Here is a reprieve from words.

Award-winning rose garden, apparently. It was really beautiful but there was something creepy about it, something stopping it from being serene. Maybe it was the fact that it was in the hills of West Virginia and I had the distinct sensation of being watched, The Hills Have Eyes-style.

Inside the lobby.

Peacocks are everywhere in the architecture, and the statues of the deities are fanned with peacock feathers. There are fifty live peacocks roaming around the New Vrindiban premises! WHO DOESN’T LOVE A PEACOCK?! (Except for the person whose grandma was murdered by burgling peacocks.)

Inside view of the peacock stained glass. There were 4 of these throughout the Palace.

Lotus pond, unobstructed by the Indian dick.

Maybe it would have been less creepy if there had been other people out there. But instead, it was just Seri and me, looking completely lost, touristy, and naive. WE COULD HAVE BEEN TAKEN AT ANY POINT. (God, can you imagine the cheers from the men back home? I mean: Krishna, can you imagine the cheers from the men back home?)

Anyway, the creep-factor of the Palace grounds had nothing on the dancing acolytes and lake we were about to stumble upon down the street.

There were four other people already sequestered inside the small lobby, waiting for the next tour: an older Indian couple and an OLD Indian couple. The way they looked at us two blonde-haired girls as we stood there unsure of what to do next, it was like we oozed heresy. I saw that they were all replacing their shoes with blue scrub-type booties (no shoes allowed inside the Palace) and I asked the younger of the two men where he got his. He kind of harumphed and pointed lazily to a large bin next to his bench. I fished around for two booties and just as I was trying to figure out how to stretch out my feet to fit inside them, Seri ran over and whispered, “Don’t! Use these ones instead” and she handed me a pair that were folded, with the elastic still taut. That son of a bitch had directed me to the used bootie bin, and would forever be on my list after that.

So then we just sat there, taking in the stained glass around us, the fresco of the Heavens above our heads, the fact that were Those People touring a place of which we were completely ignorant. (My knowledge of the Hare Krishnas goes as far as what that George Harrison song, airports, and Mr. Emmerling’s high school history class taught me, and that’s basically just the mantra. I guess I should have paid more attention to the booth they had at Warped Tour.)

Thank Krishna for me and Seri, an older woman and her daughter, whose hair was either wet or REALLY REALLY greasy, arrived right before the next tour was about to start. They were your typical brazen rural West Virginians, and they were really took the heat off us. They snickered a lot. Literally snickered.

Meanwhile, I was completely verklempt, sitting on my hands and searching the room for any hint of the cafeteria I read about on the website. That cafeteria might have been the biggest draw for me and I even texted Seri the other day with nothing else but a screaming CAFETERIA!!! I was a little excited to eat with the Hare Krishnas.

Finally, a young girl, maybe 19 or in her very early 20s, came to retrieve us for the tour. I was surprised that not only was she was friendly, she was also white. But she walked the halls of the Palace bare-footed and with a purpose, that’s for sure. She apologized in advance for being new at giving the tours, but I thought she was doing quite well and she was pronouncing all the names that my eyes skip over. Like Prabhupada. I heard that man’s fucking name 870 times that day and still can’t say it. In fact, it’s tedious to even just type his name, so from herein, say hello to Swami P-dawg.

There were no cameras allowed inside the Palace; I kept fingering my iPhone inside my purse, but the guide seemed to direct most of her eye contact on me, so just imagine four long halls full of various marble, Austrian crystal chandeliers, vibrant stained glass (there were 4 peacock stained glass windows that each had over 1,500 pieces of glass in it), and intricately-cut woodwork handcrafted in India. It was like being engulfed in a corridor of opulence, and the fact that every single inch of that place was built by hand (and for FREE) by the disciples P-dawg had collected upon moving to the States from Calcutta in the 60s made it all the more stunning.

I guess they didn’t know how to install central air, though. Krishnadamn, it was hot in there.

From one of the doors opening to the outside courtyard, our guide pointed out a pond full of lotus blossoms, but I could only barely see it because my Indian nemesis who tried to pass on filthy foot diseases to me had planted himself right in front of my line of vision.

Way to keep up your dharma, dumbass.

In the center of the Palace was a small office with a mannequin model of Swami P-dawg sitting at his desk in half lotus, which is good because otherwise we might not have been able to picture him in there. This is where we learned that he only slept for two hours a night and spent most of his time writing and translating religious tomes; our guide urged us to read some of his writings, that we’d be sure to have our lives changed. She had such a dancing twinkle in her eye at that moment that I almost bought one in the gift shop, but I’m fully aware of how easily influenced I am.

I don’t know how hot I’d look with my head shaved.

The other room we saw was what was to be the living quarters, this tiny little four-walled box with a giant portrait of the Butter Thief hanging above the eastern-flavored linen-draped bed-thing. (This is why I hate no-camera policies! I need memory aids.) I now want a room in my house decorated with as many depictions of the Butter Thief that I can find. The attached bathroom was small, but just as lavish as everything else, and would probably make a fine portajohn for Donald Trump.

I tried to take a covert photo of the last room—-the temple—-but my reaction time caused a blur. (I could feel so many Krishna-eyes on me!) This room literally left me speechless. (Even Seri was uncharacteristically mute through the whole tour.) Chandeliers, giant portraits of gurus and deities (maybe that’s what they were?), a mural of all of Sri Krishna’s favorite past times edged the length of the ceiling (he apparently liked to wrestle gargantuan rattlesnakes in the ocean), and the pièce de résistance: a shrine to Swami P-dawg himself, located in an alcove of the temple directly below the main dome of the palace.

It was breath-taking. And also air-conditioned.

This was the portion of the tour where the guide smoothly segued into a request for donations to help repair the shambling Palace. $10 could get us a tour of the rest of the grounds, some hand-carved candle wonder made by one of the other community members, or a poster of the Butter Thief. I really wanted that poster, but I have a feeling giving the Hare Krishnas more of our hard-earned money might have elicited more than just a Frown of the Day from Henry.

The only thing I really took away from the Palace of Gold is that I need to get me some motherfucking disciples. I bet if I try hard enough, I could collect 3 or 4 and have them build me a spiritual outhouse with stained glass windows made from old Mad Dog bottles.

(Ed note: please excuse any errors as this was written on my phone while en route to and from Lakemont Park today. I’m either super dedicated, or extremely obsessive, but I’m definitely not the best multi-tasker.)

When making weekend plans with Seri, we tossed around the idea of going to the craft store, maybe a cemetery.

Or!

We could go to Prabhupada’s Palace of Gold in West Virginia, I hinted.

My suggestion was met with a resounding “Yes.” A day at an Appalachian Hare Krishna compound? Who could say no to that?! (Don’t answer that.)

The Palace is located in its own town of New Vrindiban, just outside of Wheeling; it’s reached by a series of seemingly infinite winding country roads, the kinds with curves so sharp it makes you think you’re going to plummet into a gorge if you do anything more than 15 MPH. (In other words, do not drive while receiving BJs on this stretch of asphalt, my friends.) It was farm house, cemetery, church, farm house, cemetery, church, farm house, cemetery, church for 8 miles. But it was OK, because I made a CD full of Chiodos, Circa Survive and Sade especially for this trip.

(You’re welcome, Seri.)

My gas light went on literally right as we passed what would be the last legit gas station for miles and miles; I was a little worried, but for most of the drive we were behind a rusty pick up truck, the bed of which was occupied by a lawn mower and a teenage boy, and I was sure they had a gas can in there somewhere, too. (I mentioned at one point that I thought the kid was pretty hot, and Seri rejected my opinion.) The further along this road we traversed, the more sure I was that we weren’t going to be stumbling upon a gas station any time in the near future and once we broke down, probably all of the men in the pick up truck were going to eschew rescuing us in favor of raping us and making us cook them sloppy joes for the rest of our lives.

Eventually, the curvy country road turned into a pot-holed path coiling through the wooded hillside; we promptly lost service on our phones right after Seri called Pete to see how long we could sustain with the gas light on.

(For the record, he told us we were fine, but I think that’s because he wanted to laugh at us after our ride home to Pittsburgh in the back of Henry’s juice van.)

I decided to defy Pete and turned around in the gravel driveway of someone who certainly had at least two decomposed bodies propped up on milk crates in their basement and was definitely sitting in stretched out underwear on a stained futon, skinning a possum for tonight’s pot roast, and drove back to the first curvy road where we had passed a small, no-name, one-pump gas station.

(You’re welcome, Henry.)

It was the kind of gas station where the overall-clad attendant blows into a ram horn to alert the nearby hill-dwellers that city folk are on their way, get yer slingshots ready and yer inbred dicks lubed.

Except that this gas station accepted credit cards. But that probably just means they’d use a phone instead of the rams horn.

The old lady clerk had to come outside and help me pump my gas, at which point the entire pump started churning and clanging, like there were tiny mountain men inside of it, peddling wooden unicycles to make the gas spurt out of the hose.

I should probably check my bank account at some point to make sure I didn’t get overcharged so some West Virginian gas shanty could buy a new sign for the shop.

Or, you know, a sign.

We headed back to the curvier, hillbillier of the two roads. This time it was four miles of trailer, forest , abandoned house, trailer, forest, abandon—OMG DEER!

, pot hole, trailer. (Roadkill is implied.) We were basically writing Tobe Hooper’s next movie for him.

(You’re welcome, Tobe Hooper.)

(Please get Elizabeth Olsen to play me.)

One last curve in the road and there it was, the Palace of Gold. We entered a door at the far end of some strange wall that looked like it belonged on a Spanish villa, not some Taj Mahal knock-off, and crunched across the long gravel walkway until we reached the steps to the palace.

And that was our first indication that the palace, while a gilded architectural fairy tale from the road, was actually in quite a state of disrepair.

We didn’t have much time after eating breakfast at the Traveler’s Club International Restaurant in Michigan (it doubles as a TUBA MUSEUM and was a great pick by our tour guides, Bill & Jessi) because I had this dire urge to see the world’s largest cuckoo clock in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Every time I brought it up to Henry, he tugged on his collar and looked around for diversions, chainsaw guys, ditches in which to push me.

I wouldn’t drop it, though, and continued down the list of merits I had made for the cuckoo clock.

By 2:00pm, we were on the road. We made a quick stop in Luna Pier, because seeing Lake Erie was another very pressing thing on my list. Sure, I’ve seen Lake Erie from Pennsylvania and Ohio, even took a boat tour in Cleveland (if you were me, you too could live such a thrilling life). But I really needed to see it from MICHIGAN.

That fruity red dot of menstruation up there is Henry.

This is the closest thing to a beach we’ve come to since that shitty fucktastic trip to Okracoke we took in 2006 with those asshole Civil War reenactors. Chooch and I kicked off our shoes and took off.

Henry’s feet never even touched the sand.  “It’s just Lake Erie,” he kept saying, while Chooch and I squealed and frolicked like Hansel and Gretel dining on the witch’s carcass. Spectators probably thought we had just been let out of our cage in the basement. Henry does resemble a grizzled captor. In fact, on our way to Michigan, I mouthed “help” to the girl in the toll booth. Thanks for all the help, whore.

After Luna Pier, A LOT of driving happened. I found religious programming on the radio and pretended to be holy for a good hour while Henry scowled and periodically asked, “Can we turn this now?” while Chooch read his comic books quietly in the backseat. Jesus music is calming. Or maybe it’s hypnotic. In either case, it zipped my child’s lips, so praise be to Jesus and his Lambs of Christ.

At some point in Ohio, we turned off the highway and found ourselves up to our ears in Amish. (Henry says they were Mennonites, so we argued about that for awhile.) We rounded a bend and an old Amish man was standing on the side of the road.

I screamed.

“What? He’s probably just waiting for a buggy,” Henry reasoned.

“He looked to me like he was cursing us bastard civilians,” I argued. And then, “What happens if you run over an Amish person?”

Henry averted his eyes from the road long enough to look at me in disgust. “Um, you go to JAIL. They are people,” he reminded me. “Not animals.” A minute passed and I heard him repeat my question under his breath, shaking his head in exhaustion.

I didn’t know if they utilized the same legal system as us, OK? Jesus Christ, Henry. I thought maybe they left it up to the Lord; chased you around the farm with pitchforks, Benny Hill-style.

Aside from Amish culture, other things that jack off my fascination are all things Bavarian and Swiss, hence my determination to see this fucking cuckoo clock. Some of my fondest memories  are from childhood trips to Europe, helping my grandparents pick out cuckoo clocks in the Black Forest and traversing covered bridges in Lucerne. Eating fondue and watching lederhosened men blow into those Ricola horns. That’s always been my favorite region of Europe. And since returning there is nowhere in my near future, making pilgrimages to chintzy, kitschy Swiss-American tourist traps is the best I can do to keep my heart full of Toblerone and army knives.

I regaled Henry with stories from these past vacations while he prayed the GPS on his phone wasn’t leading us to our fate of becoming shoo-fly pie filling.

“You weren’t even listening to me,” I whined as he consulted his phone.

“Yes I was, and I’ve heard all of those stories before.”

Bastard. What a fucking bastard.

Here are some of my tweets from the Great Cuckoo Clock Pursuance, to give you a real-time feel for the awesomeness of being in our car:

About the same time my phone lost service, we crossed the threshold for the town of Sugarcreek, Ohio’s Swiss Wonderland.

The bad vibes were immediate. Something made me feel uncomfortable; maybe it was the lack of people and how it caused the town to be quiet as a graveyard. I don’t even really remember many cars passing by, although we did see a cop idling in a parking lot with a book.

The downtown portion of Sugarcreek was quaint, charming. But also mostly deserted. There seemed to be some people in one of the restaurants, which has swiss steak on special. I wanted to go. Not to eat the swiss steak, but to see what the townies were like. Henry said no, of course. Why eat at a real restaurant when we can stop at a gas station and get hot dogs?! (Because that’s seriously what he did. And I got a Special K bar. Now there’s a real meal to say grace for.)

Henry’s GPS alerted him to make a left off the main road. A few feet later, I saw it.

And it was in pieces.

I didn’t tell Henry this, but a Roadside America user posted a tip saying that as of March, the cuckoo clock was out of commission for repairs. If I told him that, he definitely wouldn’t have taken the chance. But I thought maybe it might have been all bandaged up by then and ready to cuckoo. I needed to see for myself.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Henry muttered. But we got out of the car anyway. Chooch and I went over for a closer inspection while Henry leaned against the car, texting his work boyfriend about what an awful lay his shitty girlfriend is.

Further research (which would have been helpful prior to making this ridiculous detour) informed me that pieces of the clock have been auctioned off, including the evergreens and little  Swiss people.

Shit, I thought driving through the town was creepy? Poking around this over-sized clock at dusk was even more spine-tingling. I had a distinct sensation that townies were watching us from their windows, sizing us up  for future cuckoo clock adornments. Can you picture a taxidermied-Chooch twirling out from the clock’s bowels every hour? Because I kind of can. I ushered him back into the car, ducking around Henry’s choleric glare.

“We should come back for the Swiss Festival in October,” I suggested, reading  from the town’s official website on my phone. I looked up just in time to see Henry vivisecting me with his mind.

Somewhere between more Amish arguments (which found Henry yelling, “Shoo fly pie is regional!”) and crossing the Pennsylvania border, two vultures nearly careened into (MY SIDE OF) the windshield.

[Ed.Note 8/5/12: I still want to go back here sometime for the Swiss Festival! Who’s with me?!]

One of Henry’s favorite things in the world is when he thinks he has some semblance of an itinerary in his head and then I breeze on by and trample all over his pre-planned travel route with my ridiculous tourist attractions.

We had just left Conneaut Lake Park and, if you were to have asked Henry right then, he would have told you that we were en route to Erie, where we would be checking into our hotel before he tried to drown me in the lake.

However, I had heard about this Victorian baby carriage museum a few months ago and when I eagerly looked it up in my Roadside America app, I was delighted to see that it was only about 30 miles away from Conneaut. Henry squinted at the map on my phone and barked, “Yeah, but it’s the opposite direction!” which made me start chirping about it being my BIRTHDAY WEEKEND^TM and god forbid I should ever have the audacity to suggest going to some obscure museum to see a collection of Victorian wonderment.

“Goddammit, Erin,” Henry sighed as he turned the car in the complete reverse direction from where it was headed, and thus began our hour-long trek to a dead end street in Small Town, Ohio, peppered with arguments over the radio (“I am NOT listening to a hockey game from 2003!” – Henry J. Robbins, anti-NHLite).

The museum was easy enough to locate using just the map on my iPhone, and I think I heard Henry quietly curse God for fucking his life as we rolled up to what turned out to be someone’s house. I had no sooner snapped a picture of Chooch with a carousel horse on the porch, when the front door flung open and a diminuitive middle-aged woman in a lime green romper beckoned us inside, her hunger for tourists obvious and slightly off-putting.

Inside the foyer, she introduced herself as Janet and gave us a quick rundown of rules. There were only two: No cameras AND NO TOUCHING ANYTHING. Her eyes lingered unsmilingly on Chooch for that one and I could tell she was pissed that we had the audacity to bring some snot-nosed six-year-old boy into her lovingly curated stroller abode. However, I had groomed Chooch for this excursion by telling him that all of the baby strollers were haunted, so not only was he quiet and respectful for the entire 45 minute tour, he was downright frightened. So what’s up now, Buggy Broad.

The tour started off kind of rocky, with me trying not to laugh; Janet bracing herself for Chooch to pull a slingshot out of his back pocket and go to town; and Henry looking intensely uncomfortable and agitated, like a big dumb bulldozer amongst fragile wicker and porcelain. Janet dove right into her spiel, pointing out various pieces of antique prams with a delicate Vanna White flourish and giving us brief history lessons. Did you know that in Victorian times, some strollers were actually pulled down the street by goats?

WELL I DID NOT.

We were still in the first room when Janet’s twin sister Judy appeared with her own tour group: a grandma and granddaughter pair. The granddaughter was wearing a Sleeping With Sirens shirt and I kept trying to get Henry’s attention but he shrugged me off.

Did I mention that this place is curated by twin sisters? And that they’re so obsessed with baby carriages, they even wrote a childrens book about it?

At times, it was hard to concentrate on what Janet was telling us because there were never less than 15 sets of deadened doll eyeballs boring into our souls in all ten of the rooms of the house.

Hummel collection, get Bavarian!

Even with the No Camera policy, I tried to snag a few “from the hip” shots because this place was absolutely fantastic.

My favorites were the prams that bore a likeness to various animals, like peacocks. “Can you tell what that one is supposed to be?” Janet asked Chooch, and I was turning blue in the face waiting for him to say, “I don’t know, daddy’s furry weener?” Instead, his guess was a very age-appropriate, “Um…Cookie Monster?” I didn’t even know he watched Sesame Street.

It was actually an owl, so we all got a laugh at Chooch’s expense, a mere hour after his bumper car snafu at Conneaut Lake Park, where he was stuck in one place the whole time because he couldn’t actually reach the gas pedal and everyone laughed at him each time he got lapped. Or maybe that was just me.

In the gutted bathroom, Janet pointed out a wicker childrens’ wheelchair. Henry and I made eye contact and he gave me a very slight “don’t do it” head shake, but come on. I couldn’t pass up this photo op, so I waited for Janet to guide Chooch into the next room before stopping abruptly and snapping a picture, causing Henry to crash into me.

Janet was wise and focused all of her attention on Chooch, even draping her arm across his shoulders at various points throughout the house and pointing out Shirley Temple dolls and, once she learned of his obsession, weathered-paged cat books and handmade plush cat toys. This was the key to corking his douche whistle and keeping him interested. The kid was completely enrapt by every room.

I think he was also intimidated.

Haunted. It’s all fucking haunted.

In addition to the 200+ perambulators (there are so many, that some of them have been strung from the ceiling like carcasses), their house also boasts an impressive collection of 1800s tchotchkes, dollhouses, paintings, music boxes & organs (Andrea would have hated this place!), dresses from the period, and copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Little Black Sambo, which Janet interestingly said was her favorite.

I’m not exactly sure how one gets into collecting baby carriages, but these ladies have accumulated an impressive fleet over the last 30+ years; I can only hope my future with wheelchairs is even marginally that impressive. Not only do they have in their acquisition the oldest carriage in existence (they were exactly one week quicker than the Smithsonian in procuring this one), but they also have a majestic fire engine red carriage called The Regent which was used at one time to transport a baby Queen Elizabeth II around London. Oh, it was so hard not to touch that one. Janet admitted that this was their prized possession and she hoped to someday encase it in glass once they find a bigger location for the museum.

If you can believe it, I was being completely respectful through the whole tour, but I don’t think Janet fully believed my intentions were pure until she pointed out a Victorian funerary wreath made of thread, and I asked, “Weren’t those often made of hair, too?” She stopped and looked at me curiously before confirming, and I could tell she was pleased to see my interest in her antiquated livelihood was legit.

The tour concluded back in the main room, where the small gift shop was located (basically a desk piled with copies of the twins’ children’s book, post cards, and their gilded miniature carriage ornaments). Janet was so impressed with Chooch’s (uncharacteristic) attentive demeanor that she let him pick a post card for a souvenir. I didn’t see Judith doing that for the Sleeping With Sirens fan on the other tour.

(I’m convinced he was only so well-behaved because he was scared stupid at the thought of ghosts.)

And of course I bought a copy of their children’s book.

On their website, the twins say, “Some of the many words that our visitors have used to describe their experience are: awesome, fabulous, beautiful, overwhelming.” After we left, I asked Chooch what he thought.

Well ladies, you can now add “creepy as shit” to that list.

[If you ever find yourself near Jefferson, OH, you owe it to yourself to stop by the Victorian Perambulator Museum. 45 minutes of ogling a compulsive curation of Victorian niche will only set you back $5, and it is so goddamn worth it. Even Henry said, “That was pretty cool.” HENRY SAID THAT!]

Conneaut Lake Park was the first stop on our agenda today, but we had a little bit of time to kill before it opened at noon so Henry took us on a tour of Small Town USA which culminated with stop at Linesville Spillway. There are so many carp there begging for carb-droppings that the ducks can quite literally walk on them.

It was horrifying and nasty, but I couldn’t stop watching these fish aggressively fighting each other for rolls and crust. It was intense.

The “I USED TO COME HERE ALL THE TIME WITH MY GRANDPAP IN THE 1920s, DON’T RUIN THIS BY BEING AN ASSHOLE” Frown.

***

My birthday weekend getaway almost didn’t happen. I joked a few days ago, albeit with a healthy scoop of bitterness, that with the way our luck has been going this year, our car would probably break down. Well, our car didn’t exactly break down, but Henry finally got off his pretend-mechanic ass and decided to check out the horrible sound the car’s been making FOR LIKE A MONTH. It turned out to be something I don’t understand that could potentially “seize up” if we drove long distance.

The good news: he could fix it himself and it wouldn’t cost much.

The bad news: he wouldn’t be able to fix it in enough time for us to go to Erie that weekend.

He informed me of this last night when I was at work and I proceeded to cry at my desk like the bitchbaby I am. But then Seri was all, “Don’t be stupid, just take one of our cars.” I kept saying no, that this was Henry’s problem to solve, but Seri can be very convincing. If it weren’t for her generosity, I wouldn’t have been able to walk around a creepy, half-abandoned amusement park; visit a Victorian Perambulator Museum; argue with Henry for two hours over where to eat for dinner; or watch a school of fish hungrily flex their gaping maws like a sea of Jersey Shore kookas ready for a post-Karma feeding.

It’s not like I have some vested interest in televisions, but going to the Early Television Museum seemed like a perfectly acceptable way to spend a chilly, overcast Sunday in March.

Even if it meant driving 3+ hours to the small town of Hilliard outside of Columbus, OH. Nothing weird about that, or the fact that Henry had to keep putting me and my petulant attitude in check, or the fact that nearly every one of my senses was drop-kicking me straight back into the hands of 2005.

I was just there to see some vintage fucking TV sets. Goddammit.

Our current TV is about three years away from being quite at home here.

Andrea would have hated this place because it was an unguided tour. The aging hippie at the front desk took our donation and was basically like, “I don’t give a shit what you do. Touch whatever you want.” And that is exactly what Chooch did — touched every button on every TV. (OK, I did too.)

I can’t remember the last time Jonny Craig sounded so loud in my head, even around the constant hum and squelch of vintage television.

Some buttons actually were off-limits. Thank god there were cameras in every room to make sure that we didn’t touch anything/anyone we weren’t supposed to be touching.

Oh look! It’s Henry standing amongst televisions from his own era!

“I like your shirt.”

“Thanks, I bought it after you quit talking to me.”

When I was five-years-old, there were only three TV channels and I ate sardines straight from the can! Henry to Chooch, who fucked around with his “new iPhone” all day.

For all my clown-lovahs out there.

World’s first clicker aka remote,  I think.

GERMAN TV!

PURPLE TV!

I was worried it wouldn’t be worth it. But it was worth it.

I was so distracted by all the relics from the past, that I forgot to even sign the guest book.

I was kind of let down by this park in Columbus, because really – the excitement of bush people only extends so far. But surprisingly, Chooch was really infatuated by it and when he saw that there was a house for sale across the street, he wanted to buy it.

I was wildly concerned with the possibility of one of us stepping in dog poop.

There are no pictures of Henry because he was too busy sitting on a bench, chaperoning. And by chaperoning, I mean squinting at his phone with his glasses resting precariously on the tip of his nose.

We stopped here after visiting the Early Television Museum, which I’ll write about later. Putting things in order is so overrated.

Chooch kept wanting to lay down everywhere, which would make me shout, “Hello!

Dog shit!”

For not giving a shit about the topiary people, leaving that place was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

The secret passageway from the office led us into the boardroom; it’s amazing we were able to squeeze past Andrea’s Dick-inflated ego to even get into the next room at all. This room was kind of boring, and pretty typical of what you would expect a boardroom to look like. Even still, Dick kept asking us what seemed awry in the room and even the super old people had seemed to lose some of their enthusiasm by this point, so no one really volunteered any guesses.

“The chairs have never been sat in! Chuck didn’t even have a board!” And oh, how we laughed at Chuck’s absurdity. That one chatty old lady tried to say something to me in this room, but I murmured “Mmhmm” and turned the other way.

Evidently, the table was actually made in the boardroom, because it would have been too large to fit through the doors otherwise, you see. I pretended to be impressed by this, but I was really reaching the end of my rope, I had to pee, I was hungry AND I REALLY WANTED TO SEE THE SWIMMING POOL.

A bookshelf opened up into some sort of extraneous sitting room. Off to one side was a smaller kitchen-like room that Chuck had built specifically for canning, and then only canned once. It was super creepy, thick cutting blocks lined the walls and industrial stoves and other cookery added to the sinister ambiance. I thought I saw a faint blood stain.

“This is where we all get murdered,” one of the old guys whispered, only I didn’t hear it but Andrea told me about it later and this seemed to slightly redeem old people to her. It was pretty obvious that he was only there because his wife had dragged him there, so Andrea had already felt some strange kinship to him, I’m sure. BECAUSE I AM JUST LIKE A NAGGING WIFE, JUST SAY IT ANDREA!

A billiards room was next. The table was PURPLE you guys, and Dick made sure to tell us fifteen times that he had never seen a PURPLE pool table before. Apparently, Chuck had told him that the table was made for the movie “The Hustler,” and so Dick went and watched the movie TWICE but he’s pretty sure that this was another of Chuck’s tall tales (he was such a kidder) and furthermore, the movie was in black and white so why would they want a purple pool table?

Dick laughed heartily at this.

Meanwhile, he suggested that I take the seat right next to the room’s player organ so that I can “really feel the bass.” I did as told, but all I really wound up feeling was an extreme stabbing sensation in my eardrum, like the entire organ was trying to copulate with my ear. It was awful! Furthermore, when Dick opened up the front of it to show everyone the insides (which is why Andrea looks SO INTENT in the above photo), I couldn’t even see! That was my least favorite room, I think.

Back in the large sitting room, we finally got to listen to the Merry-Go-Round band organ. This was Dick’s opportunity to make us all feel like inferior music retards for assuming that it was a calliope. “Everyone always confuses these with calliopes!” he scoffed. I half-expected a secret chute to open up in the floor and send us off on a flight of shame.

“This is the second-loudest music box in the house,” Dick said, flicking a switch that blew back our faces against our skulls. Goddamn, that was some loud fucking music. “This is what draws people to merry-go-rounds!” Dick shouted over top the joyful amusement park soundtrack. One of the ladies in our group started doing some stupid mock-waltz and I wanted to punch her.

Afterward, we got to listen to the band organ behind that one. “This is the loudest one in the house!” Dick said, but nothing could have prepared us for the sonic needles about to be gouged into our cochlea. I’m pretty sure I even saw Andrea’s spirit leave her body.

I mean, I was REALLY into this shit the whole time, but it was even too much for me. It was like every speaker at Warped Tour funneling gutteral screamo into my ear canal all at once, this fucker was that intense. It was like the ninteenth century’s version of a metalcore band. MAKE IT SHUT THE FUCK UP! TURN IT THE FUCK OFF! ABORT! DICK, YOU DICK!

These are things that my unmoving lips wanted to scream if only the aural violence hadn’t caused me to suffer intracranial injury.

After Dick felt all brains had been sufficiently jostled, he turned off the organ and flicked some secret switch that made some wall panel behind Andrea swing open and hit her in the ass.

“He totally did that on purpose,” she scowled, having just been goosed by the Bayernhof. God, she got ALL the special treatment!

I hadn’t even had a chance to peek around Dick’s bulky girth, but I already knew that we had finally reached my long sought-after part of the tour thanks to the strong aroma of chlorine and all-around dankness that came wafting from the other side of the door: the swimming pool secret passage. We all walked into the entrance of a man-made cave, complete with stalagmites, dampness and a fake bat. It was all I could do not to bowl Dick over to get inside even quicker. I kept giving Andrea all these adorable Make A Wish Kid faces, but she was making a point to ignore me, I think.

Before we could further explore the cave, we made a pit stop into a small wine cellar, which featured grotesque trolls straight from the pages of Grimm’s.

I wanted to steal it.

“Don’t steal anything!” Dick said teasingly to Andrea who answered him with nothing more than a withering glance. In his excitement to tell us that Chuck wasn’t a wine-drinker, I don’t think he noticed that Andrea was weaving a voodoo doll from his suit lint, projectile-spit and music box-love jizz. Among all the cheap bottles of wine in the cellar, Chuck also had a bottle of Mad Dog. Everyone giggled; Andrea continued to stew in her crock pot of animosity and disgust.

Finally, we got to walk through the cave! OMG CHUCK WAS SO LUCKY! If I lived there, I would have congregated in those caves all of the time. That’s probably where Chooch would have been conceived. I couldn’t resist running my fingertips along the surface as we all trudged slowly down the narrow, dimly-lit path. The eye-watering stench of pool chemicals grew stronger as the path started a slight incline.

And then, we were in the ultimate Germanic Eden. A stone bridge arched over a sauna and a 10-foot waterfall cascaded majestically down a rocky wall to our right. Tears stung my eyes and I wanted to twirl around like Julie fucking Andrews on a hillside. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS.

But not enough to change Andrea’s mind about the Bayernhof. In fact, she seemed even more disgusted.

Oh, I wanted to just dive right in! BAPTIZE ME, BAYERNHOF!

I wonder,when Dick goes for a dip, does he wear a Speedo or one of those 1950’s striped onesies? I can see him floating on his back while balancing a snackbowl of prunes on his rotund belly.

Finally, Dick led us out of the pool area and we found ourselves back in the foyer, to the left of where we orginally convened at the start of the tour.

“You mean we could have just walked through this door in the beginning and been done with it? Son of a bitch,” Andrea hissed, right as Dick announced that he was ready to accept our payment. “And we have to pay for this shit, too?” she verbally-whipped at me. And apparently, it was cash only, which I didn’t know and only had a credit card and gum wrappers in my wallet. Andrea reluctantly handed Dick a twenty for the both of us, and I swore to her that I would buy her dinner that night.

“It’s the least you can do at this point,” she said, singeing my eyebrows with her vitriol.

“Here, have a postcard!” Dick said to everyone as we tugged our coats on and prepared to head out into the snow. I thought it was strange that he didn’t hand one to Andrea, but I shrugged and walked out the front door. Andrea fell into place beside me before I got to the car and said, “Here.” She was shoving an entire stack of postcards into my arm.

“He gave me all of these and then told me he hopes I come back,” she said miserably, and I laughed so hard I cried.

Thank god, right before we left,  I was able to snap a fortuitous picture of a framed photo of Chuck, daydreaming about Germany and music boxes. Just for you, Andrea. I hope this is the first thing you see when you close your eyes tonight! Love, Erin

***

Later that night, Henry and Wendy joined us at Max’s Allegheny Tavern, where we dined on Andrea’s favorite food – GERMAN. OH THE SWEET IRONY.

“I wish there were music boxes playing,” I said, to which Andrea retorted with a hearty “Fuck you.”

Henry’s weeners.

Coincidentally, I was felled by a nasty stomach flu the very next day. At first I thought it was Karma, and Andrea took great pleasure in this, but Henry wound up even sicker than me. I had fever dreams about the Bayernhof throughout the day and couldn’t think about it for at least a week. Then my cat died two days later and I really began to think that I brought something evil and German home with me that day, like Hitler’s own fucking spirit or a Black Forest demon. But I got over it and now I’m ready to go back. Anyone want to join me?

Imagine Andrea’s chagrin when she had to walk away from the front door and follow the group upstairs for more German wonderment. Me? I was stoked because I just knew there were going to be secret passages up there.

Burnt Offerings Lady opted to sit down on a chair in the foyer because her legs were not stair-savvy. I  noticed Andrea casting her longing glances, probably because she wished she had the foresight to feign a physical handicap. Too bad Dick noticed Burnt Offerings camped out downstairs and put a kibosh to it.

“Oh dear, is this an antique?” Burnt Offerings asked after Dick got all flustered at the sight of her resting her brittle bones. She labored herself out of the chair as he hot-stepped it down the staircase to join her.

“No, it’s just that my boss would have a fit if he knew anyone was left down here alone. I can’t let you stay down here, so we’ll have to take the elevator.”

Andrea looked at me, eyes all slit, and hissed, “He is such a dick!” So suddenly Scary Old Lady from the parking lot had become Poor Old Lady in Andrea’s eyes. I think it also made Andrea realize that there was NO WAY OUT OF THE BAYERNHOF.

We all milled about the upstairs landing until Dick and Burnt Offerings joined us from the elevator. Apparently, there was no staircase that couldn’t be swapped out for an elevator, yet I never actually saw the elevator, thus solidifying my theory that Dick was actually a warlock, latching on to Burnt Offerings by her hair and flying her in through windows.

The first upstairs room we saw was one of the guest rooms and hoo boy, do I wish I could sleep over! Paintings of castles, curtains that opened with the press of a button, a mini kitchen tucked away behind a cabinet door, the bedspread a paroxysmal splatter of burnt oranges, reds and yellows – it was a room fit for a German Dan Tanna. Dick told us that in his room, he puts a coffee pot on one of the stove burners and even has a small microwave tucked in there, too. I noticed Andrea flushing a distinct shade of chartreuse, probably because she was picturing Dick in his tightie whities, brewing coffee and popping prunes while doing the Charleston to wound-up music boxes.

The next room was a game room with a riverboat theme. It had a large poker table, a music box with a real banjo encased in it you guys!!!!, and a hexagonal domed skylight featuring painted images of, oh my God, Germany. But the best part of this room was the fortune teller box. Dick, having caught on by now to Andrea’s unchanging dour expression, volunteered her to crank the arm and get a fortune.

She reluctantly did as she was told, and then Dick made her READ IT OUT LOUD; it was some horrid string of words about how the one she is engaged to is not the one she will marry, and everyone began tittering and giggling at the absurdity of this fortune, but Andrea looked ready to self-combust on the spot. And if the Bayernhof wasn’t already haunted, it was sure to be if that had happened. As everyone retreated from the room, Andrea whispered, “I’m going to kill you” in the iciest tone I have ever heard in my whole entire life, and I used to watch A LOT of Soap Operas.

In the master bedroom, we learned that Chuck only wore blue Brooks Brothers shirts, and after he died over 200 were counted in his closet. What a fucking weirdo. All I really remember about this room is that it was overrun with Hummel figures and some fucking Walt Disney collection. Dick pointed out that this was one of the few rooms in the house that did not have its own bar, which made everyone cry out in surprise (myself included, albeit only to irritate Andrea). But then Dick opened a door with a flourish and yelled, “That’s because he has an entire kitchen and bar attached to his room!” and everyone (myself included) chortled joyously like the audience of Hee Haw.

Except for Andrea, who merely sighed exasperatedly.

Also in the master bedroom, we learned that Chuck had a long-time girlfriend, some German broad named Erma. “They never married,” Dick said, pausing dramatically. “Because she never wanted to! I bet you thought it was him that didn’t want to get married!” he directed solely to Andrea, pulling back his lips to really give her a good shot of his gums.  I could sense her recoiling. Listening to Jonny Craig in my car probably never sounded so appealing to her before.

One of the men in our group, Burnt Offering’s son I believe, began whistling through his teeth right about the time I began noticing someone’s sour, pungent breath swirling around me. Old people suck.

There was a narrow, winding staircase in this room and it was all I could fixate on the whole time Dick talked about the worth of the Hummel collection and what kind of toothpaste Chuck preferred. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally instructed us to ascend the stairs (I AM OBSESSED WITH STAIRS) while he whisked Burnt Offerings off to the secret elevator and promised to meet us up there after he finished snacking on her blood.

I was like a giggly school girl on that staircase! It was so narrow, twisty and wooden! Oh my god, I wished it would have went on forever. Fuck, I love a staircase. (I just jumped up and down at the memory!)

At the top was another bar which spilled out into a small, dark  and curved room decorated with large murals of constellations. At the center was a metal ladder which led up to a gigantic orange telescope underneath a small observatory dome.

“Totally did not see that coming!” I enthused to Andrea, who retorted with, “This is fucking stupid.” Dick and Burnt Offerings joined us from the other side of the room (WHERE THE FUCK WAS THIS SUPPOSED ELEVATOR?

!) and then told us some stuff while the old lady in feathering coral lipstick who came late to the tour kept trying to share with us her own observations that no one cared about and too bad she missed the part about not talking over Dick to your neighbors because I only had one half of a fake smile left in the bank for her. Andrea’s signature response to everything was an effective deadened stare and taut lips.

Back downstairs, we saw some other bedroom, and someone jokingly asked Dick, “When do we get to see your room?” to which Dick laughed and said, “Mine is one of the rooms with the closed doors. Trust me, it’s just a bachelor pad and you don’t want to see it!”

I bet at that point, Andrea’s mind was taken to a room full of palpable flatulence, piles of worn and ear-marked Hustlers and skid-marked underwear festering in discarded heaps.

Finally, in the master bathroom (which featured the same grand bathtub that’s in the master bathroom at my grandparents house), Dick pulled open a hidden door and I almost wet myself.  FINALLY A GODDAMN HIDDEN PASSAGEWAY! I was an excited mess, fumbling with my phone and spontaneously breaking out into jazz hands. Andrea’s reaction was to grimace and look at me with disapproval.

At the bottom of the steps, we emerged through a gun case into Chuck’s office.

“I guess you could say we ‘shot right through’!” said the old lady who loved to talk. I laughed really obnoxiously and exaggeratedly at that and Andrea just rolled her eyes.

In the office, we learned that Chuck liked to display framed photos of Nixon and that “The Andy Griffith Show” was his favorite. He used to watch reruns in the kitchen while preparing for dinner parties, you guys!

“Any guy that has that many pictures of Nixon in his office has got to be an asshole,” Andrea said later. She really, really, really hated poor dead Chuck.

Apparently, when Dick first met Chuck (Dick used to come up from the South to repair the music boxes), Chuck had told Dick that Nixon was his cousin. When Chuck died in 1999, Dick came up for the funeral. He said that the house was packed with well-wishers, and that Chuck was laid out in the LIVING ROOM (so glad he waited until after to tell us that), but he couldn’t locate any of the Nixons. Finally, he asked someone who laughed and said, “Chuck wasn’t related to the Nixons!” Oh, that Chuck; such a trickster.

On a shelf near Andrea was one of those old school penny-flinging mechanisms. I’m not sure what they’re called, but I’ve seen them a million times, and so has Andrea, which really made for a crestfallen Dick when he tried to impress her with one. Really all he was doing was preparing us for the real wonder, which was the SECOND SECRET DOOR! The entire shelf spun opened and let us out into a boardroom, but not before Dick got all close to Andrea and sneered, “You have such a pretty smile.” In her best Ben Stein, she mumbled, “Thanks” and then later bitched to me that he was only singling her out in an effort to be an even bigger dick, but I will always believe that he wanted to make her the house fraulein.  And that is where I will pick up again later.

(I just can’t sit long enough to bang this all out!)

The tour commenced as Andrea and I strangled inside a balloon of old lady perfume. It was this acrid, palpable bouquet of marzipan candy dishes, yellow and burnt orange afghans, dainty doilies and Maude reruns, and I thought for sure my flesh would become moist with their sickly odor if I got too close.

Dick first learned us that the man who once owned the Bayernhof, Chuck [Something], had become wealthy through some sort of industry here in Pittsburgh and really, I mean REALLY, liked Germany and music boxes for some reason, so in the 60s or 70s he built the Bayernhof to house his collection of obnoxious noise machines and Bavarian bric-a-brac.

(I don’t pay attention very well.)

(Also: I was too busy masticating my bottom lip to keep from upchucking with giddy laughter.)

Chuck had a penchant for dinner parties, so his kitchen had lots of fancy (for that era) appliances and Germany shit on the wall that lit up. I emitted “ooh”s and “ahh”s with all the stinky liver spotted-hags at all the precise moments, which made Andrea glare at me.

Just imagine all the spaetzel and streudel he must have whipped up in that kitchen while shadow-dancing to the melodious plunks of his music boxes. Fucking weirdo.

“Wouldn’t it have been awesome to have been invited to one of his dinner parties?” I whispered to Andrea.

“No,” she said flatly.

The dining room was where Dick first struck up a music box, and I utterly lost my mind, laughter came projectiling out of my shitty-grinned lips like piss from an octogenarian’s bladder. I couldn’t control it, had no idea music boxes could ever be so funny to me, and I had nowhere to run; I was directly in Dick’s line of vision, so I tried to play it off like I was just THAT HAPPY and overjoyed to be hearing a goddamn tinkling box. Luckily, one of the younger of the old broads was legitimately pleased to be hearing this, so she too let out several cries of jubilation. I tried to just piggyback off her from then on. Especially since she laughed out loud at all of Dick’s “jokes.” This enabled me to get some of my immature giggles out of my system without arousing suspicion.

Dick then played another music box for us and was so disappointed that no one knew the 100-year-old song that came clinking out. It actually was rather surprising considering how old some of those ladies were.

The old lady with the cane had “Burnt Offerings” attic written all over her.

Leaving the dining room, I came perilously close to knocking some chintzy figurine off a pedestal with my ass, as previously mentioned. Andrea did the “hand to the heart” nervous Mom motion.

On the other side of the dining room door was a sunken living room with stark white carpeting, in true mod fashion (though, if he really wanted to do it right, Chuck would have opted for white shag like my grandma has in her living room). There was some grotesque Germanic wall-hanging above a fireplace, an obtuse music maker that practically housed a full-scale orchestra, and two player pianos. Dick instructed everyone to take a seat, but there was no vacancy on the couch so I was left to sit on the steps.

Another old bitch arrived while we were having our ear drums perforated by boxed music. Since she missed Dick’s lecture about not speaking to our neighbors, she sat next to me on the steps and immediately began regaling me with her feathered-lipstick asides. Bitch, don’t you know that’s what Twitter’s for?

Sometime during Dick’s spiel about repairing one of the player pianos, I happened to glance down and notice that my TOMS had tracked in a good bit of mud, which I had inadvertently ground into the WHITE CARPET while mock dancing along to the stupid old-timey music. I hurriedly stepped on it so Dick wouldn’t see. I pointed it out to Andrea as we were all herded out of the room, and she deemed it the highlight of the tour, something about “that fucking house deserved it.”

In a hallway, we listened to more music boxes and player pianos! The novelty was really wearing thin and I started bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation for the secret passageways. It was all I could do to keep my hand from springing up so I could ask him about the basement.

This was also about the time I learned that Dick is an avid fan of the rhetorical question.

The music box-filled hallway spilled us back out into the foyer and I could see the look of hope on Andrea’s face as she prayed to every relic we saw at Saint Anthony’s for this to be the end of the tour. Too bad for her there was still an entire upstairs and like, THREE SECRET PASSAGEWAYS that we were yet to explore.

There was a guest book in the foyer chockful of elderly scrawl. I added our names before we left, with a little note that said, “THIS PLACE IS REALLY OUTTA SIGHT!”

Dick was showing us, wait for it……..

….another music box, which was located in kind of a tight space, so he was having everyone come over one at a time to get a load of its innards. One of the old broads gave it a cursory glance and then offered to move out of the way so Andrea could look.

Andrea’s response was a throaty, “No.”

Not a “no thank you” or “I’ll pass.” Just a very curt and Pee-Wee-Herman-Wet-In-The-Alley-esque “No.”

I was beginning to think that maybe Andrea had some sort of music box phobia, something that dates back to her childhood and she had kept repressed up until this fateful trip to Pittsburgh. Perhaps she walked in on an uncle dressed in drag and doing unspeakable things to a gutted Thomas Kinkaide music box.  Hopefully my not-yet-started music box collection will be in full swing by her next visit.

Maybe if there had been one that played Lil Wayne, the music box world would have won her over.

Here, Dick spins some yarns about Chuck’s grandfather, who never actually wore Lederhosen.  This was one of those times I got to exercise my fake belly laugh.

And then we went upstairs, with Andrea “motherfucking” me every step of the way. I’ll get into the wonders of the upstairs next time.  And believe me, the wonders were copious.

“We’re going to be so late!” I cried to Andrea, after she had purposely tried to sleep through our appointment at the Bayernhof Music Museum last week. She was against this part of the Pittsburgh itinerary from the get-go, especially after I had Wendy call and make us a tour appointment when we were hanging out two days prior, since Wendy enjoys talking to people and I do not enjoy talking to people and Andrea just flat out wanted no part of it. Wendy got reamed out by the curator for having the audacity to try and schedule a same-day tour. That’s what we in the biz call a tourism foul.

“Of course he’s going to be a dick,” Andrea said when Wendy got off the phone. “He’s into music boxes. He’s a music box dick.”

But I had been trying to tour this place for years and years, ever since I saw a billboard for it. IT HAS SECRET PASSAGEWAYS. My friend Kara and I tried to go back in 2007 but didn’t realize we needed to call ahead, so we ended up going to look at glass shit at Phipps Conservatory instead. Now that Wendy had secured me an appointment for that Wednesday at 2:30, there was no way I was letting Andrea off the hook. I kept hoping she would choke so I could save her life and then she’d owe me. But since the words, “I don’t want to do that” never actually came out of her mouth, I considered her locked in without the aid of any of my usual manipulation tools other than puppy eyes and pouty lip. I’d say that’s an unfailing combination, but there’s still no ring on my finger. So…

After whining about how she tried to sabotage my music box dreams by sleeping in so late, I rushed her out of the hotel room. In my car, the roller skating mix CD had restarted from the beginning, so Andrea got to re-enjoy Billy Ocean, and by that I mean she texted all her friends about how Mean Erin in Pittsburgh had been aurally torturing her all week.

Halfway to Sharpsburg, I looked at the clock and said, “Oh my god, we’re going to be really early.”

“I tried to tell you!” Andrea yelled, sighing with frustration. And right as we reached our destination, one of many Jonny Craig joints came on the radio just as it began snowing. “Son of a bitch,” Andrea muttered, scowling out the window. And this is how I learned that the trifecta of Jonny Craig, snow-tinged frondescence, and music boxes is enough to morph the pupils of Andrea’s eyes into red undulating “FML”s. I took great joy in this and was nearly in tears from all the laughing. Torturing my friends is one of my greatest pleasures.

Since we were so early, we parked on a cul-de-sac across from the gated Bayernhof estate, like the most conspicuous burglers of all time. I was all but bouncing in my seat with excitement and anticipation while Andrea wondered what she had done wrong in her life to deserve this. I kept saying things like, “This is going to be fantastic” to which she would emphatically counter with things like, “No, this is totally going to suck and I hate it already. Fuck music boxes.”

But again, not once did she say, “I want to go home.” (Not that I would have obliged anyway.)

“I hope this tour is at least 2 hours,” I said all dreamily. I could not wait to get inside that house and surround myself with Germanic opulence.

“I hope it’s less than 5 minutes,” Andrea countered.

After a few minutes, another carful of early birds arrived, but they were braver than we and drove past the gates and onto the driveway. I followed their lead, throwing the car into drive and officially entering Babylon. Out of the car emerged a couple who appeared to be in their 50s and an even older lady who I assume was the mother to one of them. She walked all hunched over, slow, and with the aid of a cane.

“See? Old people. I knew it,” Andrea mumbled, after claiming the broad with the cane gave her an angry look.

The curator of the house came out and summoned us inside. I caught the eye of the old lady and she smiled at me. I took this as a small victory in my secret war against Andrea.

Inside the foyer, the curator introduced himself. At least, I imagine that’s what was going on when I completely LOST MY SHIT and began laughing so profusely that I had to turn and practically stuff my face into the corner so no one would notice. Because my shuddering body wasn’t a giveaway or anything. Little squeaks kept sneaking their way past my lips, my face had to have been beet red, and tears were starting to stream down my cheeks. I turned slightly and made eye contact with Andrea; she did not look amused.

It was totally like being a child again, being struck by a laughing fit in the middle of church.

The curator, I’ll just call him Dick because I’m sure that’s what Andrea was calling him in her head, came around and took all of our coats from us, so I had to collect myself quickly, which I did mostly by biting the inside of my cheeks and digging my fingernails into my palms.

Dick said he was expecting more people, and led us into a sitting room, where he left us alone with CNN while he went and made phone calls.

“I hate you,” Andrea said for the first of 100 times that afternoon. I continued to have giggle fits while sitting on a couch and tweeting furiously about how it felt like I had landed in Munich. German knick knacks and processions of beer steins all over the room, a large bar in one corner, and the signature stench of the 70’s circulating in nostalgic wafts to tickle our nostrils.

Andrea would have rather thrown herself off the balcony than be forced to hear the current affair opinions of the elders of our group. She texted me, “I’m praying to Saint Lucy to have my eyeballs poked out” and “Crying on the inside.” This just made me start laughing all again.

“But think of the secret passageways!” I whispered. She just scowled and went back to texting SOS’s to her friends, far far away in California.

Another “older couple + old mom” combo arrived and Dick decided he was going to just go ahead and start the tour, but not without first drilling some ground rules into us, such us:

• No talking to your “neighbors” during the tour, because it’s hard for him to talk over stage whispers (literally, he said stage whispers). I felt like I was in grade school again.
• ABSOLUTELY NO TOUCHING ANYTHING.

I broke both rules in the second room when I turned around to say something mocking to Andrea and my giant ass banged against a pedestal holding some stupid German figurine, which proceeded to teeter precariously.

I will get to the tour in the next post, so you better come back.

I learned about Saint Anthony’s Chapel back when I was taking all these awesome religion classes at Pitt (I wanted to minor in religious studies, if you can believe that). It’s a private chapel on Troy Hill in Pittsburgh and it houses 5,000 relics. That’s the largest collection in the world, outside of the Vatican.

I never made it there but when Andrea said she was coming back to Pittsburgh, I asked her if she would be interested in checking it out, since she’s all into bones.

She said fuck yes, so we planned to go last Tuesday, when the gift shop would be open as well.

An elderly lady saw us standing in front of the closed gift shop and told us, “If yinz want to see the relics, you can just go inside the chapel and ask for Carol.” It was Andrea’s first time hearing someone say “yinz” in real life, since Henry and I don’t subscribe to any of that weird Pittsburgh lexicon; she practically squealed.

As soon as we walked in, we were instantly quieted by the churchly chanting subtly wafting through hidden speakers. There were several old people kneeling at the pews, some were lighting candles. I immediately felt like the biggest undulating heathen of all time. We read some signs asking us to not take pictures (like I can be stopped) and suggesting that we make a donation.

The chapel is lined on both sides by life-sized Stations of the Cross. We shuffled slowly past the ones on the left and I got all internally weepy (found out later that Andrea was, too).

When we got near the front, where all the relics are, a tiny old woman in a Christmas sweater emerged from a back room and welcomed us jovially to Saint Anthony’s. She said we were free to look around on our own, but also offered to give us a tour. We chose to take the tour, and she had us sit down in the front pew while she stood before us. Andrea said she felt like she was boring into our souls, and I tried to sit as Christian schoolgirl-like as humanly possible for a whore like myself. My hands were all clammy and I kept catching myself holding my breath, like she would be able to see my tangible evil if I exhaled too heavily.

But after a few minutes, I realized that Carol wasn’t judging us at all, and she never questioned why we were there (we were all ready to unnaturally blurt out that it was for a spiritual awakening, because that’s what I saw on the website). The first thing Carol did was give us a history of the chapel and the priest who brought all the relics there in the 1800s, Father Mollinger. He was from Holland and completely fucking awesome. Totally my new hero. He was a doctor too, so he became known around town as a healing priest.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, there were a lot of religious and political rifts going on and people began to fear that their houses would be raided and their relics would be confiscated. So many of his friends and family began sending them to America for Father Mollinger to keep safe. Since he was born into nobility, he had very rich tastes, and had this beautiful chapel built to house all of the relics. The reliquaries alone were enough to bring tears to my eyes.

When Carol got to the part of the story where thousands of people had gathered for the unveiling of the chapel, at which point Father Mollinger collapsed, I was screaming to myself, “NO, DON’T SAY IT. DON’T SAY IT!” But it was the inevitable part of the story where he died. Carol took that opportunity to interject her own personal opinion by saying that she feels we should all live the way Father Mollinger did and try until our death to accomplish that one thing that’s important to us and it was this totally epiphanic moment.

Carol taught us that there are three classes of relics:

• Class 1 is an actual piece of the saint’s body: a bone, a tooth, a fingernail clipping, etc.
• Class 2 is usually an article of clothing, like part of a cloak that was worn by the saint, or other personal effects.
• Class 3 is an object that touched a class 1 or class 2, like cloth or a medal.

Most of the relics were so small, you couldn’t really see them but the label that was identifying them. However, there were large, crossed bones and entire skulls of other saints. They also had a piece of the manger and True Cross, and that was where Miss Athiest got all choked up.

The tour took about an hour, at which point Carol asked us if we had any questions. I had been waiting for this moment during the whole tour and blurted out, “Is there anything of Saint Rita’s here?”

So Carol went back and checked the huge inventory book, and then directed me to a large glass case above a row of candles. Saint Rita’s relic was in the bottom row. I don’t know what it was exactly, but it was there, and that was all I cared about.

Afterward, we went back across the street to the gift shop, where I bought a shit ton of Saint Rita stuff (Andrea kept finding more and more stuff for me, so Henry can totally blame this holy charge on his credit card on her). I even got a medal of her that has a Class 3 relic on the back! I have been wearing it everyday since.

And Andrea found us rosary rings, which are so uncomfortable to wear, but look totally awesome.

Upstairs from the gift shop was a small museum for Father Molinger.

So fucking creepy.

Father Mollinger, you guys!

This was a life-changing experience. Andrea and I couldn’t stop talking about it for hours afterward, and Henry even kind of started to seem vaguely interested. I’m totally going to start going to church now. But only fancy ones.

If it weren’t for Roadside America, I probably wouldn’t have been tipped off to the Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers; it wasn’t listed anywhere with the rest of Gatlinburg’s attractions. (Maybe it needs a “Ripley’s” added to the front.)

At $3 per person (Chooch was free), it was the cheapest thing we did all week.

The joint is curated by an older woman from Belgium named Allison (I believe I read also that she is an archeologist); she greeted us with a thick French accent and bright emerald green eyeliner that matched her dress. After paying, she Vanna’d her hand over to the entrance, gave us a brief explanation of why she collects them (to display the creativity of the shakers’ makers, natch) and said, “Voila!”

“I love her!” I gushed to Henry after we entered the first room of the collection, which was staggering; over 20,000 so far. She has them all displayed behind glass in sections labeled “Wooden,” “Christmas,” “Transportation,” “Fruits,” and on and on.

I was worried that Chooch was going to be bored, but he was really into it and begged us to buy a set from the gift shop. (We didn’t. Had she had any creepy religious sets to offer, though, I’d have been all the fuck over it like Snooki on a gorilla juice head.

Chooch never shut up, he was so excited to point out the ones that he liked and tried to find ones he thought I would like too. Thankfully, there was only one other couple in there with us: a girl and what appeared to be her Hasidic Jew friend, but ended up being her hipster boyfriend.

(Shout out to my SLC pal Brandy!)

The couple was mostly inoffensive until she pulled out a box of Raisinets like this was some new wave still life movie theater and began chewing in a fashion which allowed me to hear each bite being sucked off her molars by tongue-power and then she also started talking while this was playing out in her mouth and even worse, she and her hipster-bearded beau started getting all cutesy and romantical over the bridal shakers and I was starting to re-taste my morning oatmeal.

While we were in there, some bitch blew through the front door and attempted to go straight into the exhibit. Allison stopped her and said it was $3 to view. The girl was all offended by this and exclaimed rudely, “You have to PAY for this?” She wound up leaving in a huff. Bitch, go then. I love weird little roadside attractions like this and have no problem shelling out a few bucks — this lady spent the better part of her life collecting these overlooked pieces of art. $3 and a little respect is the least we can give.

I bought some postcards after the tour and as I handed them to her, she joyfully sang out, “Oui Oui!” I wish she was my grandma.

A+. Organized hoarding at its best.

Henry: [mouthing off about coves.]
Me: “Boring.”
Henry: “You know, maybe you would learn something if you actually listened to me.”
Yeah, but that won’t happen as long as Jonny Craig’s voice is coming out of the speakers.

*********
Still haven’t seen any bears. Not even after the 5,000 mile car ride through the national park which Henry forced us to take this morning. Oh my god, it was so boring. By the time we actually got to our destination, Henry turned around and started driving back, what the fuck. (First we stopped in some small information center where Chooch got chastised by some old park ranger within 5 seconds for TOUCHING A BOOK. Either old people in Tennessee are just all assholes, or they have the ability to see Chooch’s inner Satan.)

Nature never fails to make Henry and I fight, so it was a pretty miserable drive back to the resort. Mostly because I was convinced he took us out there specifically to sabotage my plans for Christ in the Smokies, which I had been yearning for since JUNE.

Bill came down around 1:30 and we finally embarked for downtown Gatlinburg. Henry was definitely not pleased about this page of the intinerary but Bill and I were super fired-up.

I immediately had an uncomfortable, slightly-tense run-in with one of the museum…curators? Does wearing a Christ in the Smokies polo qualify him with that status? I’m not sure, but he was very exasperated that I bought our tickets online but was unable to print them out. This caused us to have to interact longer than I would have liked, and he was also clearly chagrined by this.

“Southern hospitality must not apply in Tennessee,” I complained to Henry, recounting all the situations I’ve had so far which called for scrutiny.

“They’re probably just used to dealing with ignorant assholes,” Henry said, and I KNOW he wasn’t directing that at me.

We had time to scope the gift shop before our tour started and I was extremely dismayed with the lack of kitsch. I mean, yeah—-all Jesus shit is hokey, but this was all your typical hokey shit that you’d find anywhere. Very few items boasted the Christ in the Smokies insignia, so I had to make due with a tiny lamb-handled bell and a $2 souvenir program which I only bought because it came with 2 post cards, which were unavailable for separate purchase. (I’ll send them to the first two to call dibs.) Totally lame and unacceptable. I was fully prepared to spend most of my souvenir savings there, just so they know.

(I had my heart set on something scary to add to my bathroom collection. Gory bleeding hearts and weeping Marys, even a crown of thorns toilet paper holder would have sufficed.)

There was no one else there so it ended up being just the four of us touring the museum, which is great because we never know how Chooch is going to act in these things. Also because I was even more free to be inappropriate and feign respect. After the annoyed guide explained the rules (PHOTOGRAPHY IS PROHIBITED INSIDE THE EXHIBIT) we started off watching a short DVD presentation about how Jesus is the best and then the doors opened to the diorama portion of the tour, which started with the Nativity scene. Chooch was excited because this included a chicken.

“Mommy, that guy said NO PICTURES!” Chooch is such a little bitch-ass tattle-tale. But he was surprisingly—-pardon the pun—-a little angel in there. There were moments when he would mumble, “Bor-ING” but for the most part, he sat quietly in each room on the pews and asked appropriate questions.

“Get used to it kid,” I said. “This shit is your next eight years.” Oh, Catholic school. I should have told his kindergarten teacher that THIS is why he’s missing his first week of school. She probably would have said to take TWO weeks, in that case.

Henry was completely against this yet he seemed curiously enrapt by each display.

(We’ll probably have to start going to church now, plan backfired.) You just can’t tell in this picture because he was too busy reprimanding me for taking pictures while simultaneously picking his hemorrhoids.

Chooch made comments here and there like, “That looks like Luke Skywalker!” and then argued that Jesus as a young boy was really a girl until we finally acquiesced and said, “Yes you’re right, it’s a girl.”

“Oh, I’m gonna pay attention to THIS one!” Chooch cried out after walking into another room. Of course, it was a scene depicting Satan tempting Jesus. Satan was standing at the entrance of a cave which had Hellish red lights emanating from within, like a biblical bordello.

It was my favorite one, too.

Bill liked the one with Jesus hanging out in town, talking to children, because there was some shirtless body-builder hanging out on the periphery. “Look at the abs on that guy!” he sighed a little too lustfully.

This same scene also had mannequins commingling with the wax figures.

I guess Christ in the Smokies was tight on money.

So, I started the tour as a snickering heathen, but by the time I got to the crucifixion scene, Catholic guilt had me by the tits and I was all, “OMG JESUS I LOVE YOU JESUS!” I’m a sucker for this shit.

“Heaven is made from the inside of couches?!?!” Chooch exclaimed in shock upon inspecting the ascension scene (which actually did involve Jesus rising up to the ceiling in an epic, gear-turning fashion; props to Christ in the Smokies).

Yes, Chooch. That’s exactly what heaven is made from. (Thank you, cats, for showing him what the inside of the couch looks like in the first place.)

After listening to a lilting rendition of the Hallelujah chorus, the doors burst open to the “gardens,” which was actually just a small enclosed area filled with moist air and the stench of a greenhouse. At the center was a sculpture of Jesus’s face, with creepy eyes that stared at us no matter where we stood. (Corey actually bought me a smaller version of this a few years ago for my birthday and it remains one of my prized possessions.)

Get stoked for Christ!

The last part housed a small collection of currency from Jesus-times and a random collection of Jesus movie memorabilia. Although the gardens were underwhelming at best, the rest of the place was everything I could wanted. I mean, a myriad of wax Bible scenes—how can you go wrong with that?

If my hour spent at Christ in the Smokies did anything at all, it confirmed what I had been contemplating for years: I should totally start dressing like Mary Magdalene.