Chooch, who had quickly mastered the secret of the Houdini-approved seatbelts, kept crying out, “Oh for Christ’s sake, mommy!” Before eventually just not waiting for me anymore.

I seriously have never struggled so hard with a seatbelt in my life. It was almost embarrassing. Ok it was embarrassing.

After hours of stalking Frankenstein’s Castle, those fucking garage doors were finally a’lift and we had the confusing task of trying to add dolla dolla bills to the Indiana Beach cash card thing. I forget to mention that this is one of those amusement parks where, if you don’t want to plan on riding much, you can load money onto credit cards and then scan it before you get on the rides. Even the ride-all-day wristbands have barcodes on them and everyone is required to stick their wrist under a scanner at the front of all of the lines. Waldameer Park in Erie does this, too. It’s annoying, but whatever.

Anyway, Frank’s Place wasn’t included in the ride-all-day admission price. Some dark rides are like that and while I’m not exactly sure of the reason (Chris? Can you help here?), I have a few theories, mostly that it’s a restoration thing. It was an additional $3.50 per person and BE STILL MY HEART, Henry actually paid for THREE. At first, I thought maybe there was some sad albino kid in line behind us, tugging on Henry’s bland heart strings and making him do charitable thangs. (I didn’t want to end on a rhyme. You understand.)

But no, he was paying for himself! Henry was finally going to not sit on a bench with his nose pressed against his phone, looking at Pinterest! (Honestly, Chooch and I made fun of him from every line in which we stood. Because why not.)

As soon as the ticket booth broad granted us admission, our nostrils were slammed with the unmistakable vintage bouquet of moth balls and Aunt Edith’s cedar closet of muumuus. It’s a smell that I love because it means old school amusement park. Fuck those flashy sterile, steel concrete jungles known as Six Flags.

I want that fancy dark ride musk.

If they bottled it as perfume/cologne, that’d be a surefire way to get me into your backseat.

(Oh come on, don’t pretend like you thought I was classy.)

“I just paid $3.50 to walk through a fake castle with two screaming d-bags. I bet that taco would have also cost $3.50 and have been way less annoying.” – Henry, if he ever thought about anything.

After sitting on a bench and listening to a crackling recording about what scares we were about to encounter, a disinterested young Indiana Beach employee opened a door and ushered us in for the “OMG crashing elevator” segment. At first I thought this was going to be totally lame, and that part was, but then she opened another door and set us free, on our own, to shuffle through the guts of a mostly pitch-black haunted house.

Here is Henry’s review:

It was fun. I got pushed through by two scared little people. That’s about it.

Wow. Titillating as always.

There were no scare actors, just the effective non-use of light bulbs, enclosed animatronic displays that managed to pop on when I was always the most unsuspecting, moving floors and enough enclosed spaces to make a claustrophobe fake their way through the rosary.

THIS IS A CLASSIC DARK ATTRACTION. One that keeps it real and doesn’t rely on modern, high-tech scare tactics. Let me put it this way: there are chicken doors located throughout the length of the castle and if Henry hadn’t gone in with us, I guarantee the first one would have a chunk taken out of it in the exact outline of my body.

This is the type of haunt you want to walk through with the person you’re obsessively crushing on or maybe the hipster you just met IRL on Tinder and want to terrorize in the dark with rusty hedge clippers while wearing your mom’s skin on your face. Butterflies!

I’d go back to Indiana Beach every summer just for another 10 minutes inside Frankenstein.

YEAH, YOU READ THAT RIGHT.

*****

Overall, I would rate Indiana Beach 3/5. The coasters and dark rides were its main redeeming qualities. I didn’t like how it took so long for a lot of the rides to open, instead of just opening everything when the park itself opened. And I also didn’t like the actual park grounds. The layout was weird, sloppy like the parks I used to create on Roller Coaster Tycoon because I apparently lack aesthetic. I’m not saying I expect every park to be Disney-levels of beautiful, but I don’t know, maybe try planting some more flowers or something.

We didn’t eat enough of the food for this to be a factor in my rating, although they had something called Redneck Biscuits which sounded hideous but I still wanted to eat one and Henry wouldn’t buy me one because NO TACO.

My brain needs to reset itself so here, have a filler post.  There are also no pictures of Henry in this one, because as he said earlier, “Haven’t you word-raped me enough over the last two days?” TOUCHÉ, MOTHERFUCKER.

Honestly was about to scratch a Will on my leg with a paint chip from this sad, downtrodden Paratrooper—it was such a janky ride! On one hand, I was like, “At least if we’re flung from this shoddy piece of mechanics, we have a 50/50 chance of hitting the lake and surviving” and then on the other hand I was like, “EW I DON’T WANT TO TOUCH THAT GROSS WATER!”

I’ve only ridden on one set of Paratroopers more run down looking than this one, and that was at the Washington County Fair.

A fresh coat of paint goes a long way, Indiana Beach. Just pretend like each umbrella is one of Tammy Faye Bakker’s eyelids. Go wild!

Faces of Paratrooper survivors.

That guy has what we call 1950s Indiana Swag.

I love the Tilt-a-Whirl so much but not on days where elves are spooning viscous scoops of oil from my facial pores to use as liliputian love-stick lubricant. Let me spell it out for it: IT WAS HOT AND HUMID. I can’t ride spinny rides when I’m in the throes of heat stroke. But Chooch rode this three times in a row. God, good for you, Chooch. Why don’t you just write a song about it on your dumb keyboard, ugh.

Obligatory ice cream cone shot. Can I get any more predictable.

Seriously, these guys. I was obsessed. Also note: this was pretty much how crowded it was all day until late afternoon when the water park mysteriously closed down and a horde of Indiana’s finest invaded the park like beached whales.

Pale, so pale, very pale beached whales.

This is not where I got my ice cream.

I haven’t even finished writing about this park yet and I’m already trying to con Henry into taking us to another one. I’M NEVER SATISFIED. Just ask the doves when they cry.

My criteria for planning a road trip is pretty simple:

• Are there friends along the way that I can impose upon?
• Does my Roadside America app approve of this route?
• Are there amusement parks in the vicinity?

I’ve wanted to go to Indiana Beach (fun fact: not actually a beach) for awhile now, and it seemed logical to combine this with a long overdue visit to Michigan to hang out with Bill, Jessi and Tammy and also meet up with some other ladies I have been Internet friends with for YEARS. (More on that later!)

We had to drive through actual farmlands to get to Monticello, Indiana, at which point a man of about 100 years of age collected $7 from us and told us where to park.

Which was “anywhere in the wide open, empty parking lot.”

We got there right when the park opened, and not only was it a ghost town, but none of the rides were running. We roamed around for awhile, getting turned away from the Hoosier Hurricane and wasting time at the shooting gallery. Also, the humidity was so bad that it felt like Hell with the lid on; my face took on the sebaceous sheen of a glazed Christmas ham in no time. It was disgusting. But not so disgusting that I would consider visiting the dilapidated water park portion of Indiana Beach, which was included in regular admission because the lazy river wasn’t running. God only knows why not.

No thanks, dirty pastel water slides. God only knows what kind of fungi you’re getting ready to launch into my vagina. (I have phobias, OK?)

Chooch killed some time at the shooting gallery, while I paced around, waiting for the adjacent Frankenstein’s Castle to open their dumb doors already. I refuse to partake in the shooting galleries at amusement parks because HENRY won’t teach me how to aim. So I almost never hit anything. And then I pout, which morphs into an inevitable Hulk Rage later on.

Fuck you, Henry.

Lame Henry didn’t get the ride-all-day wristband because he’s too old to have fun at amusement parks now. But he sure does enjoy the ones with free general admission so that he can walk around and complain for nothing. I promise you, we broke up at least 87 times that day.

The main (OK, the only) reason Indiana Beach made my list is their staggering collection of THREE dark rides. Two of them, The Den of Lost Thieves and the most-anticipated House of Frankenstein were basically the last rides to open that day. But oh, were they worth the wait.

The Den of Lost Thieves is a shooting ride, which I generally do not enjoy. Kennywood took out a great dark ride, the Goldrusher, and replaced it with a modern shooter-type dark ride and the only thing remarkable about it is how incredibly boring it is. I would gladly bypass this one every time we visit Kennywood, but Chooch always drags me on it. I hate waiting in line for it too! You wait and wait and wait only to get put in this holding room, like a foyer, where they force you to watch some animated portrait on a wall telling you the story of Ghostwood Estate and then the door opens and it’s a fucking free-for-all. Everyone pushes their way through so even if you were the first one in line before entering that room, chances are you’ll take a fanny pack to the groin and wind up 17 people back.

So when I realized that the Den of Lost Thieves was also a shooting ride, I was like, “Damn, we drive 8 hours for this?” But it turned out to be FANTASTIC! Old, musty and full of old-school scares. I loved the shit out of this ride. Especially since I got more points than Chooch.

Another dark ride in the park doubled as a coaster! It was called the Lost Coaster of Something I Forget Who Knows. There was no one in line when Chooch and I walked past, so I shoved all of my belongings into Henry’s chest and bolted for it.

“Um…it’s gonna take a few minutes,” the older, orange-shirted ride operator said. “It got stuck, and I’m waiting for someone to push it back out.” Oh OK, no big deal, you guys. Rides get stuck like all of the time, right? And probably not back-to-back times, right?

He said something about the cars not being “properly weighted” and I was like, “Oh well if you’re looking for all of the weight, you’ve come to the right thunder thighs.” Four more people joined us right as a mechanic came grunting out of the fake cave, pushing the double mine cars in front of him.

The ride operator seemed confident that we had enough bodies to successfully propel the mine cars from start to finish, so we loaded up with me and Chooch and some lady and little girl in one car, and a guy and kid in the one behind us.

Awkward thing about this ride: four people fit in a car, but the seats face each other, so unless you’re with three of your homies, you get to stare at strangers for the next two minutes and I hate that you guys. Looking at people who are looking at me, it’s just…ew. Not for me.

This ride was pretty thrilling and volatile, just like a relationship with me! All of the ups and downs and whiplash and violent shoves.

Will you need a PFA? Maybe! And then…nothing. It just stopped, right in the middle of the dark cave.

“Is it supposed to do this?” I asked the people in the car with us.

“I DON’T THINK SO BUT THE STEEL HAWG GETS STUCK ALL THE TIME,” answered the little girl in an octave only little girls can manage.

****Mental note to be wary of the Steel Hawg. (Which never opened that day anyway, so moot point.)

Anyway, guess what guys? We were stuck! I think this may have been my first time ever getting stuck on a ride, too, so thanks Indiana Beach! That’s a cherry I sure needed popped.

As if it wasn’t hot enough that day, now we were stuck inside some muggy faux-cavern, in a near-enclosed car, with no rescue in sight. I had sweat rolling into my eyes and mouth, I could feel it dripping from the backs of my knees, my whole person was slick with the moist essence of PANIC.

And I had these strangers staring at me and I had nothing to say other than nervous laughter and then the kid in the car behind us started to cry and his dad was mouthing off about how this was such BULLshit and Chooch kept meowing and I was like, “WHY IS NO ONE TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH US OVER AN INTERCOM OR MORSE CODE OR CROP CIRCLE?!” And then finally, after a good FIVE MINUTES OF NOTHING, that same disgruntled mechanic came trudging up the track behind us, shouted an answer to a garbled voice over his walkie talkie, fumbled with some switches in the breaker box next to us, and then said “Enjoy your ride” just as the motor kicked in and we went STRAIGHT DOWN A HILL. Oh that’s right, we were stuck on the zenith of a hill and had no idea because it was so dark in there. So…that was definitely a thrill.

Meanwhile, Henry had been dreaming of buying a taco all day. That’s what he’s thinking about in this picture, as a matter of fact. Indiana Beach has a taco stand that was apparently featured on the Food Network for some reason. I love me a good taco, but I knew that Indiana Beach was for sure not going to have a meatless option. So Chooch and I decided to get pizza and then Henry was going to get his coveted taco afterward.

Except that Chooch only ate one slice of his personal pizza and Henry acted like a motherfucking martyr and ate the rest of it. Like, who cares? Sometimes I think he does this shit on purpose, like he’s some Leftover Scraps Hero. OK, you ate three small slices of crappy pizza, good for you.

Oh, you ate the rest of Chooch’s waffle for breakfast? Well, FUCK Henry. Thanks for taking one for the team. Shit.

I knew all of his moaning and groaning over this would eventually paint a bigger picture, and I was right: Now that he had eaten Chooch’s pizza, he was “too full” to get a taco, and that was ALL THAT HE WANTED, you guys. A fucking taco, but now Chooch and I had ruined his life by having the audacity to get pizza for our own lunches. Last time I checked, no one was forcing pizza down Henry’s enlarged hatch.

I kept coaxing him to get a taco, but he was being such a bitch about it. He was acting offended almost, like he was on a porn diet and I was trying to get him to succumb to peer pressure by showing photos of naked broads going to town on tacos.

So bizarre. Maybe he’s trying to fit back into his SERVICE costume?

Wistful thoughts over the taco stain on his shirt that could have been.

Dreaming of brushing a taco with his moustache bristles to the tune of a Selena song.

He had his chance right here! Going, going….

Gone. This was right after he said, “I DON’T WANT ONE NOW. JUST FORGET IT.” Oh wow, someone’s come down with a case of the Erins.

Imagining a lake where all the sailboats are tacos and he’s a great, venerable taco sailor.

Not buying a taco.

Yeah Henry. Don’t forget. Bitchbaby motherfucker.

(I think Mexico might find it hard to believe that the world’s best tacos are in Indiana.)

OMG one of my favorite parts of our road trip was when we got to drive through the boarded-up hole where Henry used to live while he was in the SERVICE OMG CAN YOU STAND IT.

I wondered out loud if perhaps Henry had grown children running around Bunker Hill, but he assured me that was impossible, which means that Henry didn’t have sex for like THREE YEARS from 1984-1987.

I was in elementary school then, roller skating and being awesome.

Henry is sitting next to me right now, against his will, and I’m asking him for information to include with these pictures since he has refused to write anything on his own because he hates thinking of the years of his life that didn’t include me.

Obviously.

He was an aircraft CREW CHIEF. Whatever that means.

Here is a street that Henry may have walked on! He probably at least drove on it in his GREEN GRAND PRIX. (He just corrected me and said it was blue but last night he told me it was green. Now he’s saying he had both. God, brag much?) He doesn’t recall Brown’s Game Room being there when he lived there in the EIGHTIES. I asked him if there were any whore houses there and he got really impatient and said, “Not in BUNKER HILL. Those were in KOKOMO.” Oh. Sorry.

Henry never want to Indiana Beach while he lived there because he didn’t know it existed. He did, however, go to the fair. Once. He can’t remember if he rode anything, but he knows for certain he didn’t kiss any girls there because kissing leads to SEX and he wasn’t having that in Bunker Hill. That would have ruined his reputation as the Base Eunuch.

This is the neighborhood where Henry’s trailer was but he claims the trailer isn’t there anymore, but he wouldn’t drive back to where it used to be so I couldn’t get any pictures of the empty pit that remains. He wouldn’t even get out of the car while I was taking these pictures. (Admittedly, there wasn’t much there to photograph and I didn’t want anyone to come running out of their home, spitting Skoal at me, so I was pretty quick to wrap this up.)

Also, Henry has no pictures of his trailer, because he wasn’t in the habit of taking pictures of his non-descript living quarters. He had a variety of roommates, including Les, Tim (WHO HE IS FRIENDS WITH ON FACEBOOK! I’m going to message him soon), and John. He thinks John only lived there for a little while but he doesn’t remember because it’s hard to remember things that happened in the 80s, you guys. He claims that they never brought home any local women and this is just so weird to me. They had lots of porn on VHS though. He mumbled “no” when I asked him if they all watched it together, which means that he wanted them to all watch it together but they were like, “Ew get out of here, Eunuch.”

HENRY HAS BEEN TO THIS BAR!!! Apparently, he mostly drank at the bar on BASE. What a snob. He told me that he used to drink LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS at the bar on base. You guys, Henry used to drink LONG ISLAND ICED TEAS. Now I know what I’m serving at his 50th birthday party next year, complete with cocktail parasols and fruit on swords. And obviously they will be served in mason jars with paper straws, as an homage to Henry’s Pinterest addiction.

Henry made me get in the car after this for fear of the homeowners mistaking me for someone casing their house.

Henry used to cook his own food when he lived there and he just said, “I don’t understand why this is such a big deal to you, I cook my own food now, too.” Oh yeah. But for some reason, I keep imagining him in velour lounge pants and a wife-beater, stirring succotash on top of a hot plate. He just told me he cooked Thanksgiving dinner once!! For like 4 or 5 people, he doesn’t remember!

(I AM SO GIDDY AS I WRITE THIS! The notion of Henry having a life prior to me is hilarious and mythical to me all at once. I need to know all of it.)

I was excited to talk about this picture but Henry yelled, “THAT IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT THING. THAT IS NOT EVEN BUNKER HILL. THAT IS TEXAS.” He didn’t do cool things like this in Indiana. Probably because he didn’t know how.

This was when Henry first saw the thing and then realized it wasn’t the thing anymore. (You know, that base thing.) It’s a prison now! He said he doesn’t have many feelings about this since it was so long ago. There was a reunion last year that he didn’t attend. He said it was because all of the people who went were people who were there for like a million years and not an early-discharge pussy like himself. I asked him if he had one of those dishonorable discharges and he got really irritated so that means yes. Probably because he was a Eunuch. And back then, that was probably worse than being gay.

He’s laughing right now but it’s not the “I’m having a good time!” kind of laugh, but more of a “Can I please go to bed now because my sanity is starting to come out of my nose” kind of scary laugh.

Hi guys, it’s Friday and we’re en route to Michigan. Here’s a brief run-down of our Thursday:

After a night of really intense thunderstorms that had Chooch totally panicked, we ate crappy hotel breakfast with Miserable Henry.

“I wonder how long it will take before he quits talking to us altogether,” I mused out loud.

“I think that’s already happened,” Chooch answered, shoveling disgusting scrambled eggs into his mouth. Henry said they were made from a powder. So fucking disgusting.

Drove through “downtown” Logansport on our way to Monticello and I saw at least four men wearing overalls which made me miss the days when I used to wear overalls constantly so the first thing on my agenda when I get home is to buy some motherfucking overalls from the farmer store.

I made Henry take us to this donut shop because clearly small donut joints like this one have really good donuts and we would be remiss not to see for ourselves.

Except that they only had approximately five donuts left and a girl was standing there staring at us so Henry felt obligated at that point to buy two donuts even though he didn’t like any of the ones available. And then it was all, “Mommy HAD to stop here” for the next half hour.

Passed a tractor parade on the way to Indiana Beach in Monticello.

Spent most of the day melting our faces off at Indiana Beach, which is a pretty sad amusement park with some really great dark rides, wooden coasters and other assorted rides prone to getting stuck. We were only there for an hour before getting stuck on some mine ride, so that was wonderful.

I have a ton more to say about this but that will have to wait until I get home. You know me + words + amusement parks. No one ever wins when those blog posts roll out.

Left Indiana Beach and drove to Fort Wayne, where we ended up staying for the night in a Best Western “Executive Suite,” which made Chooch say, “Well done, Daddy. I’m impressed.” Poor kid.

Ate at Cebolli’s Mexican Restaurant or something and had a delightful young waiter who called me “miss.”

Afterward, we drove through “downtown” Fort Wayne because there was some moving bread billboard that my Roadside America app kept insisting that I needed to see. As soon as we got into town, there were people RUNNING to some shared destination and we were like WTF, why is this dumb city so excited right now? And then we drive past their little baseball stadium which had music blaring from within so Henry googled and discovered that a Florida Georgia Line “concert” was happening, which explained why all the dorky-looking white people were racing in droves toward the music.

“That’s not nice,” Henry chastised me when I was in the middle of a roll making fun of country music. And then I remembered that he was a country music fan before I saved him.

(Just kidding, y’all. I don’t even really hate country music. NOT AS MUCH AS I HATE SKA, anyway.)

Then we were at a traffic light behind some car who was sitting through a green light. Some stoner kid was crossing the street and calmly shouted, “That’s a green light, bro” and then nodded a “You’re welcome” to us. I was really excited about this but Henry was like, “It wasn’t that funny” because if it’s not on Comedy Central, it’s not funny.

Found the billboard and Henry was like, “Really? This?”

And now we’re on our way to meet my friends Michelle and Sarah for the first time ever and I’m nervously excited! And Henry just had a bitch-fit because he hasn’t been able to find his stupid jugs of iced tea anywhere in Ohio or Indiana. #bluecollarproblems

HAVE A GOOD FRIDAY, FRIENDS!

I kept saying that I didn’t want to do anything this weekend.

“I don’t want to do anything this weekend,” I said to Henry. See? It happened. And these words were like the theme music of NCIS to Henry’s ears. This is all he ever wants to do on the weekend: NOTHING! I really thought that was what I wanted too. We have been doing so much lately that I was starting to feel a little run-down, physically and mentally, anyway. So aside from taking Chooch to his piano lesson Saturday morning, nothing else happened that day aside from binge-watching HBO while it was free and screaming at the hockey game.

I WAS SO FUCKING BORED.

The next day, Chooch went to the neighbor kid’s birthday party, which was right next door so we didn’t have to do anything but open the door and boot Chooch out of it. It was glorious! But then I became immediately bored again. I left the door slightly ajar because all of the jackass birthday party kids were running around outside the house making me super nervous and annoyed and I needed to adapt my role as Crotchety Bitch-Neighbor in case something happened that would provide me an opportunity to run outside and chew out some dumb kid.

About an hour into the party, someone started to knock on my door, which blew open because of the wind; this left me in an awkward predicament because I absolutely hate answering the front door but now whoever was knocking could basically see into my house.  DO YOU WATCH THE FOLLOWING!? It seems like every motherfucker that opens their door for someone gets stabbed to death. I don’t want to get stabbed to death. WHO DOES? (I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of people who do, but they’re probably singing Crash Test Dummies song(s) while coloring walls with their feces in a mental institution.) I figured it might be one of the parents, that Chooch probably fucked up somehow (he’s my kid, after all), so I exhaled and bravely pulled the front door open the rest of the way.

It was an older man looking for his missing cat. RED FLAG, right? Total Yinzer, dishelved, possibly a little buzzed, and definitely dressed worse than Henry. So, your basic Brookliner. Whether it was true or not, I indulged him while he struggled to not only describe the cat, but remember her dumb name. (Tia.) And then he struggled some more to tell me where he lives, which is literally like 5 houses down the street.

“OK, we’re the first house down there that has a porch that sticks out. Do you see the porch sticking out? Maybe you can’t see from here,” he squints real hard, practically hemorrhaging while digging in his brain for a house number. “OK, you see that gray car? Not the one on the street. The gray car in the driveway. That’s our house past the driveway.”

I promised him I would keep my eyes open for his car and we shook hands after he told me his name is Gary. He was just about to leave when I reminded him to watch his step. (Our front porch steps are all crumbled on one side and are hopefully about to be repaired soon. The landlord knows, and I hope he doesn’t want a law suit. But maybe he does. Maybe getting sued gives him an erection.) At my simple suggestion, Gary took that as an invitation to pause and study the porch.

“You know, I painted one of these porches awhile back,” he said. And it suddenly all started coming to me and I knew exactly who he was.

“I remember that!” I exclaimed, because he and his weirdo brother-in-law (who lives next door to him) kept me wildly entertained that day with their half-crocked banter. “Hey, do you by chance have a cat named Teddy?” I asked.

“Teddy! Yeah, he’s dead now though. He was a good cat!”

“He really was!” I agreed. “He got my cat Marcy pregnant in 1999,” I explained.

“Oh, no! Do I owe you kitty support?” he laughed, and we went on to talk forever about cats. I told him that Teddy used to come and sit on the windowsill after Marcy had the kittens, like he wanted to check in on them, but Marcy would go absolute ape shit on him through the screen. She used to make these terrifying, gutteral screams that I have never heard from a cat before.

Don looked exactly like his father Teddy.

“Hey, you should come over in the summer and go swimming!” Gary suggested happily after finding out that we’re basically in-laws. That is definitely not going to happen, but I cheerfully went along because CATS! What a great topic.

Something like 15 minutes later, I was pulling the door closed behind me just in time to find Henry on the couch cracking the fuck up.

“What?” I squealed. “We were talking about CATS!”

“Have fun swimming at his house this summer,” Henry tried, and failed, to say without laughing.

That’s one of the few times you will ever find me not resisting human contact.

***

I still wasn’t feeling 100% myself (obviously something was wrong with me if I willingly spent time small-talking with a neighbor) but it was really nice and sunny out that afternoon so I made Henry go for a walk with me.

Jo’s Salon decorates for every holiday. Love the bunnies and sexy Jesus-in-a-basket!

There used to be this totally sketchy bar on the Boulevard that you had to walk down steps to get to, basically a rape-trap, but it was closed down (I think there were a lot of drug busts there) and now it’s some strange church-thing.

I was hoping that this would the day I could finally get Henry to go inside the African market but he’s still being a baby about it. Aside from him being secretly racist, I’m not sure WTF is going on with Henry and the African market. Maybe he tried to get them to sell Faygo and they laughed at him?

So we went to Pitaland instead. I used to be inexplicably terrified of that place, but then I learned that they have the freshest dates around, and also a super-hot guy working there named I forget now but he is really handsome and I like to remind Henry of that fact every time we go there.

Cactus pears & nub-things.

I got to witness some incredibly old man with a walker pick up a box of Mediterranean candy and honest-to-god bellow, “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS” before slamming it back down. Dude, they’re ANGEL KISSES AND THEY LOOK DELICIOUS SO STOP SLAMMING SHIT.

(Henry just responded to my urgent text. The Hot Pitaland Guy’s name is Marvin. Thanks for paying attention when I kept dreamily saying his name in your ear yesterday, buddy.)

Then I made Henry buy a container of these delicious looking powdered pastries that the non-Marvin Pitaland guy described to us in a bored mumble. Turns out they were $10 and DISGUSTING. I couldn’t taste anything but ROSE and the choking was almost as terrible as the time Janna tried to drown me in rose water at the Palace of Gold.

Back outside on the Boulevard, I stopped abruptly and tried to take a picture of this guy standing in front of the red door of one of Those Weird Churches, but I wasn’t fast enough and he had already started to walk down the steps. I was so upset that I missed such a great photo-op, but Henry was perplexed and annoyed.

“What the hell are you trying to take a picture of!?” he hissed, wanting to continue on so we could get home already.

“The way that man was standing at the top of the steps, it was such a Jesus pose!” I cried irritably, knowing he wouldn’t understand.

And he didn’t.

It’s funny that all this religious stuff was happening on our walk because I just ordered a bunch of religious candy to stuff in plastic eggs because it’s time for another EASTER GLENN HUNT! Just a little while ago, I made a Veronica’s Veil Glenn and a Hot Cross Bun Vendor Glenn. I love religious Glenns.

This was when we were fighting about who likes dates more.

“I’ve been eating dates since before you were born!” he bragged.

“YEAH WELL I ATE DATES IN MOROCCO!” I cried and then kicked him, because that’s what I do. But then we started reminisicing about the date milkshakes we drank at a date farm in California, so that was nice.

***

Almost as soon as we got home, Henry “suddenly” got a fever, WTF? So he spent the rest of the day in bed which affects me greatly because no one was available to make me dinner. I kept calling him, and I could hear his phone start to ring (he has a Dance Gavin Dance ring tone for me and I didn’t even download it on his behalf!!) and then it would stop suddenly because that dumb motherfucker was DECLINING MY CALLS. So then I would march upstairs and be him to come down.

“Just order pizza,” he mumbled in a (fake!!!!) fever-induced drawl.

“THEN I HAVE TO ANSWER THE DOOR FOR THE PIZZA GUY!” I wailed.

“Oh my god, tell me you are not even crying right now,” he sighed and rolled over, putting his dumb blanketed back toward me.

I ate a dumb bagel and Chooch had Apple Jacks. Sorry kid, but I’m not one of those broads who rises to the occasion and suddenly knows how to make a roast. (Not like Chooch would ever eat that anyway.)

I was telling Barb about the dinner tragedy today and she asked me something dumb, like, “Did it feel like Henry was burning up the bed?” or something.

“Yeah, that’s funny,” I laughed sarcastically. “I slept on the couch last night because I didn’t want to get sick.” And Barb looked like she wanted to say something about that but then remembered who she was talking to, so she kept it at a simple, “Oh, Erin.”

Way to ruin the whole entire weekend, Henry. You’re so selfish.

My brother Corey and I have had plans for several weeks now to  take a tour of Nemacolin Castle on Sunday. I was really excited because it seems like the kind of place perfect for giggling in corners while old people on the tour finger doilies and say things like, “Oh my!” when given historical facts. Also, we were going to have lunch at a place where we could also buy a firearm and have our computer fixed.

However, when I went to Nemacolin’s website yesterday to verify that I knew where the hell we were going, I was met with large red letters that stated:

Nemacolin Castle is Currently Closed While It Retools For Christmas Candle Light Tours!

Whomp whomp.

I texted Corey, who was equally as devastated, but we refused to give up. We tossed around ideas of touring a mine and some park in West Virginia that has rusted farm equipment strewn about. “What about a winery?” Corey suggested and I was definitely on board with that. There is one that’s actually in the same area as Nemacolin, but Corey called and they aren’t doing tours because some asshole had to go and leave town.

Then I found one closer to Pittsburgh and nothing about it really seemed all that revolutionary or postcard-worthy, until I found it. The Picture.

And then this happened:

So then it was determined for sure that the Narcisi Winery was going to have to show these two motherfuckers around its facility. Because now we were OBSESSED. It HAD to be this winery! No other!

I called this morning, because I learned on the website that 48 hours advance notice was needed for a tour. When I was greeted by an elderly woman, I knew, JUST KNEW, it had to be Broad.

“Tour?” she repeated me in a very WTF tone. “Oh, I don’t know anything about that.”

I insisted that I saw it on the website, and at that point I could hear her shuffling papers around.

“Oh, I don’t know what the hell happened,” she disgruntedly sighed, and then began asking me normal reservation-ish questions, such as “how many people?” and “will you be having lunch also?” so I began to feel hopeful. “OK, Roberto will call you back and either confirm or, I don’t know, tell you otherwise, I guess,” she said, and suddenly my Boob of Hope started to sag a little. In the meantime, Corey and I were having a texting flurry.

“This sounds very promising that Broad will be there,” he said, “and possibly a guy named Roberto.” So then we suddenly also became obessed with Roberto.

Dorothy called me back herself and I knew it was going to be Bad News Bears when her tone had suddenly changed from Harried Wine Pourer to Sympathetic Grandma. Turns out no one was going to be there on Sunday to give a tour, but there was one tomorrow at the same time. I told her I’d have to call back after discussing with Corey.

And when I did, a very bored-sounding guy answered and was like, “That’s great. You’ll have to talk to Roberto.” AND THEN I GOT TO TALK TO ROBERTO!

Mean Amber2 told me that she’s been to this winery numerous times and, in her typical “You’re a dummy!” tone, she said, “I DON’T THINK THAT THEY GIVE TOURS THERE, ERIN.” She loves making me sad. But too bad Sandy and I had just had a conversation about this and SANDY said that her mom recently went there on a bus with old people and that she had a wonderful time and the winery provided lots of fun activities for them.

So now obviously Corey and I are hoping that we get to play wine BINGO.

“I hope there actually is a tour,” Corey texted me after I told him about Mean Amber2’s tour-ignorance.

“There better be,” I replied. “Roberto made me pre-pay.”

Anyway, Mean Amber2 knew exactly who I was talking about when I asked her “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OLD LADY.” Mean Amber2 insists that we should see Broad as soon as we walk in, because she’s the wine pourer.

“She’s always there,” Mean Amber2 said. “If you don’t see her—”

“—she’s DEAD!” I interjected.

“Um, yeah. Or, she’s just NOT THERE,” Mean Amber2 said meanly.

She didn’t know Roberto, though.

Later, she even emailed me a picture of her from the website and asked “Is this the woman?” No, that’s the BROAD, Amber. God.

So. yeah. The whole point of this is that my brother and I will be going to a winery next Sunday, but unlike normal people who visit wineries for the wine-tasting and wine-learning, we are going for a broad, Roberto and a fucking Tuscan sundae.

And potentially BINGO.

Corey’s senior picture. Janna comes with the package.

After we toured the Palace and the grounds, I was super adamant about eating at the cafeteria. I am obsessed with the cafeteria!! All cafeterias!!

The cafeteria (Govinda’s) is located about a quarter of a mile down the street from the Palace, where the Temple and Hare Krishna lodging can be found. Right across from Govinda’s is a courtyard and it was teeming with Sunday worshipers who all stared at us because, short of flashing fanny packs, everything about us screamed NOT ONE OF YOU.

Inside Govinda’s, we became immediately confused. First of all, we were the only non-Krishna people. Second, there was no clear instruction on what we were supposed to do, so we all kind of stopped and slammed into each other as soon as we entered the door. Then we did what all socially adjusted people do and whispered uneasily to each other like we had just been kicked out of the back of the Scooby Doo Mystery Van and landed on the threshold of a haunted house.

“Ask if they have the buffet,” I hissed at Janna, who sighed and asked the young Indian girl at the register by the door.

“Oh, no,” the girl answered with a laugh and WHY DO I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE PEE WEE AT THE ALAMO EVERYWHERE I GO. I know I reference that all of the fucking time, but it’s because it’s true. “You may choose from our limited menu,” she said, Vanna White’ing her hand toward a black dry-erase board next to the counter. The undulating question marks in our eyeballs must have been pretty clear, because she added, “Would you like me to explain everything to you?”

We all sighed and shook our heads eagerly as she slowly explained in her best dumb white folk words what everything was. I still couldn’t understand half of it because I’m dumb with ingredients and wound up just picking something at random. Corey ordered something similar to what I got, I think our breads were the only difference, and Janna went with the safe bet of samosas because even dumb city folk know what samosas are. You can buy them in the freezer section!

Since Janna drove us there that day, and it’s kind of a long haul, I paid for her lunch. (And Corey paid for her Palace of Gold tour.) I wonder if she wrote about it that night in her diary, because Corey and I don’t generally do nice things for her.

We chose a booth far away from the other people already eating, and waited for our food over a soundtrack of our own nervous giggles.

A waitress (maybe the same person as the cashier? I wasn’t paying attention) set down Janna’s samosas and a tray that looked remarkably like hog slop and baby vomit, so I knew it was going to be good Indian cuisine, but Corey and I were unsure whose it was supposed to be. I thought she said something that started with a “d,” which is what my choice started with, so I dramatically stopped Corey right before he started eating.

“I THINK THAT MIGHT BE MINE!” my inner fat girl beast cried. So then we had the daunting task of waiting for the waitress to return with the final meal so that we could finally put this minutes-long mystery to bed.

I was right! It was whatever I ordered. But Corey’s ended up being tastier than mine, so who’s laughing now.

We didn’t have silverware, not that Janna needed any for her samosas, but it was kind of difficult for Corey and me to dig in to our lunches.

“I think maybe they don’t believe in forks,” I said honestly, trying to fashion my naan into a serving apparatus, but only succeeding in staining my fingertips orange like I had just smoked fifteen year’s worth of unfiltered Pall Malls. This went on for awhile, Corey and I alternating quiet exclamations of “ouch” every time we burnt ourselves on curry. Meanwhile, we kept darting our eyeballs around the cafeteria, craning our necks to see if any of the seasoned Indians at the nearby tables were also eating with their hands, but everyone seemed to be finished eating at the moment.

“You know,” I said, shaking the pain off my fingers, “maybe I’m confused. I think it’s the Ethiopians that eat with their hands.” And just then, another Govinda’s patron walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a plastic fork out of a bucket; Corey and I totally lost it. Eating lunch became a lot easier after that.

Even though I was too stuffed to finish my meal, I kept harping on Janna to go up and buy me dessert. She totally didn’t want to, but I can be very persuasive. There were these golden balls of wonder that I was dead-set on devouring, so Janna returned with a container of those and a regular old push-pop for herself, which made me laugh because how much more Caucasian can one look in an Indian restaurant than by licking on an American summer delight? And then I found out that the golden balls of wonder cost about as much as Janna’s lunch, totally negating the fact that I treated her, so then I was performing the simultaneous trick of laughing and choking on balls, which is something I mastered my junior year of high school.

Anyway, these balls were made of chick peas, cashews and honey. They were an oral treasure, in my opinion. Corey kind of liked them, but not enough to finish the one I gave him, and Janna took one bite and then handed it back to me. MORE FOR ME.

After lunch, we crossed through the courtyard, which was now suspiciously empty, and walked into the temple. There were shoes splayed all over the floor and on the shelves in the shoe room, but only three people were in the temple itself. One was an old white man who looked like he definitely has been foraging in the mountains his whole life. I wanted desperately to take his picture, but that motherfucker never took his eyes off me.

The shoe:person ratio is all the evidence I need to know for fact that these deity statues are feeding on human flesh. You’re not fooling this girl, New Vrindaban society. I’m on to you.

There was an Indian couple in the temple with us, and from a short distance away, I spied the man ladle some sort of liquid into his woman’s palm, which she then brought to her mouth and DRANK. I needed to do this too, so I lingered casually in front of a eerily realistic statue of Swami Prabhupada and waited for them to leave. Then I pulled Janna over to the bowl of hopefully-not-poison and made her try it first.

“It’s just like, rose water,” was her official Yelp review. So I allowed her to dump some of it into my palm, and then I immediately gagged and thought for sure I was perishing as the intense floral notes clogged my windpipe.

“Oh my god, what did you do?” asked Corey, who had just re-joined us after selling his soul to the Cult of Krishna by making accidental eye contact with one of the manga-like deity statues. Janna explained to him that I saw other people doing it and I’m sure she rolled her eyes too but I couldn’t tell since I was pretty much blacking out at that point.

Corey started laughing. “You were peer-pressured into drinking weird flower water?!” YES, PRETTY MUCH, OK?!

Janna had to use the bathroom in the temple before we left, so Corey and I stood outside and talked about her, obviously. Suddenly, a peacock trotted over from god only knows where, and it looked like it was going to start to head into the temple. I suggested that we try to usher it into the bathroom with Janna, and Corey thought this was the best idea since the Nintendo Power Glove, but there were two Hare Krishna people standing nearby so we thought maybe it wouldn’t be the hottest idea to disrespect their token animal while standing in front of the temple, no less. Even us Kelly kids know when to draw the line.

After the temple, we walked off some of our curry-heavy lunch while paying our giddy-yet-horrified respects to the Dancing Acolyte statues on the other side of the creepy (one lone) swan-infested man-made lake. Hidden by trees behind the statues sat a cabin which had eerie Krishna tunes wafting out through the screened windows. I wanted to climb up the hill and peek into the windows, but Janna was like, “No. Don’t.”

The last stop on the agenda was the gift shop back up on the Palace of Gold grounds. I bought a religious ring and a pretty blue bracelet that everyone at work has been admiring and I say, “Thanks it was like $5 at the Palace of Gold!” and then I think that might kind of mar their opinion. But anyway, on the way back to the car, Janna was crossing the street at the same time a car* was coming. I shoved her out of the way while screaming, “JANNNNNNNA!! LOOOOOOK OUTTTTT!” I mean, I SCREAMED it. Corey had already crossed the street and was standing next to Janna’s car, so he whirled around to see what the fuck was happening, and then he started laughing really hard, because what I didn’t know yet was that the doors to the minivan parked next to Janna were open and about 10 Indian people were standing there looking horrified.

*(It might be conducive to the story to explain here that the car was like, a lot of yards away and going 15mph.)

Of course, they were standing on the side of Janna’s car that I had to get into, so it was extremely embarrassing and I was literally squealing from trying to hold back my laughter. At that point, I was also crying. So I opened the backdoor of Janna’s car and pretty much dove in, nearly spilling my container of golden balls of wonder on the floor of her car. Corey and Janna got in and once all the doors were shut, we collectively lost it. Well, maybe Janna wasn’t laughing that hard, but Corey and I were doubled over. I think Janna was probably just more exhausted from having spent so many hours with the Kelly siblings.

****

Once Janna dropped us off, I came into the house and tried to recall the day’s events to Henry, while choking on another golden honey ball of wonder and having to squat down to keep from peeing; I was a hot, giddy mess. Chooch took one look at me and then went back on the computer.

Henry didn’t think any of it was funny, nor did he think I was a hero for saving Janna from vehicular manslaughter. I guess he had to be there.

Henry and Chooch are at a birthday party (one of Chooch’s many girlfriends, I guess), and I just couldn’t sit around the house any longer.

So I walked aimlessly around Brookline for almost two hours.

I know I bitch about this town a lot, but there is something really quaint about it if you can look past the Yinzer accents and drug busts.

There was something going on at this church and really loud, scary singing blasted out of the open windows, probably in hopes of brainwashing heathen passers-by. Sorry, Church. Considering I came home and licked Satan’s face, I’d say you failed.

I called Henry several times on my walk and hung up on him because he was asking stupid questions that I wasn’t in the mood to answer.

This chair is for sale for $14 and I want it!!

If you’re ever trying to stalk me, you can often find me walking on this street.

This dude had the Steelers game on super loud. I couldn’t see where it was coming from but I want to believe it was a transistor radio.

The guy who lives in this house is old, Polish, and has like three unmarked white vans and stares me down every morning.

If I ever go missing, maybe look there first.

Ever since I went to the Palace of Gold, a Hare Krishna compound in the hills of West Virginia, I’ve been promising my brother Corey that I would take him there. And then Janna wanted to go too, and I had all of these wonderfully dark visions of her getting “taken” by the Hare Krishnas and spending the next eternity singing and selling books at some tiny county airport in Idaho. Spoiler alert: That didn’t happen. :(

But goddamn if we didn’t have the best day ever anyway!

NO SHOES IN THE PALACE.

Janna was asking me about the peacock stained glass before the tour started, and I was like, “Oh, you will learn about the significance of the peacock during the tour.”

The tour was much shorter this time around, mostly because we had the most apathetic, exhausted tour guide in the joint, and all she said about the peacocks was that there four stained glass windows in their likeness. Thanks, we can count.  Corey and I could have been more blatant with our clandestine photo-taking and she probably wouldn’t have cared.

I’m not going to reiterate facts, but if you’re interested, perhaps my post from last year’s tour will enlighten you. Although it is likely mostly just full of smack-talk for the other people in the tour group. You know how I do.

Luckily, there were three middle-aged Indian men on the tour with us, and the one would occasional offer me extra information about the things that the guide was glossing over. They were really kind and I was relieved because when we first walked in, I thought for sure they were going to write us off as ignorant crackers. I mean, not that we aren’t. But it was nice of them to give us a chance.

I mostly tried to not make eye contact with Corey because I knew he’d make me lose it and then we would end up doing our weird gang-laughter in the middle of the echo-y marbled halls of the palace.

I noticed the grounds seemed to be in the same state of disarray as they were last year, so I guess they don’t get as many post-tour donations as they’d like to. I feel like organizing a 5K for them. What? Everyone else has a 5K! Why not the Palace of Gold?!

Let’s run for Krishna, you guys! Or from. Maybe that will be more fun. Running from Krishna and chubby little Butter Thieves in the backwoods of West Virginia. I’m going to organize this. I’ll let you know when you can sign up.

The rose garden is so fucking creepy to me. I’m sure it’s something that is universally considered to be beautiful (it’s won awards, after all!), but it just seems like a really bad scene to me.

I took this picture just for Chooch, who hates butterflies. Always thinking of my son. What a great mom I am.

I got stuck on rose thorns right after this and Janna had to rescue me. Also, if I look drunk, it’s because I was DRUNK ON LIFE. (Seriously, I really look that dopey most of the time, though.)

We laughed like total hyenas for like 10 straight minutes because of this picture.

Corey took this when I wasn’t paying attention and I’m not sure what was going on, other than I was fixing my shoe and probably being eaten by rose bushes, but I love it. Also, I was wearing two different sets of stripes and polka-dot pants because I can. It enhances the fun.

Krishna kat.

OMG here’s Swami Jannamanama emerging from the Hare Krishna bathroom stall! She didn’t appreciate that I immediately posted this on Instagram but I was like, “What? It’s not like you’re nude.”

Up next: Awkward cafeteria dining, peer pressure rose water, and those giant statue things again. Meanwhile, I’m going to try and get Corey to guest post about his experience!

Oh, Brookline. It’s hard to believe that I have been living in this…colorful Pittsburgh town since 1999. There are times when I get all high and mighty and rant about how I can’t wait to get the fuck out of Brookline and how it’s so trashy and full of Yinzers. But the reality is that Brookline is not entirely trashy—there are some really nice streets with nice houses that do not have tires and rusty car parts decorating the yard. My friends Gina and Elissa live in Brookline and they are not trashy. Nor are they Yinzers. I just get so angry living here sometimes, on this particular block, and start casting aspersions every which way and now everyone probably thinks I live in a trailer park next to a swamp. I should probably stop doing that because it’s been long enough now since I moved out of Mommy’s big suburban sprawl that I shouldn’t have this judgey outlook on my crappy town anymore. I mean, yeah, we found a discarded syringe strewn in the grass alongside our house one day, but you know, it only happened that one time!

(Ugh.)

And recently, thanks to the two years Chooch spent in Catholic school, I learned that there is an entire ward of uppity rich assholes who also reside somewhere in Brookline, can you even imagine. Probably somewhere us poor people can’t access, I’m sure.

I think Brookline must have been really something back when all the old Irish people were my age.

To be honest, I’m pretty certain we will wind up staying in Brookline, even if the time comes where we can finally buy a house. It really is entertaining, and so fucking close to everything I need: the fucking trolley, both of our jobs, CVS, the post office, dive bars, hoppin’ breakfast spots where you can get any style potatoe (sic). But it’s the cast of characters that make it awesome, especially in summer when we can sit on the porch and know for a fact that we will be seeing our nearly-nude hyper-tanned ex-lawn cutter Joe or cop cars flying past en route to a drug den. (No more Robin, though; she moved a few summers ago and it was pretty much the worst day ever for me.) Brookline is like a gathering den for weird people. There was, what I thought to be anyway, a rumor about how when patients were discharged from one of the local mental hospitals, they were put on a bus and only given enough fare to make it to Brookline. My friend Bonecrusher confirmed a few years ago that this is actually kind of fact-based, because Brookline has several rehabilitation houses that take in people like that, and one of those houses is literally two houses up from me. I really lucked out.

For instance, we have a new addition to our tenement-esque block: some middle aged man who lives in his small red truck which he parks on the road. I’ve been referring to him as Truck Dweller, and one day I caught him a having a conversation with Purple Pants! Purple Pants speaks to no one, so that’s how I know Truck Dweller is special. I see him every day when I leave the house for work, sitting in the back of his truck with his transistor radio. Sometimes, he knocks on the door of the house he parks in front of, so I guess he knows them well enough to ask for a cup of sugar, I don’t know.

Saturday was a really good day to be living in Brookline. First, there was some stupid race that ran past my house so we got to mock the walkers from our bedroom window. And from there, I encountered some new and old savory Brookline specimen, including Purple Pants and Tourette’s! I even compiled a video for you, mostly because I’m still obsessing over that Christopher Cross song I heard last Sunday while getting ice cream; it had been years since I heard it, you guys, so now I need to spread it over my blog like a gooey yeast infection!

But first, some things to note: There used to be these two fucking bitches working the counter at the Brookline post office and they made it the most unpleasant experience anytime I had to—GOD FORBID—ask them to slap a stamp on a package for me. I haven’t seen them in months. During the week now, there is a quiet, efficient man with salt and pepper hair who doesn’t mess around with small talk and that’s perfectly OK by me because I have nothing to say to these people other than “no” when they ask me if anything is fragile or perishable. I guess they save the ultra-happy guy for Saturdays. I had my phone in my purse recording for about 3 minutes while I was in there, and holy fuck did he laugh a lot!

“Let me guess….Erica?” he asked after he smoothed a stamp across the box I was TRYING to mail in peace.

“Wha—?” I started, unnerved as usual that someone was frivolously speaking to me.

“I was just trying to guess your name,” he explained, pointing to the “E.Kelly” scrawled in the return address on the package. “I feel like I’ve seen a lot of mail for Erica Kelly when I’m sorting,” he added, punctuating his stalkery statement with that boisterous laugh that kept making me feel like I was on some stupid hidden camera show. (Is that even a thing anymore?)

I told him it wasn’t my name, but he was still studying my return address.

“You’re getting a new mail carrier!” he shared. “He starts today, actually.” Now I was starting to feel like he was trying to keep me there longer so he could win at some reality game.

“Oh, really? That’s cool,” I said. What do you say to the prospect of a new mail carrier? Just get my mail to me at a decent hour, and don’t shred my Alternative Press when you shove it into the mail slot, that’s all I give a shit about.

“Don’t get too excited, he’s not that good.” And then that laugh again, which followed me out of the post office like the sound of a clown operating a rape kit.

Later that evening, we took Henry’s mom to dinner at Amel’s, which is kind of in Brookline. I don’t really know what it’s considered. But it’s close and has a neon light shish kebab splayed across the facade, which has always enticed me in the years I’ve lived mere minutes away. Yet this was my virginal Amel’s experience. The interior was dark, full of mismatched florals and incongruously modern light fixtures. I liked it.

And I totally had a crush on our waiter.

“He keeps coming over with his hands behind his back, like he’s HIDING SOMETHING,” Chooch practically screamed across the entire dining room.

Judy has been watching Chooch for us basically every goddamn day and all those two do is bicker. They were in the middle of a semantics disagreement when the waiter came over and interrupted. “We’re like oil and water,” Judy muttered to the waiter, whose name may have been Lee but who even cares? He reminded me of this guy from The Carrie Diaries, but with less-Rebel Without a Cause-y hair.

Anyway, god only knows why Judy would choose to spend one of her off-days with us. I GUESS SHE LOVES US, YOU GUYS. What a novel thought. Someone should teach my family about that.

Still, by the end of dinner (after a huge dessert debacle during which Chooch and I couldn’t decide on the same thing to share until Henry finally shouted, Jesus Christ, each of you just get your own thing!” probably because he knew he would be finishing off our scraps anyway, but the strawberry coconut cake I wanted ended up being all gone at which point Chooch laughed raucously at my sadness, only to have some chick come back to tell him that his stupid cake was unavailable too HAHAHA), Judy only half-joked that Henry take Chooch home before taking her home because she lives farther away and was basically saying, “I’ve had it with your son for the evening, please relieve me.”

Meanwhile, I had already been planning on walking home (maybe like a two mile walk, because I went the back way instead of walking the short way which is on a busy, sidewalk-free main road) because I essentially have a slight eating disorder now where after I eat something that doesn’t have Weight Watchers point on the side of the box, I panic and think that I’m going to gain two chins back, so I have to hurry up and do some form of physical activity STAT. Walking home definitely wouldn’t eradicate that blueberry cheesecake I ate, but I knew I would at least feel less slovenly. Chooch agreed to walk home with me, which is where we spotted Purple Pants!

Chooch never stopped talking the entire walk home, which took about 30 minutes I guess. We made it home before Henry,w ho of course had locked the deadbolt before we left the house that day, and I don’t have that key. Just the regular house key. So we got to sit on the porch and act like we meant to do that.

Janna came over later and the three of us walked to CVS to rent Evil Dead (it’s so convenient having a Red Box so close, especially now that I know how to use it!) and on the way back, I spotted Tourette’s approaching so I pretended to care about what Chooch was ranting about (the Dessert Debacle, apparently) just so I could capture a piece of Tourette’s. I’m sad he wasn’t randomly shouting, “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!” to the shrubbery, though.

That night, after we finished the movie, I took it upon myself to walk it back to the Red Box since the idea of that cheesecake was still Riverdancing around my love handles. On the way there, I passed an older man walking with a cane, and we exchanged pleasantries. Since I don’t walk with a cane, I ended up catching up to him on my way back home, so I crossed the street instead of having to awkwardly walk around him. What? I didn’t want him to feel bad that he can’t walk as fast as me!

So I returned home and was sitting on the porch with Henry and Janna when Cane Man finally made it to our block. As he was walking past our house, he stopped and asked if any of us had any cigarettes. We said no, and I was like, “He should ask Truck Dweller!” because the other day I saw Truck Dweller sitting in his truck with an entire cigar box full of cigarettes and I bet he rolled those sons of bitches himself, too.

“That was Truck Dweller,” Henry said, and I watched in disbelief as, sure as shit, the man with the cane walked a few more paces down the sidewalk and climbed into the small red pickup.

“OMG I SPOKE TO TRUCK DWELLER!!” I shouted giddily, and Henry told me to shut up.

And all of that was just to say, “Here, watch this 1:30 minute video I made!”

Sometimes, Brookline, I really fucking love you.

(And of course the irony to all of this is that I’m the fucking weirdo running around taking pictures and videos, not them.)

When I woke up from my spinny ride coma, we were in Ohio and it was sunny. Henry said he found a place to eat that received good reviews on Yelp, but when he pulled into the parking lot (directly across from a truck stop), I think he was reconsidering the source.

I’m sorry, but I’m not going  to turn down the chance to eat at a restaurant that features old people praying over their food on the sign. And thank god we chose to eat there because it was fucking weird in that wood-paneled townie-hangout sense. The tables were covered with thick vinyl tablecloths in shades of the 1970s (browns, browns, oranges, and browns) so I knew this place was either going to have really fantastic home-cooked meals, or serve us congealed slop like that fucking cafeteria in Moundsville, WV.

Our waitress was this Midwestern Joan Cusackian prototype, something straight out of a 1980s indie movie who was eager to recommend her menu favorites and I wanted to give her all of my monies as a tip. She even had the official waitress stance: hand on one hip, other hip cocked, head slightly tilted.

This was probably when they were having a conversation about how badly I stress them out. Look how tired Henry looks, ahahahah.

Not praying over his food.

Chooch’s Bowl of Meat. I guess his dreams of becoming a vegetarian are long-forgotten. He basically orders sauce-less spaghetti just so he can get the meatball, and then Henry let him have some of his ribs. I sat there and daintily ate my veggie burger, not judging.

Meanwhile, some man at the table next to us laughed. Chooch immediately shouted, “OH GOD DID YOU HEAR THAT MAN’S LAUGH?!” and then exaggeratedly mimicked his guffaw. This man was sitting so close to us that I could have reached out and touched him, so if he was aware of this blatant mockery, he chose to ignore it like a pretty, pretty Christian.

“What? I learned this from you, Mommy!” Chooch cried at the exact same time Henry was wearily mumbling, “He learned this from you.”

OK then. Next lesson: “subtlety.”

Look at the décor in the place! It was all Jesus and sheep, everywhere. I wasn’t sure if I was expected to actually pray over my veggie burger. I don’t even remember how to say that grace thing, to be honest. Yikes.

After soaking up my Waldameer’s stomach acid with homemade chocolate peanut butter pie (which I said I was going to share with Henry and then basically left him one modest forkful because I guess I had more room in my gigantic stomach than I wanted to admit), we embarked for Windsor, Ohio: home of the (supposed) world’s largest statue of Mary.

Henry was pissed off when the GPS began labeling roads as “Road.”

“This better not be like that fucking cuckoo clock,” he threatened, referring to the time in 2010 when I made him go waaaay off route on our way home from Michigan so I could see “the world’s largest cuckoo clock” in some scary Ohio village and it ended up being abandoned in pieces in an empty lot. I’m obsessed with Swiss/Bavarian/German shit so it was worth it to be anyway, but Henry was pretty annoyed.

The detour was about 30 minutes off the highway, along horror movie roads and run-down farms, but we finally made it to some establishment called “Servants of Mary,” which made Henry start bitching about how I led him straight into the arms of a cult, but I think it was actually a convent.

Funny thing about Henry: most people assume I’m the huge sacrilegious whore of Satan, but he’s actually adamantly against all religion and hates partaking in my obsession with all things holy, which I enjoy for the aesthetic appeal only (at times even being brought to tears by religious art—there, I said it). Henry won’t even watch exorcism movies, or any other horror movie involving the church. I tried to get him to talk about it last night but all he would say was, “I JUST DON’T LIKE THOSE KINDS OF MOVIES, OK” so I have obviously taken this to mean that he was possessed and exorcised when he was a child in the 70s, holy fucking shit, Chooch might actually for real be borne of demon seed.

When I posted this photo on Facebook, my friend Octavia pointed out that it looked like Mary was being hoisted up by a horned Elvis surround by teeth. Accurate!

It was dusk by the time we arrived and no one was around. The statue is so far away from the road that we couldn’t even see it at first and Henry started to get all barrel-chested and was about .0005 seconds away from screaming, “WHY CAN’T YOU EVER CHECK  TO MAKE SURE THESE PLACES ACTUALLY EXIST?!!?” But then I walked a little bit closer and saw her sitting there, way out past the nondescript brick church and gift shop. (So sad that the gift shop was closed. Imagine the bounty I could have brought home!)

Chooch and I started running toward Mary, which made Henry all ruffled because apparently this shit is on someone’s farm and he didn’t want us getting out of line. Like we would ever embarrass him!

“This is super creepy,” Chooch whispered as we got closer. And it really was. It reminded me of the dancing acolytes at the Palace of Gold in West Virginia. I get that these things are supposed to be beautiful and celebrated, but my god, why do they have to look like they come alive at night?!

All kinds of devotional bullshit was strewn at Mary’s feet. Henry was getting antsy because Chooch and I wanted to look at every single thing and the sun was setting faster and faster and OMG HENRY WAS GETTING SO SCARED OF THE DARK.

Arm hair sufficiently raised now, thanks.

I have to say, I’m glad it was so late when we arrived, because it really added to the ambiance. I bet during the day, droves of old people come out to sit on benches and rifle through their fanny packs for tissue into which to soak up their old people post nasal drip. But at dusk, it was FUCKING SCARY! I had goosebumps the whole time. And not the TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL kind, either. But the “Holy fucking shit I’m approaching the Neverending Story Riddle Gate, fuckkkk I’m going to die tonight” kind of goosebumps.

These illuminated bulbs are meant to be a rosary encircling a small lake.

Teacher: Chooch, what did you do over the summer?

Chooch: I saw a scary Mary giant and tried to steal coins out of Jesus’s hand. Duh.

I mean, it is pretty impressive! And Chooch and I both agreed that it was totally worth the detour. “But I’ll probably have nightmares,” Chooch added, and Henry just frowned.

We passed an open barn on the way back to the car and freaked out when we heard rustling from within. I was waiting for the crazed owner of the land to come out in full Wolf Creek mode and feed us to Mary, but it turned out to just be rabbits in cages. Which will probably be fed to Mary.

After a morning spent breakfasting & Bordening in Fall River, we began our official trek back home to Pittsburgh. This included a million miles of Connecticut. I had decided months ago that we had to stop in Mystic, because I thought we had a nice time there when we visited in 2002.

I guess I thought wrong, because aside from eating at Mystic Pizza (which Henry wouldn’t let me do the last time because he sucks) and shopping, there wasn’t much going on. I refused to pay to do shit at the Seaport, and the gift shop was full of shit I didn’t care about, anyway. I’m pretty sure you have to be wearing Dockers to give a shit about Mystic Seaport.

This place is a total tourist trap, thanks to the fact that it was the inspiration behind the 1988 Julia Roberts movie Mystic Pizza. But I really loved that movie when I was a kid and therefore, I had to eat there even though I wasn’t in the least bit in the mood for pizza.

The staff at Mystic Pizza could have very been cardboard cutouts on wheels. No personality and not memorable at all—a stark contrast from the waitstaff we encountered everywhere in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, with the exception from the weird broad in Salem who treated us like illegal aliens and acted like she couldn’t understand a word of our exotic Pittsburgh-speak. (And we don’t even have the typical Pittsburgh Yinzer accent!) The teenage hostess stared at us with deadened eyes and made me feel so uncomfortable. But, from her standpoint, we were clearly tourists (none of us were wearing boat shoes) so she probably knew we were there to gawk.

At what? Framed movie stills upon the walls? It really wasn’t that big of a deal.

But the pizza was pretty good, you guys! I don’t know if I’d consider it a slice of heaven, because that’s typically something sweet and pillowy, but it was pretty good as far as pizza goes.

So if you’re ever in Mystic and aren’t bothered by standoffish waitresses and TGIFriday-esque interior design, go have yourself some fucking decent pizza.

Yes, I’m available for commercials. Well, my cardboard cutout is, anyway.

Here, let’s ask Henry if he liked it:

[I’ve been waiting three hours and he hasn’t responded, so I think that translates into a “NO COMMENT.”]

To Chooch, it was just a restaurant. WTF does he know about “coming-of-age tales” and Lili Taylor? Kid hasn’t even seen “Say Anything” yet.

Yep, it was just a restaurant in which he pooped.

Afterward, we went to get ice cream, and when I say “we,” I mean that Chooch and I yelled to Henry what we wanted and then frolicked off to never, neverland while Henry had to stand in line with people wearing Dockers and boat shoes. Then he turned around and started screaming at us because we had the NERVE to choose a picnic table that was furthest away and god forbid Henry should have to transport our frozen delights ALL THAT WAY so he made us move closer. This angered Chooch and me because we happened to like the picnic table we chose.

“Excuse us for wanting to sit somewhere we could privately converse while looking out into the water,” I hissed at Henry, who gave me a “get serious” look because he knew we were actually sitting over there and making fun of people and probably talking about totally hedonistic topics.

It was still Really Hot, so Chooch’s ice cream began to melt immediately. Dripping Ice Cream Clean-Up is the one part of parenthood I graciously let Henry have. He’s good at mopping messes, literally and metaphorically.

Henry, Life’s Janitor.

Firestarter.

From Mystic, we made our way to Waterbury to see my friend Jessa. I was so stoked about this, but also nervous as shit because we’ve never met in real life before! Just in fables and fairy tales. And usually when people meet me for the first time, I’m your basic Mystic Pizza waitress.

Jessa and I first met online back in 2008 when she stumbled across my blog. In fact, she was probably one of the first non-LiveJournal friends I made on Oh Honestly, Erin. She was blogging regularly then, and we quickly became friends through that and Twitter and then once we discovered that we share a love for similar bands, it was a done deal. She is my musical kindred spirit (Isles and Glaciers, FTW!) and we are always lamenting that we live too far away to go to shows together.

The original plan was to visit her at work, which I was on board with because she works for a florist and now that I’m into raising plants, I was going to buy a new one to add to my office orphanage. But as per the norm, we were behind schedule (I blame Henry and his 30-minute Best Buy pit stop in Rhode Island when he was like, “OK! FINE! UNCLE! I’m buying a fucking GPS.”) so Jessa was already home. I wasn’t sure if she’d want to let in some Pennsylvania Internet riffraff into her home, but she was like “bitch please” and that is how Chooch wound up in his slice of Heaven: a house with 6 cats, 2 rabbits and cagefuls of birds!

“This is going to be the only part of the vacation he remembers, just watch,” I laughed as he made himself at home and scavaged around her house for cats.

He gets that rudeness from Henry.

Downton Bunny and Hopkins meet.

Anyway, it turned out to be not awkward at all! We hung out in her kitchen for about an hour and it was so easy!

Chooch was like, “This house rules, I’m staying.”

I even let her take a picture with me!

Hopefully we get to hang out again soon, and that her husband Simon didn’t think we were totally creepy vagabonds. I was sad that he didn’t talk while we there because he’s from New Zealand and Chooch could have added another accent to his collection. Henry later observed that he thinks he and Simon would probably get along pretty well, because Henry also doesn’t choose to speak much and he pointed that out that Simon was watching some dude-centric television show that Henry has also watched at some point, and I guess it really doesn’t take much more than that for two dudes to find each other in this world and start calling each other “cuz.”

Henry’s strategy for the next leg of our trip was to “keep driving for as long as possible until we reach Pennsylvania.” Somehow, we ended up staying at the same Red Roof Inn from our trip to Knoebel’s last spring and this totally blew my mind that we went from Connecticut to here, because I do not understand how maps or geography or Our Country Tis of Thee works.

Chooch and I are still wearing our Knoebels wristbands from April 27th so I thought it would be a brilliant idea to go there the next day and see if we could sneak on some rides but Henry just frowned and shat upon my sparkly brilliance. I guess he had already met his year’s quota of fun and any more merriment would probably put him in his grave.

The next morning, we ate breakfast at Mom’s Dutch Kitchen and I was so giddy about this because I was vetoed the last time I tried to eat here.

It was so creepy inside! Super crappy gift shop, an irritable old waitress who scowled as soon as she saw we had a kid in tow, and dusty Easter decorations on the windowsill.

But it had a peg game! Henry was glad about that.

We wised up and coaxed Chooch into ordering cereal because at least we know that’s on the short list of shit he’ll eat. The waitress was agrivated about having to list his choices, but at least she wasn’t a blank personality! She actually reminded me of how Henry’s mom must have been when she was a waitress. God, I wish I had been around for those days.

The food was good, though! Better than chain restaurant breakfasts, because it had that DUTCHLY HOME-COOKED FEEL to it. And no one got sick afterward.

And that was it. We got home around 2PM and I nearly smothered Marcy’s spirit right the fuck out of her. I MISSED HER SO MUCH!!

I’m still going through post-vacation withdrawals though. I miss my faraway friends! Big ups to anyone who managed to read all of these posts! You might be next on my list of people to impose upon visit!

One long lady.

Hey! You! Tired of reading this yet? Don’t worry, I’m tired of writing it! But I’m almost done. Probably just two more posts to go. WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER!

We departed New Hampshire on the mornning of June 24th, making our way back into Massachusetts way behind schedule, but Professional Driver Henry reminded me that if we had left the hotel as early as I wanted, we’d have been stuck in the rush hour commute to Boston. I was not happy about this wrench in my plans.

We arrived in Salem sometime after 11:00 I think and immediately stopped at the Witch Museum. I felt that it was really imperative for Chooch to suffer through the hour-long presentation with other strangers, most of which happened to be French tourists and required translator headphones. The woman I was sitting next to was using a pair and I would occasionally hear parts of it when the French narrator would raise his voice to put emphasis on all of the ACTION that was unraveling.

Henry and I spent an entire day in Salem back in 2002 and being there this time around made me realize that my memory either sucks or I purposely blacked a lot out because Henry and I used to fight so much back then. Because I didn’t remember SHIT about anything we saw in Salem. Henry kept saying, “Yeah, don’t you remember…” and my response every time was, “Nope.”

I did, however, remember the glowing red circle in the middle of the museum floor, commemorating all of the names of the victims during the Salem witch trials, because I had a really terrible coughing fit while everyone was gathered around, trying to learn about some witch shit. At least they changed it so now everyone gets to sit down. I mean, if I’m paying to get into this so-called museum, the least you could do is give my fat ass a bench.

<Insert lesson witches here.>

Ironically, the second half of the tour was led by some old broad who was having a coughing fit. There was also a crying baby. And rude French women. And here I was worried about Chooch acting inappropriately.

Afterward, Henry had to go feed the meter and instructed us to walk to the visitor’s center on our own. We made it about five feet before coming to an alley, at which point I clotheslined Chooch and said, “WAIT. Let’s hide from daddy.”

So we stood just inside the mouth of the alley, giggling like evil assholes, doing pee jigs, waiting for Henry to round the corner so we could jump out and make an even bigger spectacle. (There were already old people across the street watching us nervously.)

“It’s taking him so long!” Chooch sighed.

“Yeah, I don’t remember the car being that far away,” I agreed, starting to get agitated.

“I’ll go check it out,” Chooch declared seriously, like the appointed superhero for Fathers We Want To Scare But Are Missing. Meanwhile, I dialed Henry’s number.

“Where are you?!” I screamed when Henry casually answered, not at all sounding like a parent who just left his peeps alone in a strange city in 100 degree heat.

“Just walking down the sidewalk, behind some people acting like assholes.” And I turned to find him walking toward us from the direction we were supposed to have walked before getting sidetracked by something more devious. So then I had to go and retrieve Chooch, who was still trying to contort his body around the corner of the building like a human periscope. I hate when Henry thwarts us.

He pretty much didn’t walk with us for the rest of the day.

Stopped at some café and got an iced maple latte fuck yes!  And Chooch got a strawberry smoothie because that’s his “thing,” apparently. Who cares what Henry got. Something boring.

Stopped at Count Orlok’s Nightmare Gallery to ogle some of horror movie favorites, and then hit up the cemetery, natch.

I mean, it would be weird if we went on vacation and didn’t visit a cemetery, right?

Chooch was mad because there were approximately 87 different haunted attractions that he wanted to check out, but we didn’t have time. Kept trying to tell him that we’ll probably be going back in October, but he was beginning to reach the Dickhead Precipice.

Someone littered their empty coffee cup in the cemetery and I was so pissed off about it. You don’t leave your trash in a cemetery, especially not one so old and historical! So I quietly gulped and picked it up and then proceeded to be stuck carrying it for an entire 4 blocks before finally coming across a garbage can, I was so fucking pissed off.

“Don’t you have enough pictures of your kid in a cemetery?” asked everyone who has ever read this blog, even once.

Town Hall, I guess.

Seriously, look at how far ahead of us Henry stays! God, I’m offended.

I deemed it imperative to find the post office before we left so I could finally get stamps for my postcards since the Fireside Inn LIED about having stamps! (Actually, they did, but they were supposedly “locked in the manager’s office” and he wasn’t in yet. I guess they have a stamp theft problem in Nashua.) Not surprisingly, Salem’s post office was all big and grand. Exactly how all post offices should be, and not tiny cement shoeboxes full of defeat and deadened eyes like the one in my dumb town. While Henry stood in line for stamps, Chooch and I took that as our cue to clamor up the marble stairs and check out the creepy upstairs, which was basically just a hallway lined with therapist offices and art studios. And a locked bathroom door, which sucked because I was really afraid Chooch wasn’t going to make it.

And then we reached the point of the day known in some regions as “Erin and Chooch are Hungry and Now Everyone Must Suffer.” Henry frantically tried to find somewhere suitable for us to eat. Just kidding. Henry is never frantic. Always calm and monotone. Except for that time a camel began devouring my hand. For some reason, Henry responded to that in a frantic manner. Maybe because he cares?? No. Probably because he didn’t want his hand jobs to suffer.

Anyway, we ended up a pub called the Witch’s Brew. Of course it was called the Witch’s Brew.

I don’t think our waitress liked us. Either that or she actually was really struggling to understand our WEIRD PENNSYLVANIAN dialect. Each one of us had to repeat ourselves to her twice and, after a simple surveillance of her interacting with other tables, I don’t think she had a hearing problem.

Chooch especially was getting pissed off at her not understanding him. Poor kid was just trying to order chocolate milk and she reacted like he asked to suck it from her teat.

“What??” she asked him in a voice that Alyson would have had a field day with.

I feel the same way, Chooch.

And then Henry confiscated our knives!!

Three hours later than I had planned, we were finally on our way to Boston to spend the day with our friends Matt and Kristen (after Henry literally drive in circles around Salem for a good 30 minutes before getting stuck in some random mid-day traffic). It was about an hour’s drive, and I used it wisely — by convincing Chooch that Matt is a witch.