For Andrea.

I wonder how many souls of children this “joyful clown” has stolen over the years.

This guy has been the same age since 1805.

Waiting for the Blue Streak attendant to finish his cigarette. No, seriously. Every other time we walked past, he was hanging out across the walkway at the hot dog stand. I mean, what else was he going to do? Perform safety inspections?

The gift shop sold everything but Conneaut souvenirs (OK, there was a small table of glassware). In search of Abraham’s bust? They got you covered. Creepy half-ceramic / half-plush clown dolls for $3? There’s a whole stash! (Henry Warbucks totally bought me one, albeit grudgingly.) Mementos for being a hick? Racks and racks of fishing t-shirts to peruse at your leisure.

It stunk in there so bad like old people and moth balls, but it provided refuge from the rain.

My favorite part of these little amusement parks is finding all of the strange and old rides that you just wouldn’t ever come across at Six Flags. Conneaut’s claim is the Witch’s Stew. Holy fuck, as if it weren’t enough that there are creepy depictions of Hansel & Gretel, gingerbread men and wicked witches, this ride is pretty much the reason some pharamist whipped up the first batch of Dramamine in his mortar and pestle.

Whiplash and Motion Sickness city! And only some of the seats have seat belts, which I discovered AFTER the ride started the first time Chooch and I went on.

Of course, we were sitting in the seat beltless seats. I for sure thought Chooch was going to perish, and he was getting so mad that I had my arm around him but oh my god, my Mom Vision was going haywire and I swear I was seeing flashes of 87 different versions of Chooch being expunged from this creepy ass tea cups-on-acid suicide mission.

And then as soon as the ride ended, we pushed and shoved each other toward the exit and ran to Henry, screaming, “OMG THAT WAS THE BEST RIDE EVARRRRR!!”

The second time we went on it was even better because it started STORMING and the lacksadaiscal ride attendant just let us whip around beneath pregnant storm clouds. Since the ride is on a tilted platform, spates of rain water were sluicing off the top of the cars straight onto our backs. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all.

As I stalked toward the exit, frozen in a jumping jack-stance to allow the water to drip from my clothing, the ride attendant gave me a once-over and said with a smirk, “I hope you enjoyed the extended wet ride.”

I think that means he wanted to have sex with me, but I’m not sure.

“Holy shit! We’re still alive!”

The “famous” wall of gum in the Devil’s Den.

Find the Frown!

I think there were only about 20 other people in the park with us that day. The only time we waited in line was for the bumper cars.

Honestly? I can’t wait to go back. With props and models. And the unicorn head mask I just bought.

I guess I felt we’d be remiss if we went to Erie and not spent some time at that Presque Isle place, so we did that briefly Saturday evening.

I’m not a big beach person (beached whale, yeah), let alone a fake beach person, but it was OK for the short amount of time we spent there. My family used to go to Wildwood, NJ every summer and I was OK with spending my days eating sand because I knew that I would be rewarded with all of the action after dinner when we’d hit the boardwalk.

If I HAD to go to the beach, it would be Wildwood but that’s ONLY because of Morey’s Piers.

The entire time, Henry reminisced about his stupid fishing trip that he took there a hundred years ago. “That’s where we stayed when I came here to fish!” he exclaimed wistfully at one point as we passed some negative-star motel.

“I PARKED THERE WHEN I WENT FISHING!”

“I ATE AT THAT PERKINS WHEN I CAME UP HERE TO FISH!”

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.

Chooch probably still has sand on him.

I should probably give him a bath at some point this week.

Still, trodding through wet sand at Presque Isle wasn’t the worst way to waste time. And I guess it was pretty, if you like all that nature shit.

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.

Seriously. Who actually LOVES Ohio? In either case, we had a nice day there yesterday. I’m very tired though & ruing the moment I gave Chooch my old iPhone so he can play Draw Something on his own.

Granted, it’s helping him with his reading and spelling, but he is SO HIGH MAINTENANCE about it and gets all pissed of when people don’t drop everything to guess his drawing immediately after he sends it to them. (omgitschooch if you want to play him.)

(He really is getting so good at reading and spelling though. Through the power of “sounding it out,” he was able to spell “piss” the other day. I’m proud and also extremely surprised that he started with such a PG word.)

At one point yesterday, we were at some playground in this small town outside of Columbus when he patted the pockets of his jeans and exclaimed, “Shit, where’s my phone?!”

Dude, you’re 5. Calm the fuck down and play with some Legos. And no, not a Lego app on your iPhone!

On December 17th, Henry and I were Cleveland-bound again, this time for the Craig Owens solo show at the Grog Shop. You might know that I have had a long-standing love affair with Craig Owens’ music ever since he was in Chiodos, even though I feel that I’m starting to out-grow him a little bit at a time. (I love his new band, but there is this braggadocian cloud he’s been riding lately that I’m just not a fan of. It’s really hard to explain, because he acts all Kumbaya at his solo shows, but when he’s on stage with his band D.R.U.G.S., I kind of want to vomit into a hobo boot.) Regardless, Craig still has a way of warming my soul so I thought it would do wonders considering the depressed state I had been floundering in.

Plus, all that time to irritate Henry while he’s trapped in the car with me and the constant rotation of Jonny Craig projects oozing from the speakers, making me fan my face? You can’t get that kind of joy in regular therapy.

Henry’s favorite part of the trip was all the piles and piles of snow that began to appear as we drew nearer to Cleveland. He knew that it was supposed to snow later that night, but didn’t know that it had already previously snowed the night before. I did know this and made the mistake of casually saying that I had seen snow pictures from some Cleveland people on Twitter and Henry was all, “YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS?” like the fallen snow was code for me taking his mom to get a clandestine piercing.

Apparently now on top of sitting around looking pretty, I have to keep tabs on the weather. I’m so overworked in this relationship.

Getting lost, sliding in snow, PISSED.

By the time we made it to Coventry, we were starving and running out of pre-show time. There’s a Winking Lizard near the Grog Shop and we settled on that, because we had eaten there before and I was reaching that point where I was so hungry that I honestly didn’t know what I wanted and we were about to come to blows. Henry ordered a chicken caesar salad and I honestly did a spit-take. I mean, it’s unusual for men to order a salad to begin with, but Henry? HENRY? BLUE-COLLAR HENRY? I have not once in my life seen this man eat a salad unless it was atop a blood-dripping burger.

“What are you suddenly watching your girlish figure?” I asked him.

“No, my stomach is still messed up*,” he mumbled. So what does he do? He orders a salad and a side of wings. He threatened to make me cry if I took a picture of him and his salad.

*(I still think I brought home some kind of Bavarian virus from the music box museum.)

I felt like living large so I ordered some gingerbread cocktail in spite of Henry’s pursed lips and shaking head. It was pretty much the worst thing I have ever imbibed this side of an egg cream, which made Henry go on a tirade about how I just wasted $6 and I was like, “Jesus, I’ll offer to wash the dishes if your piddly Faygo salary can’t afford a $6 cocktail, go cry in your pussy caesar salad.” It’s just a matter of time before one of us tries to stab the other at a restaurant.

We had just enough time to run down to Big Fun after dinner, which is one of my favorite places to shop in Cleveland. I was hoping to grab some last minute Christmas bullshit for Chooch, but the most annoying people in the world were in there (most of them were probably en route to the Craig show, I’m sure) so I got fed up. I was also going to buy a pair of reindeer ears, because Craig had tweeted earlier that he wanted all the boys at the show to wear Santa hats and all the girls to wear reindeer ears, but then you know what? I got this sudden jolt of self-righteousness and said, “Fuck this, I’m too old to be playing sheep.” So I put it back and got some giant rubber mustache for Tommy and Jessy’s dogs. Next time Craig does something I tell him to do in a tweet, we’ll talk.

Besides, I hate being like other people. I enjoy being the plain old lady at the back of the show. Reindeer ears would only distract from that.

We got to the Grog Shop just as the first opening band was starting. I grabbed us a spot at the bar and immediately began chugging Strongbow. It was either get drunk or be emotionally vulnerable and cry through the whole show. It was bad enough there was one acoustic emo band after the next playing all kinds of wrist-cutting melancholy.

I don’t remember much about the opening band. They were local and their name had something do with Wolves. But the second band, Envoi, came out and I was immediately taken by the singer.

“He is so fucking hot and totally my type,” I hissed at Henry. By this point, Henry likely could have achieved a buzz off my breath alone. I like to slam back some Strongbow, ok?

Henry didn’t respond, so I repeated myself.

“He’s not that hot,” he muttered. At first I thought maybe he was just sulking, but he’s typically a pretty decent wingman so I was confused. That didn’t stop me from tweeting things like, “I can’t wait to date rape this singer after the show, just as soon as I chuck my kid’s carseat out of the backseat.” I mean, I had it so bad that I kept latching on to Henry’s bicep and squeezing, while making purring sounds that probably made everyone around me uncomfortable.

After their set, I kept my eyes on him, willing him to come over to the bar. He had huge gauges and was wearing a slouchy beanie and scene glasses – TOTALLY MY TYPE, RIGHT GUYS? Henry was still frowning over my latest conquest.

Finally, he did end up coming over to the bar, and squeezed in right next to where I was sitting. I was so stunned that I swiveled by seat away from him and mouthed to Henry, “WELL IS HE HOT OR WHAT?” Henry was firm in his stance and said, “No, not at all.”

I quickly spun my head around, letting my eyes scan him just long enough to determine that, oh fuck, Henry was right. This guy was so not hot at all. Not even his sex-voice would have been enough to win me over after finally seeing him close up.

“My eyes are really bad,” I said, returning to my can of Strongbow. At least I know I can still trust Henry as my wingman, even when he wears my pink Delia’s scarf.

Then we were totally making fun of this flapper-wannabe with an angel halo head topper and she totally ended up being with Craig’s “band.” I think she just stood there playing the tambourine. I was not impressed. But before I could find that out, we had to get through two more bands, one of which was My Arcadia, a female-fronted band we recently saw at Warped Tour. I liked them better this time, though I did admit to Henry that I wished the singer was just a smidge hotter. She had good stage presence at least.

Sometime before Craig took the stage, our friend Jason arrived and Henry immediately turned into a sycophant. He’s so ridiculous when it comes to bromances. He practically clotheslined himself against the bar, trying to get the bartender to put Jason’s Boylan’s on our tab.

“Can we go now?”

Craig came out and chose to cover Bieber’s “Under the Mistletoe” as his opening song. I thought it was a joke at first; who wouldn’t? He slowed it down and made it all breathy and serious; I kept waiting for him to stop abruptly and say, “Sike, naw!”

But no. He was serious. This was unironic. I seemed to be in the minority, considering that all the kids in the crowd were going ape nuts over this. I kept frowning at Henry and rubbing my chin, like this was going to help me suddenly make sense of things. It just sounded absolutely ridiculous.

At least the next song was “Lindsay Quit Lollygagging”, and I adore that song so much, you guys. It takes me back to a pre-pregnancy time. But for some reason, I kept finding ways to make everything about Speck, so I started crying, and since I was drunk, it was that stupid half-sobbing/half-laughing psychotic meltdown which usually leaves me wanting to punch people and there just happened to be a group of 4 or 5 asshole chicks next to me who I always see at Craig/Chiodos shows and I’m pretty sure they’re from Pittsburgh and I just really hate them. They do all these horrible exaggerated Glee-movements while drunkenly singing along with flipped-back heads, but this is just when they’re not SCREAM-CONVERSING with each other over top all of the songs.

The last time I felt like fighting while drinking Strongbow was at a Chiodos show in Columbus, only this time it was two jocks standing behind me, talking shit on the Penguins (too bad they won the Stanley Cup a month later, motherfuckers).

Anyway, I think I lost some love for Craig that night. He talked too much and there were times when he was borderline cult-leader up there on that stage. And he’s all “OMG I LOVE MY FANS” to such an extreme degree that it’s almost hard to believe his sincerity. I really don’t like feeling this way! But he leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth now. And also, I paid to hear him sing his fucking songs, not all the kids in the audience. I really dislike that he only sings three words and then gives away the mic.

Meanwhile, Henry’s caesar salad began knocking on the exit door, so he took off for the nearest bathroom, after refusing to poop on the prison-like Grog Shop commodes. I didn’t see him for at least four songs. Which ended up being most of the set, since the Grog Shop double-booked and Craig had to be off the stage around 9. Totally fucking weak. I knew this ahead of time, but I guess I assumed all the other bands would have cut their sets short to give Craig more time. And I also feel like Craig wasted so much of his set on stupid songs.

I really wanted to hear “Bibles and Badges” and we all know it’s all about me.

He did a few D.R.U.G.S. songs (none I particularly care for), “Intensity in Ten Cities” (not my favorite but at least it’s Chiodos), a Cinematic Sunrise joint and a song off the mediocre solo EP he put out a few years ago. Pretty disappointing show, but I was still happy to be out of the house, drunk, and having some quality time with Henry. (I know, right?) And it’s always a treat to see Jason.

At one point, he brought his puppy Charlie out so everyone could say hello and all that did was make me sad again. “SHE’S GONNA DIE SOMEDAY!” I was screaming in my head. I miss my fucking cat so bad.

The last song he sang was “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek,” one of my all-time favorite Chiodos songs. He left the stage and had a bunch of guys hold him up which was cool, but that just made it easier for him to give the mic to the crowd. HI CRAIG, CAN YOU SING ONE SONG IN ITS ENTIRETY? At least let me get a quarter of my money’s worth? Cut the summer camp bullshit, please. He kept stopping during every song, putting his hand behind his ear and screaming “WHAT?” while holding the mic out to the crowd. I cringed every time.

I get that he wants it to be all intimate and shit, but then go for more of a Storyteller’s vibe and DON’T STOP SINGING.

Still, when he left the stage, I turned and walked back to Henry and Jason with my lip all protruding like a TV tray. Jason pantomimed straining to lift it up from the floor while Henry gave me that “Please don’t embarrass me by crying” mustache bristle. Afterward, we hung around and talked to Jason for a little bit before heading back to Pittsburgh, where Henry thankfully only needed to stop twice to tend to his explosive diarrhea.

(I also asked Henry some questions about his night at the show, which I will type up here tomorrow! And hey, don’t forget to tell me if you’re Team Poor Henry or Team Blame Henry!)

“Do you guys want to go see ‘where the magic happens’?” Jason asked Terri and Christian, and then to me and Henry he said something to the effect that he figured we wouldn’t want to go back to the Alternative Press office since we were already there once.

But I was like, “Shit are you kidding, of course I want to go back.” That place rules. (From a non-employee perspective, anyway.)

And then Henry later said something about AP being a “magic castle” because he couldn’t remember exactly what Jason jokingly calls it, and I mockingly repeated him, at which point Jason thought I said “magic asshole” and was all, “Are you calling AP a magic asshole??” and I was all, “What, OMG no!” and tried to explain what happened but it was futile. Henry was so smug about this. Fuck off, Henry.

Jason asked us all what bands we were most interested in seeing that night, because he had some posters he wanted to give us. When I said Sharks, Henry quickly said, “You’re just saying that to suck up” and I wanted to fucking kill him.

Apparently, this was all because I took credit for the Boylans root beer. Henry and I are so competitive with each other, it’s kind of unhealthy.

Nickelback is Jason’s favorite band OF ALL TIME, you guys. But no really, check out the drawing right above it. That’s a Chooch original, hanging up at AP. I’m so proud of my kid.

I just can’t even explain how much I love AP. Well, apparently I can, but then I use too many words and get disqualified from contests. (Seriously, 6 years later and I still haven’t let go!)

Before the show, we went to a boutique, where Henry misread a sales tag to say size Huge instead of Large, and then we had root beer floats at Sweet Moses. Some of us even wore our root beer floats. (I’m not naming any names but it was definitely Christian.)

New friends! Christian and Terri are such a great couple, which was helpful considering we spent the whole entire day together, so hopefully they didn’t think we were douchy Pens fans. I mean, we totally are, but Henry at least can hide it pretty well. (I think Jason was prepared to assume the role of referee in case any Sidney Crosby arguments arose.)

I’m going to write about the show next, but Andrea is flying in tonight from California and spending a whole week with us this time (!!!) so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to do it. I can probably just sit her down in front of some Lil Wayne videos and she won’t even notice I’m in the other room, pecking away at the keyboard with my tongue sticking out. (That’s seriously how I look when I write on here. There, I just let you in on something intimate.)

After lunch at Melt, Emily peaced out to run some errands (when I was little, I always thought people were saying they had Erins to run, and I still sometimes instinctively flinch when I hear this, like any minute now a car is going to come plowing through my torso) and the rest of us went to My Mind’s Eye. Going to record stores post-Chooch is bittersweet for me because I can never throw down like I once could. My music collection has all but flatlined since 2006.

“That’s why we only have a cat,” Terri said to me, and I was like GODDAMMIT I KNEW HAVING A CHILD WAS A MISTAKE. Just kidding.

Kind of.

Henry and I are currently aspiring to be the couple on the right. Except orange is like, my least favorite color. But I can definitely rock an antagonizing smile and smug stance.

“Can I get this?”

“No.”

“What about—”

“No.”

If it weren’t for Henry reminding me every thirty seconds that we need to worry about Chooch’s Christmas presents before “stupid music” (YES HE SAID THAT), all of our utilities would probably be shut off right now. I did buy two CDs, despite his sharp looks of disapproval.

I bought one called The Valerie Project by Jaromil Jires.

“You don’t even know what that is!” Henry criticized harshly.

“Yes I do! It’s based off the movie Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and we loved that movie!” I replied in a pitch dangerously close to tantrum levels.

“Did we?” he asked, trying to remember.

“Yeah, because it was weird.”

“That doesn’t mean we loved it!”

I also snatched up a Coffinberry album.

“Have you even heard of them?” Henry asked, in one of his staunch SERVICE stances, with arms akimbo.

“No,” I said thoughtfully. “But with a name like Coffinberry…”

This prompted Henry to ridicule me for purchasing music based on band names and cover art, but I have been doing this since high school! And the success rate is at least 20%. I never would have known that I love the Ultralounge collection had one not been swathed in faux leopard fur!

When we left the record store, Jason opted to ride with Terri and Christian this time.

“Why? Because you don’t want to listen to Coffinberry?” I chided, and that’s when Henry noticed the BIG FLYERS STICKER on the back of Terry and Christian’s car.

“OMG they’re FLYERS fans!” Henry sneered good-naturedly, and they booed the Penguins in response. I can’t believe I shared a meal with Flyers fans!

So a friendly war of the hockey fans was ignited. Henry even made a point of pulling his Penguins hat out of the trunk.

(Meanwhile, the first track on the Coffinberry CD was this slow dirge that sounded like Joan of Arc and Shudder To Think having a knife fight during a funeral.)

The next stop was Big Fun, which I always make a point to stop at when I’m in town. Emily met back up with us here and I bought Chooch some little things for Christmas, including a book about boobs. What? He needs to know about them.

Jason was sitting outside and when I went to join him, he said, “If you’re into vintage furnishings, you should check out that store,” while pointing at a place called Flower Child. Maybe he really was trying to be helpful, but I will always in my heart believe that he was just so jealous of my Coffinberry purchase that he wasn’t ready to be near me yet.

Nothing could have prepared me for the life-altering experience I was about to have within those walls. It was practically a catacomb of psychedelia. There were vintage cameras in droves making my knees weak (I quickly texted Henry: GET IN HERE NOW! after spying those slick shutters), mannequins luxuriating in posh positions, paisley percolating like sick hallucinations from walls and moth ball-scented clothing racks.

The basement level, which requires one to walk down a narrow staircase which appeared to be uneven, was replete with over-stuffed walk-in closets that made me feel like I was backstage on Laugh-In.

It was the most glorious place in the world.

But it only got better when I was engulfed by the pea green carpeting* of the basement: The granddaddy of all Jesus pictures, with its cheaply gilded frame, was resting sovereignly on the wall. It LIT-UP. It was 3D. I had to have it.

(*This may or may not be accurate. I also want to say that the walls down there were wood-paneling, but the truth is that my memory is clouded by all that Jesus glory. I will report back with details when I return in two weeks.)

I ran back upstairs to find Henry who, with no hesitation, said no.

“We’re coming back on the 17th. You can get it then,” he compromised after I made him come downstairs to see it for himself. Terri was down there with us too but she kind of had this nervous “I don’t want to get involved” smile on her face.

“IT MIGHT NOT BE THERE WHEN WE COME BACK!” I cried. Henry just shook his head in concession and rejoined Jason, Christian and Emily outside.

So I bought it. Took that bitch right the fuck off the wall and bought it.

“I don’t have a bag big enough to fit this in,” said the aging hippie behind the counter.

“That’s OK, I’ll carry it proudly,” I gushed, running my fingertips over Jesus’s face.

I walked outside with this lumbering slab of religious kitsch banging off my thigh. Everyone had a look of “Oh Jesus Christ” on their faces.

“And it lights up!” I proudly exclaimed.

Oh Jesus Christ, indeed.

This is what it looks like lit-up in my house at night:

When my friend Jason presented me with the option of either going to the AP Fall Tour in Cleveland or at home here in Pittsburgh, I didn’t hesitate to choose the 2.5-hour drive to Cleveland because I wanted to go back to Melt.

I mean, I wanted to hang out with Jason.

While eating the fuck out of some Melt.

Saturday morning, Jason and his wife Emily were already standing outside of the back entrance, sentinels in anticipation of an impending line of grilled cheese aficionados. We were soon joined by Jason’s friends Terri and Christian from Philly, who were quick to apologize when it came up in conversation that I once stayed in a motel in Camden. Then I asked if they have ever eaten at Cereality, because that is all I know about Philadelphia. I’m not sure how well I sold the cereal bar, considering my review featured the line: And then I almost threw up on my drive home.

I think these were actually the first words I slapped them with after the standard “how do you do”s. I am not very good at small talk.

Once we were all situated in a booth (first ones in, motherfuckers!), Jason, Terri and Christian all ordered different root beers and I could tell Henry was bursting at the seams to start masturbating their minds with all of his lame bottled beverage knowledge. (And then he orders plain old iced tea.) Meanwhile, Emily’s palate twice rejected the grape soda she ordered so she finally surrendered and just got a Coke. Jason teased her about holding up the ordering process but if it had been Henry, my foot would have swiftly kicked his nuts in lieu of good-natured teasing.

Last May was my first time at Melt and I experienced a complete meltdown behind the curtain of my menu. Absolute ordering paralysis. So many choices! And nearly all of them can be made vegetarian/vegan. So what did I get? A plain old mushroom melt. Granted, not so plain when you get it at Melt, but still – it was a far cry from fancy and exotic. Delicious, but pretty pedestrian when wedged in between a line up of artery-clogging sensations like The Dude Abides (homemade meatballs, fried mozzarella cheese sticks, rich marinara, provolone & romano); Paramageddon (2 potato & cheese pierogi, fresh napa vodka kraut, grilled onions, sharp cheddar); and The Big Popper (fresh jalapeno peppers, cheddar & herbed cream cheese, beer battered, mixed berry preserves), which I almost ordered because my aunt Susie recommended it and also because of the mixed berry preserves (Henry puts jelly on my grilled cheeses at home; it’s the best way to eat a grilled cheese) but I was afraid the jalapeno peppers would ignite bonfires in my stomach for the rest of the day.

But then I saw that the special was the New Bomb Turkey, which could be substituted with seitan turkey, and just like that, all the other options paled in comparison. Terri and Christian are both vegetarians as well, and Terri also ordered the New Bomb Turkey so I didn’t feel like an asshole forgoing the meat like I normally do when I’m eating with a bunch of carnivores and being the “difficult one.” Jason and Emily ordered the regular versions of this, Christian I believe got the Dude Abides with vegetarian meatballs because I remember exclaiming that I might have wanted to get that instead but I already ordered. Henry got something dumb.

Waiting for our food went something like this: Blah blah blah, JONNY CRAIG DISCUSSION, blah blah blah, OH HENRY IS THE BEST FOR BRINGING A CASE OF BOYLANS ROOT BEER EVEN THOUGH IT WAS ERIN’S IDEA, music industry scoop, WHERE IS OUR FOOD MY STOMACH IS REVOLTING & IT SOUNDS LIKE NICKELBACK.

Oh, you guys. It was the most glorious sandwich I have ever had the pleasure of sloppily masticating. I softly cried when I took the first bite, like a woman meeting her baby for the first time. (I did not do that when Chooch was born; I was too shell-shocked and hyper-aware of the fact that beneath the sheet, my abdomen was splayed open like a freshly-fucked corpse on a row of milk crates in the back of a serial killer’s Econoline van.)

The bread alone on this sandwich was enough to grow a food baby in a belly. They use the thickest slabs I have ever seen on a sandwich and I don’t know what sort of liquid heart attack they use to grill it, and it’s probably best that I don’t know, but it makes the most glorious goddamn grilled cheese vessel of all time. If it won an award, Kanye West would probably interrupt its speech just to agree. Greasy as fuck, crispy around the edges, moist in the middle—just the way Henry liked his hooker vaginas when he was in the SERVICE.

And there’s so much going on between the slices, I have no idea how the sandwiches don’t topple over on their way to each table from the kitchen. Even the vegetarian versions had so much seitan turkey jammed atop a soft wad of stuffing, there was no way that bitch was fitting into my mouth (and I do have a big mouth) without the aid of a fork.

It was all the things I never get to have on Thanksgiving, punched inside a towering stack of Paula Deen-approved toast and served with a prescription for Lipitor.

The cranberry dipping sauce was like gilding a lily at that point, but fuck did it make for an ambrosial lily.

I had to take copious breaks, but I managed to polish off an entire half and I felt my stomach expanding sickeningly throughout it all. Henry had already engulfed his entire plate in that time.

Speaking of Henry, here is what he has to say about his lunch at Melt.

Me, watching Henry wash the dishes last night: What was on your sandwich?

Henry, in his standard indignant tone: It was gyro melt.

(I guess this means we’re supposed to figure it out on our own.)

Me: OK, no one cares anyway. How sad were you that you couldn’t sit next to Jason and dish secretly about root beer like two little 1950’s school girls?

Henry, maintaining his Man of Few Words image: I wasn’t.

Me, as Henry takes a hearty swig of Faygo Cola. Dish washing is hard work, ya’ll: What was harder to wrap your mouth around, your sandwich or the words “I do” in 1993.

Henry: Why do you have to do that.

Me: Seriously, which one?

Henry, adopting his “You’re pushing me” high-pitched squawk that I hate so much yet cause so often: I don’t know! Let it go!

(He hates being reminded of That Time in his life.)

Me, furiously scribbling in my important “I’m Interviewing Henry!” notebook (it has monsters on it): If you could have your own sandwich on the Melt menu, what would be on it?

Henry, trying to make my dinner at this point, so you would think I would back off lest a generous sprinkle of rat poison fall into the pot: I don’t know!

(This is assuming Henry has any imagination, but it would probably be some sort of flesh marinated in Faygo and served on a bed of emasculation, with a bandanna as a napkin.)

Me: Did you think our waitress was hot?

Henry: [Looks at me suspiciously and slowly says no. This means YES.]

Me: What about the guy who refilled your iced tea?

Henry, in a flat tone: No, I didn’t pay attention.

(This means he’s already downloaded busboy porn.)

Me: How disappointed were you that none of our lunch companions remarked upon your striking resemblance to serial killer Ed Kemper?

Henry, playing Bakery Story on his phone at this point: I wasn’t.

Me: If you found a finger in your sandwich, would you

• Pull it out and set it aside, then puke in a flower pot;
• Eat it. Meat is meat and they know what they’re doing at Melt;
• Use it to replace the butt plug you lost during the Great Marital Separation of 2001.

(These are the companion photos to this post, which I wrote while still in Gatlinburg. I miss Gatlinburg. Also, I have not been able to go back and check out all my horrendous typos borne from a writing-derelict like myself using a PHONE to blog.)

In the AM:

It was all downhill from here. (Except that it was uphill.)

Not very peaceful with a Damien-caliber 5-year-old shrieking about how bad he hates you. Yay, parenthood.

Literally in the clouds.

I wish I had video of this. He would have lost a ton of fans.

Henry is not very strong so this was very short-lived. And besides—THE KID IS FIVE, HE HAS LEGS THAT WORK, LET THE FUCKER WALK ON HIS OWN.

God, he is so spoiled, something I know nothing about.

There were signs everywhere warning about bears. If there were any bears around that morning though, Chooch’s fucking big mouth certainly chased them away.

The infamous (by this point) Clingman’s Dome.

 There was a group of girls up there from China and randomly, some hiker came out of the woods and was like, “Oh I speak Chinese” and started showing off his linguistic skills. Within 3 minutes, they were all Facebook friends with him.

(No seriously, I watched them all pull out their phones and have a friending spree.) I felt like we were interrupting some intimate reunion, plus Chooch was still being a candy-assed cry baby, so I snapped a few hasty pictures and we left.

By the time I was taking this picture, the Chinese girls were all giggling behind me, having their picture taken with the creepy hiker.

Seriously, what are the odds.

In the PM:

Lunch at Mellow Mushroom, after a decidedly not-so-mellow morning.

Like he almost deserves this.

Go the fuck to sleep.

I just found out that one of my co-workers is going to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge soon so now I hate her.

The theme of Dollywood is some strange hybrid of Colonialism, butterflies and mining. Is mining prominent in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee? I’m not sure, but this is Dolly Parton’s head we’re in now. And it kind of worked. At the very least, it made us feel quaint as our pockets were being raped by Dolly’s minions.

Still, I expected everything to be lacquered in pink and Aquanet.

We let Henry walk alone most of the day because his McNichol Hair was looking more like McHomeless Hair. Even Chooch knows to point and laugh.

But what’s not visible to the eye is Dollywood’s underlying theme of terror. These employees are trained to be alarmist sons of bitches while keeping a tight Southern smile perched on their face and making me feel like I’m the star of my own personal Final Destination. I collected three precautionary examples from my day at Dollywood:

1. The train conductor: Henry the Elder and his apprentice in geriatrics, Bill, both seemed adamant about riding the scenic train. Bill especially — those flying elephants in kiddie land really messed with his equilibrium. And I think Henry just wanted to give his ‘roids a rest. (They had a pretty exhausting day and I believe they even sent out a few postcards bitching about it.) Plus, what better way to meet other old folk? They were lining up for the train by the gaggle. As the train was preparing for departure, the conductor’s voice boomed out of the speakers, imploring us to keep our arms and legs inside the train at all time and warning us quite gravely about the prospect of getting hot cinders in our eyes. Wait, what now? “This is NOT a reason to pull on the emergency rope,” the conductor continued. “I repeat, getting cinders in your eye is not considered an emergency. Simply tell one of us when we return to the station and someone will accompany you to first aid.” I was starting to want to get off the train. Instead, I pushed my sunglasses harder up the bridge of my nose and cursed myself for once again leaving my safety goggles at home. There was also a lot of doomsday diatribe going on about getting soot on your clothes. Bill happened to be on the phone during this and barked a fortuitously timed, “Who cares?!” just loud enough to make several passengers laugh. He probably had no idea, though, since he was lucky enough to not have to listen to the conductor’s spiel.
2. The Birds of Prey show: We had just sat down under the small theater pavilion for what I thought was going to be a mild exercise in bird education, but instead we were treated to an urgent command to REMOVE ALL FOOD FROM THE AREA, HIDE IT, COVER IT, GET RID OF IT, THE BIRDS ARE TRAINED TO COME TO FOOD. Drinks were OK to have, though. “What if the birds are thirsty?” Henry lamely joked. But still, I found myself shoving my cup of water further away from myself. And then one of the trainers added, “Some of these birds will be flying low over your heads. DO NOT REACH YOUR ARMS UP AND TRY TO TOUCH THEM.” I’m glad they told me that because it’s instinctual for me to want to put my hands near something with talons. (I often have to resist the urge to jam my hands inside a paper shredder, too. There’s just something about the prospect of having my flesh julienned that makes me feel jubilant) And then there was another plea to remove all food from the area, but what I heard was THESE BIRDS WILL PECK YOUR PATHETIC MEAT SUITS TO DEATH IN WAYS THAT HITCHCOCK NEVER WOULD HAVE IMAGINED. Suddenly, the threat of being aerially pissed and shat upon seemed like a day of motorboating J-Woww’s boobs at the pool.
3. The Tram: Isn’t it enough that we’re (I’m) already sad about leaving Dollywood? And now some dumb broad on the tram has to bring up what to do in the case of finding our car broken into, busted or stolen, so now instead of thinking happy thoughts about Dolly’s wigs and creepy awesome waiters, I’m now completely panicking about the state in which we’re going to find our car. Also, on the tram into the park, we were told that if we attempted to walk back to our car from the park and then changed our mind, TOO BAD because the tram DOES NOT PICK UP WISHY-WASHY WALKERS. Crawl back to your cars, lazy motherfuckers.

I have a pretty big fear of carousels that I don’t talk about very often. It mainly revolves around the disembarking of the horses/animals. I usually say things like, “No thanks, merry-go-rounds are for lamers” or “No thanks, I lost my virginity on a merry-go-round to a rapist in Boise; bad memories;” but for some reason I willingly was on board for a circular calliope-soundtracked jaunt. Everything was grand until it stopped and I found myself stuck. More like, paralyzed. Instead of attempting to slide off with grace, I over-thought the process, wrote too many mental blueprints, and wound up frozen with one foot on the stirrup thing (I am an avid horseback rider, you didn’t know?) and my other leg slung across the horse’s ass, clammy hands gripping the gilded pole like I was about to plummet to a stripper’s death. Henry took FOREVER to come over and help me, leaving me frozen in the most awkward, bestial position the Kama Sutra never endorsed and you can’t tell me that was an accident. NO, YOU CAN’T TELL ME.

Meanwhile, Chooch spent the whole ride heckling some little girl on a cat in front of him. Apparently, the carousel is as good an arena as any for some old-school shit-talking. Bill said the girl was giving it right back to him, which I’m sure Chooch could not get behind. At one point, I heard Chooch ask Bill how old he is, only to turn back to the girl and sneer, “Oh yeah? Well HE’S THIRTY-FIVE!”

I’m not sure what that proved, but Chooch sure seemed smug about it. I’m sure Bill was happy to have his age announced to all of the other riders. (There were like, 5 of us.)

Then Bill rode on a flying elephant, which surely rebuilt his esteem.

Bill was THIS HAPPY to be on a TRAIN in DOLLYWOOD. I couldn’t see, but I have a feeling Henry could have been found in the same position on the other side of Bill, probably daydreaming about jumping off the train to his uncertain death.

“The TRAIN? Seriously?” Meanwhile, he spent the whole ride barking orders for me to take pictures of every goddamn piece of scenery.

Some friendly motherfuckers.

Aside from all the old people, the park was pretty sparsely populated. This meant we could quite literally just walk on all of the rides, so since there were no lines to stand in, there were hardly any enemies to make. There was only one family that rubbed me the wrong way—they were the epitome of picture-perfect Christian family; the mom was even wearing a Cornerstone t-shirt and the dad had Flanders-hair. Even the offspring seemed tame and on short leashes. I bet they came to see the Smokies in their RV and have a ban on secular music.

I bet they sang hymns and wrote unironically in the prayer request book in the Dollywood chapel.

Henry and I partook in some swift nuptials* and then rode a ride about hillbillies perishing in a fire; both activities left a lot to be desired.

(*Jokes.)

We capped off the day with milkshakes made by the oldest women in the entire park. It took forever for them to make it, but when I started to complain Henry snapped, “That’s because they’re making REAL MILKSHAKES and they actually give a shit about doing it RIGHT so STFU.” God, the elderly sure do stick together. Kind of makes me look forward to getting old.

(I should note that it was one of the best milkshakes I’ve ever had. Old ladies pwn that shit.)

With the exception of the nervous breakdown Bill and I may have accidentally caused him to have by tormenting him when he wouldn’t ride the rapids ride with us, Chooch was pretty good all day. I guess I was too; Henry did a good job of keeping me fed and emotionally-stimulated. He even rode some shit with me! That almost never happens. In the end, it ended up being one of my favorite things we did in Tennessee, even though it was relatively over-priced. I didn’t get cinders in my eyes, soot on my clothes, shit on, pecked to death or car-jacked. I’d say that’s “winning” but aren’t I already enough of a douchebag?

Shit. Except that I forgot to buy a new outfit from Dolly’s Closet.

I. Open Air Nursing Home

The first thing I noticed when we walked through the gates of Dollywood was that there were a LOT of old people there. I get that it was late in the season and probably most kids were back in school, but I never would have imagined the park would have been packed by so many geriatrics. I guess they really wanted to listen to some bluegrass and eat some BBQ.

I think it was BYOB(utterscotch pudding).

Henry felt right at home.

I’ll be sure to punch this picture in Henry’s face next time he tries to sit down at a concert.

Even the people working there were older than Henry’s backed-up shit. I guess that’s how Dolly likes it. It’s nice to know that if I’m ever forced into retirement, Dolly will take me in. I’m not wearing a fucking bonnet though, I’m sorry. (Unless I can have it screen-printed with Jonny Craig’s face.)

This actually was a pretty nice change of pace, considering I’m used to gnarly carnies at the county fairs and ambivalent, lackadaisical college kids at Kennywood who act like they’re having to go beyond the call of duty just to make sure you’re buckled in. The old folks running the rides were excited about it.

Old Gramps over at the Lemon Twist was so happy to greet a new batch of riders that he acted like he was granting us entrance into the gates of heaven. I so badly wanted him to say, “Get stoked!”

I have to be honest and say that I was a little disconcerted about putting my life in the arthritic hands of someone who probably can’t even use a cell phone.

II. Sherbet

For lunch, we ate a place called the Backstage or something equally as lame, which had the distinct aroma of joint cream and barbeque. There was a man covering “Sweet Home Alabama” next to an empty table and I was ready to raise hell if we got seated there. We ended up being sat in a different room, full of old people and bus boys in checkered shirts.

Our waiter’s name was Sherbet (named changed to protect the innocent) and he spoke in a concerned whisper. I’m positive he has a collection of women’s tongues and rape poem-filled composition books under his mattress, but it didn’t stop him from being hugely endearing to me.

Or maybe that’s why he was hugely endearing to me.

“Your son’s meal came with a collector’s plate,” Sherbet whispered to me in such a way that I wondered if he thought Chooch would get mugged in an alley if word got out on the street that he was the new owner of a plastic plate loaded with butterflies. “It’s not dishwasher or microwave safe,” Sherbet continued, leaning down to assure his strangulated whisper seeped into my ear. “Otherwise, it will ruin the print on the plate and may even warp it.”

I have never before listened so intently to someone warn me about potential collector plate hazards. (This might be because I kept getting flashes of him lounging in his bed with a sex doll, smoking an e-Cig and wearing a garter belt.) In any case, I might never let Chooch eat from it. (The plate, not the sex doll). In fact, I might even buy a glass display case for it.

If I can even find it. It might still be in Tennessee.

Sherbet would kill me if he found out I might have lost it.

III. Birds of Prey

Admission for Dollywood was like, I don’t know, $60 a person or something ridiculous like that. In fact, Henry and Bill were dragging their feet when they found out the admission but I got all lip-jutty and whiny.

“Do you know how much it costs?” Bill said on Dollywood Eve.

“Yes, Henry and I had a debate about this,” I said.

“Debate? Is that what you’re calling that?” Henry said with barking laughter. I might have cried, broken up with him and slammed a door. So yes, “debate.”

But I got my way and was consequently the only happy person that Wednesday. (I don’t think Chooch cared either way; he’s such a failure in that department.)

“I was looking at the website and I don’t think they had all the rides listed,” I said when we walked through the gates.

“No,” Bill replied dourly as he studied a map of the park. “I’m pretty sure that’s all the rides that are here.”

Slim pickins, is what it was (I feel like Dolly probably says slim pickins), so we decided we better take in some shows.

The unfortunate part to that is there wasn’t much we were interested in.

But as it turns out, Dolly is a big bald eagle advocate; there is a huge enclosure on a hillside filled with bald eagles who have been rescued. Next to the enclosure is a little outdoor theater which holds several daily bird shows.

Now this I was down with, even though I knew it was something Henry would like too and that kind of pained me a little.

You guys, there were owls there. OWLS. Goddamn I love a motherfucking owl. They remind me so much of my cat Marcy! (So do hawks, eagles and vultures, as well.)

Doesn’t that look like Marcy!?

This one broad who was enjoying the bird show clearly loves beverage more than you do.
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Who wears shirts like that? I know I don’t, because I don’t give that much of a fuck about any beverage that isn’t going to get me fucked up. Henry, however, probably saw this shirt and got a beverage boner. I mean, the man moves pallets of Faygo around a warehouse for a living.

I’m not going to lie, I got choked up through several parts of the show (birds of prey are cool, don’t hate) and even cried at the end. Although, my favorite part was when the bald eagle projectile shat on the handler.

[There is more but I don’t want to overwhelmed the Internet with all of my photos at once. Plus, I’m at work and getting INTERRUPTED. The nerve.]

Hey, did you know we went on vacation? Oh. Of course you did. Am I being that annoying about it?  SORE-Y.

Anyway, here are the companion photos to this post, from our first full day in Tennessee. Look at them or don’t look at them; they’ll never know the difference.

I miss this stupid porch.

This was moments before The Accident. It’s all fun and games until somebody gets punched in the face by an overhang.

Minutes later: friends again. Are you serious? I’d have made Bill beg for it. Chooch is way too forgiving and he so does not get that from me.

He at least got an ice cream cone out of it. I’d have asked for more. Like maybe money. Lots of it. OR MAYBE HIS WIFE.

On a weener prowl.

Every other store was Jesus n’ guns. Henry was getting some pretty big ideas.

Trying to DROWN my kid now.

The courtyard inside one of the little shopping areas in Gatlinburg.

It made me wish I was wearing a Snow White dress.  Or at the very least, a tutu.

There was even a shoe store that sold TOMS. I had to hold back from buying a houndstooth pair.

So, this was an interesting week for Chooch and telephones.

We’re one of the many families that have eschewed a landline for cell phones, so Chooch has never known anything but a cell phone. However, he quickly caught on that if he knew Bill and Jessi’s room number, he could call them from the phone in our room. Trust me, he memorized that shit quicker than the Situation memorized the number the STD clinic.

But then this happened one day:

Chooch, holding the receiver out: Oh shit. I dialed the wrong number.

Me: Then hang it up!

Chooch, slams it down and then picks it back up: Ew, what’s that noise?

Me: Well son, that there is what the pioneers call a DIAL TONE.

It’s just so weird to me that  landlines are becoming so archaic that my 5-year-old is as confused as you or I would be if we had to send a telegram. Also, when I was five, I was playing on a motherfucking Speak and Spell, not a computer.

Now imagine his double-excitement when he got to stand inside a payphone.

Chooch wants to be photographed everywhere now, and he can be a little bitchy divo about it. “Not on THOSE rocks, THESE rocks!”

I’ve created a monster.

Chooch and Bill inside a genie’s bottle at some Optical Illusion attraction that was good for a few laughs.

Stupid me, I almost didn’t take a picture of him hugging the fiftieth wooden bear sculpture, but he made sure to school me in front of a bunch of strangers. Everyone laughed and thought it was so adorable. I was tempted to lift my shirt and show them the welts from where he beats me with a scalding poker.

Pretending to like each other.

And no, I’m not referencing your cheating ex-wife’s vagina.

About a week before we left for Tennessee, I turned to Roadside America to help us map out a route. By the time I was done adding side-excursions all over the west side of West Virginia, our 8-hour drive had morphed into a 12-hour trek.

Henry was totally not OK with this. But I begged him, out of all the roadside attractions, to let me keep the Mystery Hole. It was on our route!

That morning of our departure, I was up by 4AM, packed, showered and rearin’ to go. Too bad Chooch and Henry didn’t wake up until 7. And then we didn’t even leave until 8. Henry argued that we could go to Mystery Hole on the way back home and I threw a substantial fit, pointing out that it was only open until 4 and how could he be sure we’d make it.

So we didn’t speak for awhile. I stared at my framed pictures of Jonny Craig to punish him. He hates when I openly lust like that.

But then Jessi texted me from the road (they had departed from Michigan but pretty much were looking at the same arrival time as us) a few hours into the trip and said they had been snagged by some traffic and weren’t expecting to make it to Gatlinburg until later than anticipated, so we should feel free to be leisurely and linger at any roadside stops we might pass on the way.

I read this text out-loud to Henry in my best “INYOURFACE” voice and then smugly said, “Mystery Hole. We’re going.”

And getting there was half the fun! And not just because Henry had to rely on my shoddy map-reading skills*, but because the town in which it’s located (Ansted, WV) is creepy as shit.

*(GPS is for losers. And couples who don’t like having incessant explosions of domestic  violence underneath the fuzzy car roof.)

I’m already planning a daytrip back to Ansted with props and costumes because it’s crying out for a photo shoot. The bus stops looked like open-air outhouses; there was a bar in an abandoned warehouse and you just know all brands of rape, animal sacrifice and baby-roasting goes on in the back next to the collection of scrapped, blood-soaked vehicles from unlucky travelers who get lost because they don’t use GPS; every other house was boarded up; tiny churches  sat flush against the woods. There was even a Civil War encampment.

In other words, there was nary a Starbucks to be found in Ansted.

But once we passed through “downtown” Ansted and started traveling up into the mountains, it got even better. Ramshackle sheds, confederate flags, cinder-blocked cars eaten by rust. Most of the houses looked unlivable and I’m sure each had a clothesline out back, pregnant with damp overalls. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to get out of the car and tempt fate, see if you can get chased away by a shotgun-toting hillbilly in faded camouflage stained with underarm sweat and Skoal-tinted slobber.

And then this appeared on the left hand side as we reached the top of a crest:

One of the tips on Roadside America warned that it was easy to miss. I hope they were being sarcastic. How the hell does someone miss something that looks like Sid and Marty Kroff spent too much time in the mountains subsisting on little else but Moonshine, mushrooms and sardines and then vomited all over the side of a Quonset hut after plowing into it with their VW? The whole compound was a fluorescent host for tetanus.

Just how I like my roadside attractions: colorful and deadly.

For Chooch and me, this was a real feast for our eyes, a nice break from all the mountains and nature bullshit we had been subjected to. But Henry, who I’m pretty sure is color- and fun-blind, didn’t seem fazed by this wondrous explosion of Flower Power.

“Now what is this supposed to be again?” he asked all curmudgeonly.

“Um, only the most awesome place in the world!” I exclaimed in my teenaged “duh” tone. He kept looking at me though, waiting for a real answer, until I mumbled, “I don’t know, it has something to do with gravity or something.”

Real Talk: I only really wanted to go because one of the Roadside America tips likened the proprietor to the Soup Nazi, saying that he denied her entrance because she kept her camera in her coat pocket instead of returning it to her car, even after his wife laid out the rules of the land for her. So the woman’s husband took the camera back to the car, leaving his wife to be continuously chided by the Mystery Hole gate keeper and he still refused to let her enter because she BROKE THE RULES.

I had to see this guy for myself.

I also wanted to see the unbelievable.

Tickets for the tour were $5 and we purchased these inside the technicolor gift shop. The woman at the register, whom I can only assume is Mrs. Mystery Hole herself, ran down the list of rules to us and never once cracked a smile.

“And no large purses,” she finished, giving me a hardened stare. I took my purse back to the car. I was totally not trying to get kicked out of the Mystery Hole like some emasculated husband in the doghouse. (All of these photos were taken post-amazement of the Mystery Hole tour.)

Not a huge fan of Mrs. Mystery Hole, I gotta say.

We had around 10  minutes to kill before the next tour (“We’ll ring the cow bell,” Mrs. Mystery Hole monotoned, not even a smidge of personality slipping through. Broad made me shudder.), so we enjoyed the scenic overlook, and by that I mean Henry enjoyed the scenic overlook while I screamed, “OMG CHOOCH DON’T FALL OVER THE EDGE JESUS CHRIST HENRY HOLD HIM!”

Mountains: still a novelty on Day 1

Still waiting for the elusive cow bell, I gave Henry a spontaneous hug.

He looked at me all wide-eyed. I never hug him in front of people, and there were definitely a few people milling about. “What was that for?” he asked skeptically.

“I’m just so happy to finally be here! I’ve wanted to come here since….” I quickly thought about how long it had been since I found it on Roadside America. “….last week.” Henry just sighed and walked away.

And then the cowbell happened! I grabbed Chooch’s hand and together we ran to the entrance like the uncoordinated idiots we are while Henry and an older couple walked like regular people behind us. I wanted to be in the front of the pack, up close to Mr. Mystery Hole (whose name is Bill, by the way) and his crazy “I collect soiled underwear” eyes. Bill, a slender man with an eccentric energy and slight mountain drawl (he and his wife are actually Michigan natives, if we are to believe my Internet research), reiterated the rules to us and then asked if any of us have heart problems. We all said no (Henry lied) and Bill asked me if I wanted to see a rattlesnake egg.

“Sure, why not,” I answered and cupped my palms for him to place a small manilla envelope, which immediately vibrated wildly in my hands and emitted a loud rattling noise, causing me to shriek and hurl it to the ground.

Everyone laughed at me because they’re assholes.

Bill retrieved the envelope and opened it up to show me that it was just some stupid rubberband-rigged gag, which I have totally seen before yet STILL fell for.

“Does anyone here know why there weren’t actually rattlesnake eggs in here?” Bill asked. The old lady in our group answered, “Because rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs.”

Smug bitch. I choose to fill my brain with important facts, like shit about music and serial killers, thank you.

“And by the way,” Bill said teasingly to me. “Your heart’s just fine.”

I kind of liked Bill after that.

He opened a gate and led us down a relatively steep ramp into the basement of the souvenir shop. Even moreso than outside, the interior was steeped in the stench of the ’70s. It smelled of moth balls, musk and the sweat on a paisley-print A-line dress after a long night of dancing to ABBA. It was also quite damp and there were probably impressive arrays of fungi growing in the darkened corners. Random memorabilia from the ’70s lined the walls and one small room even glowed with the power of a black light in case we weren’t comprehending that we had traveled back to the Me Decade. I’m sure it brought on a flood of memories for Henry the Elder.

And there were mannequins.

I wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with the Mystery Hole, which was actually the largest room down there. We had to enter it by walking up a ramp and then down a ramp, at which point we found ourselves unable to stand upright and needing to grip the wall to keep from falling. Bill instructed Henry, Chooch and me to sit on a couch, while the other two leaned against the wall.

Bill then walked with an extreme lean to the front of the room and began showing us a variety of gravitationally-impossible tricks, like balls rolling up a hill (which I’ve seen before in Laurel Caverns and sorry, Bill, but I do understand how that happens), water flowing uphill, and Bill being able to sit on a chair perched on nothing more but a small nail in the wall. He then had Henry, Chooch and me hold out our arms in front of us and try to stand up. We couldn’t, because while it appeared that we were sitting normally, the way the room was set up we were actually almost laying on our backs. (Henry would never have been able to do this even if he was sitting on a couch in a room with normal gravity. Because he’s old, remember?)

The old couple politely declined Bill’s offer for them to sit on the couch after we unsuccessfully struggled to get up.

According to the Mystery Hole website, those who don’t ask questions are the unintelligent ones. But when asked, none of the people in our group asked any questions (though Chooch had repeatedly whispered to me, “When are we leaving? This place is scary.”), so I guess Henry shouldn’t have been the only one I was calling “Dum Dum” all day.

Besides, I would have only inquired, “When do we get to see the basement?”

They had a guest book in the gift shop, which I happily scrawled “Stoked to be here!” after my name. Henry frowned. But in his own words: “It was pretty cool.” That’s a big deal for Henry to admit.

Bill was high energy, full of jokes and showed us some cool parlor tricks. Totally worth the slight detour and $5, and I would tell any one of you to go there and be amazed. But probably more by the tacky decor and crazy blue eyes than the actual “gravity defiance” show.

I was still riding a Mystery Hole high hours later in the car. “I didn’t think the tour guide was an asshole at all. In fact, he seemed to really like me. He paid a lot of attention to me.”

“I wonder why,” Henry smirked, lowering his eyes to my cleavage.

***

The next day, we were tromping around downtown Gatlinburg when I noticed Henry was acting weird and off-balance.

“What’s your problem?” I asked with my usual lack of compassion.

“I think Mystery Hole really fucked me up,” Henry moaned. “I haven’t felt right since we left there yesterday.”

Well, there is a disclaimer for that.