Oh, Ross. If you only knew.

****
EDIT! Just learned that Henry didn’t get Ross’s “I’ll be wearing a blue polo” email until after the fact, so he proceeded to approach every man in the CVS parking lot, asking, “Are you waiting for a phone?” like it was code for “Are you selling blow jobs?” Meanwhile, Chooch was laughing at Henry’s awkwardness and then when they finally found Ross, Chooch was sure to tell him how annoying his phone was.

God, I wish I had been there. I like blue polos.

Chooch came barreling into the house yesterday, having just come home from the grocery store with Henry.

“MOMMY! DADDY FOUND SOMEONE’S PHONE ON THE ROAD AND HE GOT OUT OF THE VAN TO GET IT!” Chooch blurted out in one quick breath.

“Jesus Christ,” Henry muttered, coming in the door after him. “Why do you have to announce every single thing I do?” I think Henry expected me to be all apathetic about this turn of events, just like he was, but instead I got all excited and screamed, “OMG let me see it!”

“It’s just a Blackberry!” Henry barked, shouldering past me as I tried to snatch it from him. “God!”

The owner’s contact info was on the home screen, so Henry said he was just going to email him (his name is ROSS) and let him know he has it.

“OK, but let me think about this first. We should make it into some kind of fucked up, psychological mind game,” I murmured, mind reeling. “Kind of like ‘Saw’…” But before I could tell Henry to demand that Ross send us one of his teeth (or at least a nude), Henry had already sent him a Normal Person email reassuring him that his precious phone was not in danger. Goddammit! There were so many different ways this could have gone.

The rest of the evening was interspersed with me asking, “Did he reply to your email yet? How about how? Now? Or now? Here, let me email him—”

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like fate. I looked up the Blackberry owner on Facebook and went into full-blown Cinderella Story mode. I became convinced that Henry was meant to find this phone so I CAN FINALLY HAVE A HUSBAND YOU GUYS OMG. And then I saw that Ross went to school for mechanical engineering so surely that must mean he has a better job than Henry. However, the only activity he had listed on Facebook was fishing, and his profile picture was him holding a gigantic fish, which is really gross to me, and I couldn’t really see his face because of the giant fish carcass, but that’s OK because it made it easier for me to imagine he looks like Ryan Lochte.

And then I woke from a dream about Ross’s phone at 7:20am to Ross’s alarm going off, which means he must work normal hours unlike Henry whose alarm goes off at MIDNIGHT. I began fantasizing about having a normal relationship with a man who keeps normal hours, waking up together every morning in the same bed….

God, I hope he doesn’t snore.

But then I couldn’t get the alarm to stop, and it proceeded to go off every five minutes for the rest of the day, which will probably be the impetus to our first fight.

“Just take the battery out,” Henry said wearily after I called him for the 87th time in a row. (Hello, if he would just ANSWER the first time, I wouldn’t have to keep calling.) But I didn’t feel comfortable taking the battery out of some other person’s phone. Besides, then I wouldn’t be able to monitor his incoming calls.

I mean…what?

At 11:00, my sanity had splintered. Could not take the sound of that alarm anymore. So I came up with the best solution ever: A “Call Me Maybe” dance party! I put it on loud and on repeat, and Chooch and I totally wilded out. That song is like fucking sunshine for the ears, OK?

I should note that by “dancing,” I mean that I jumped around for 90 minutes, speed-bagging the air like one of those big inflatable balloon monsters outside of car lots, while Chooch repeatedly punched me, vigorously and with closed fists. I guess he learned that by watching me “dance” with Henry.

CHAIR DANCING TO “CALL ME, MAYBE”!

Even with Carly Rae Jepsen singing at her loudest, I could still hear the fucking phone alarm, so I ran upstairs and smothered it beneath Henry’s pillow. I could still hear it, but at least it was muffled, and at that point, it didn’t sound worse than any of the other sounds in my head, so who am I to complain, really.

“Look Mommy! I’m Ju-On dancing!” he cried, squirming beneath the chair like his favorite Japanese horror villain. OK. Whatever.

Weirdo.

UNICORN MASK DANCE PARTY! SAME SONG, DIFFERENT HEAD!

And then Henry came home and pooped on all of the fun. Turning down the volume to the best song of all time, he informed that he was meeting Ross (who lives right down the street, how convenient for my future booty calls!) at 6pm; Ross said if he can’t make it, he’ll just send his girlfriend.

Just like that, my dreams were dashed. Now I’m really regretting not taking all of those pictures of myself with his phone like I had considered. God, I’m so stupid.

As soon as we got in the car (read: The Juice Van; our car is still not fixed), “Call Me Maybe” came on the radio. Chooch and I cheered in tandem as I turned up the volume and began dramatically lip synching.

The “I’m Trying So Hard to Frown But It’s Hard To When I Secretly Love This Song, Goddamn You, Carly Rae Jepsen” faux-frown.

“Try to get a picture of Ross!” I called out over my shoulder when Henry dropped me off at work. I know he totally won’t, but I’m still in the best mood ever today.

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!]

Chooch has a scar on his leg from a shrubbery battle he had a few months ago. To make him feel better, Henry showed him his own scar on his hand.

“Oh my God, I didn’t know you have a scar!” I screamed, resulting in Henry giving me a stern That Was Unnecessary look. I thought to myself, “Finally, maybe he actually has a good SERVICE story to share for once, something about hand-tohand combat!”

But no. It was from a WART.

A wart.

And not even a wart he got in the SERVICE, what the fuck, Henry.

***

At work the other day, I was doing one of a million things that makes Lee’s head go into explode-mode.

He scowled at Barb and said, “The problem here is that too many people enable her to be a diva.”

I just laughed haughtily in agreement.

I mean, duh, right?

***

Asked Chooch what he wanted for breakfast yesterday and he sneered, “Oh, I don’t know. Something that involves milk?” Like I’m the stupid one for asking when we all know that cereal is all that I can prepare for AM eats. I’m also adept at squirting in some chocolate syrup too if his mood ever calls for flavored wets.

***

Today, I received a package in the mail full of Urban Decay treats. I was so excited (if whoever sent that is reading this — THANK YOU! I LOVED IT AND MY EYES ARE WEARING IT RIGHT NOW!) but then Chooch totally lost his mind over it and started crying, “It’s always for you! I never get ANYTHING in the mail!” This is not true at all, but I was so irritated that he was ruining my post-birthday treats that I shouted, “Then go get a goddamn pen pal!”

This was moments after he randomly flipped out because I always beat him at Wii tennis.

“You ALWAYS win! It’s like you don’t ever want to lose! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO WIN?!” And as he ran off in tears, I yelled, “BECAUSE I’M THE BEST!” (We were not playing Wii tennis at the time of this argument.)

Luckily, Henry came home from work shortly after this to facilitate positive dialogue between us kids.

***

The new Alternative Press arrived on my birthday, featuring Chiodos & Pierce the Veil!  Happy Birthday to me.

Wendy got me this cool locket for my birthday and I couldn’t wait to slap a picture of Jonny Craig in it, until I saw that she had already prepped it with a photo of her eyeball and Barb’s eyeball. God, they’re such creeps. I love it.

OLYMPICS NEEDS MORE BELA KAROLYI! My friend Regina just walked by and saw this and said, “What is up with you and Bela? You do know about all the negative things about him, right?”

Of course! I love feisty old men.

I made this shirt during the 2008 Olympics. Underneath, it says, “Yeah, he said it” because of how outspoken he was about the other gymnastic teams. I just found it in the back of one of my dresser drawers (I don’t fold – I employ the “stuff n’ punch” method of putting away clothes) and I think I might have to start wearing it again.

And since I gave you a picture of me in 2008, I will leave you with a photo from today. THIS IS MY FAVORITE SHIRT. And now that I have declared that on  the Internet, I will probably plunge into a vat of Ketchup on my way home from work tonight.

Most kids my age would be planning clandestine keggers while their parents were away, but me? I was ironing out the final details for my first real dinner party, and a vegetarian one at that.

It was going to be so perfect.

I was a senior in high school that September in 1996, and opted out of my family’s weekend trip to Tennessee. If you want to get technical, I think it was more that I just wasn’t invited because my step-dad and I hated each other. My mom didn’t really have a problem with me staying home, especially since her sister Sharon lived two houses up the street and we all knew that Sharon would be popping over in regular intervals of excess.

My dinner party was scheduled for that Friday night. I stayed home from school in order to get a head start on preparations, and by that I mean I was trying frantically to learn to cook. I had a few recipes torn out from Vegetarian Times and, aside from all the ingredients I couldn’t pronounce, it seemed like it was going to be a breeze.

Apparently, in the mid-90’s, being a vegetarian wasn’t the cool thing to do yet; I had a horribly difficult time finding nori flakes and tempeh, and truth be told, I didn’t even know what those things were. Most of my day was spent calling around to various markets, trying to not only locate these ingredients, but explain to the confused employees what it even was that I was asking for, and setting the dining room table with my mom’s good dishes. I was stressed. Harried. Frazzled. A good bit of the pumpkin puree for my soup was splayed across the backsplash like the arterial spray of a grisly gourd murder/suicide.

By the time Lisa arrived at my house after school to take me on a wild nori flake chase, I was down-right furious with a tinge of self-pity, and on the verge of calling the whole thing off.

“It’s going to be a disaster,” I wailed to Lisa, slouched down in the passenger seat of her Jeep. “No one’s even going to eat this shit!”

But then we found the nori flakes and tempeh at some frou frou health food market in one of the yuppier parts of town, so I started to have hope again.

Lisa dropped me off and left to get ready. She was bringing a date with her to my dinner party. His name was Jon and he went to a local Catholic school. A mutual friend of ours had hooked them up and it was going to be their first date. Even more pressure for me to make a perfect dinner and tone down the crazy.

By 8:45, everyone had arrived. The guest list included: Janna, Keri and her boyfriend Dan, Sarah, Angie, Lisa and Jon.

My unassuming guinea pigs sat around in the family room for social hour while I put the finishing touches on the pumpkin soup. I was still in panic-mode and unable to properly entertain everyone like I had wanted with trays of hors d’oeuvres, clove cigarettes and scantily-clad virgins performing parlor tricks. I felt bad that Jon, a perfect stranger, had found himself sitting in a rocking chair in some maniac girl’s house in the suburbs, waiting to eat a crap dinner made of pretentious faux-meat ingredients and inadequacy.

The entree, something called a Layered Tofu Supreme which I’m sure was actually just a glorified meatless lasagna, had finally been slid and slammed into the oven, and I was ready to start serving the soup. Everyone took their places around my family’s barely-used dining room table and stared at their small glass bowls with upturned lips and scrunched noses.

“That looks disgusting,” Keri scowled, creating persimmon peaks with her spoon.

“It’s just soup!” I yelled. “Made with pumpkin! It’s not disgusting, it’s fabulous.” I stamped around the table, firing my homemade croutons into everyone’s bowl, like angry yeast torpedoes. Clearly, this was sometime before basic white girls made pumpkin food popular.

And the pumpkin soup was fabulous, much to my surprise. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be.

But it was thick and rich and full of hayride-memories and cornstalk maze-dreams, and well, pumpkin patch-reality. It was the perfect starter for an autumn dinner.

Dan liked it so much, he ate Keri’s too. Her palate was clearly too pedestrian to handle such an elegant waltz with flavor.

It happened during the salad course.

While everyone picked around the tempeh strips and nori flakes in the “sea-sar” salad (which I actually really happened to enjoy, thank you), the phone rang.

It was Sharon, and in true Sharon fashion, she sounded frantic.

“Did you see that car that just pulled into your driveway?” she asked, her voice strained with concern. I had in fact noticed headlights, but saw that the car had turned around just as quickly. “So, that wasn’t someone coming to your dinner?”

“No, it was probably just someone turning around,” my reply was packed with teenaged attitude. I was trying to host a dinner party, not get a Neighborhood Watch detail from my tightly-wound aunt. Plus, every time the phone rang, my heart would race because I was hoping it was my true (and verboten) love Justin who said he was going to “try” to attend my dinner that night.

I hung up and returned to the table in hopes of coaxing my guests to give my salad a chance. I found it to be quite delightful and couldn’t imagine why they were rejecting it.

“What exactly is tempeh?” Jon asked, spearing a strip with the tines of his fork and holding it up to the chandelier.

“You want a jeweler’s loupe for that?” I asked scornfully. Really, I had no idea what tempeh was, other than it was a bitch to procure and these ungrateful fuckers were going to eat it and like it.

The stacked tofu extravaganza was still baking in the oven, so I filled the gap between courses by breaking out a bottle of 1986 Sutter Home White Zinfandel I had been hoarding since I was seven. It was a Christmas gift from my cousin/godfather Chris, who had attached a tag that read, “For the girl who has everything.” And it was true. When I tell people about this, they usually say, “What a stupid gift.

” But to me, that bottle represented my future. I kept it on my desk for years, and couldn’t wait until I was old enough to open it.

That late September night of 1996 seemed like the perfect occasion. It was my first taste at being an adult, having a real dinner with my friends that wasn’t served by a waitress at Denny’s. It was a glimpse at living on my own, away from parental supervision. It felt good.

But then came the ensuing fuckarow of trying to open the wine bottle, which sent my feel-good coming-of-age moment straight down to Hell in a shit-and-tempeh-coated pipe. Jon was ready to break out the samurai sword until Dan finally ripped the cork from the neck of the bottle in eighteen crumbly pieces. We had just toasted and were about to pretend to be teenage sommeliers, swirling the Zinfandel in my mom’s wedding glasses when the phone rang again.

“That car was on the lane again!” Sharon shouted. “I stopped them this time.” (What was she doing, sitting on the street with night goggles? Probably.) She went on to say that she asked them what they were doing and they said they were looking for me. “I told them they don’t need to be going to your house, then I think I saw one of them in a bush!” Sharon added, filling me with a dread that I desperately did not need right then.

My family lives on a private lane. A little ways past my house were two more houses, and then a dead end. People didn’t usually just drive up and down my lane, and any time this happened it was alarming because there are some big houses on that street. My house was surrounded by woods on two sides. It didn’t take much more than a creepy car casing my house to put me on edge.

I hung up and was explaining to everyone what Sharon had said, when the phone rang again. Everyone jumped, and then laughed. A male voice was on the other end.

“Hello, Erin,” he said. I still had hopes of hearing from Justin that night, but this wasn’t Justin.

“Who is this?” I asked, calmly at first.

“A friend,” he answered in a deep monotone that implied the absolute opposite of camaraderie.

“Who the fuck is this?!” I screamed, because there is no keeping calm and carrying on with Erin R. Kelly. And then, from the living room window, I saw headlights. A car was idling at the end of my driveway.

Phone still to my ear, camcorder dutifully recording in my other hand, I ran out of the house, shouting, “Who are you? What do you want?” while everyone else was trying to get me to come back inside and STFU.

“They could be dangerous!” Angie cried, tugging me back inside. Meanwhile, it turned out to just be one of my neighbors, pausing at their mailbox before continuing on down the lane. (They were previously privy to my crazy rep, so I’m sure they thought nothing of this latest public outburst at 120 Gillcrest.)

Still, the phone calls had been enough to encourage Jon to retrieve a tire iron from his car, and Dan was pacing around the house with a knife.

We all crowded back in the dining room. In all the commotion, I hadn’t heard the oven buzzer and the tofu crap souffle had all but burnt down the house. And then a dish towel went up in flames on the stove that I forgot to turn off. It was all too much, and I ran up to my room to pout, after hurling my camcorder into a corner. I mean, I’m naturally dramatic on regular nights, but throw in some mildly threatening phone calls and a failed salad course, and the crocodile tears and butt-hurting are out of control. Dan followed me to my room and took this as an opportunity to put the moves on me, which he was always trying to do every time Keri had her back turned. Yes Dan, there’s a maniac casing my house and prank-calling me, please fuck my fears away. I won’t tell Keri.

That only angered me more.

“My entree is ruined! No one liked the salad! My vanilla rice milk tastes like shit and Justin obviously isn’t going to come tonight!” I sobbed into my pillow.

And then the phone rang again.

“It’s them again!” Keri called up the steps. I rejoined everyone in the dining room, with the plates of wilted salad and flutes of warm wine, and snatched the phone from Keri.

“Nice little dinner you’re having there,” the voice. “Is the wine any good?”

“Whoever it is can see us!” I hissed, hand covering the receiver. Dan and Jon picked up their weapons and went into the backyard. “What do you want?” I asked again, trying to think of who I had pissed off lately at school. This guy Damien had been acting weird toward me, and he knew about my dinner. I added him to my mental shit list.

“Your dog’s not really all that tough, you know,” the voice went on. “All I had to do was feed him some of my fries and we’re best buds now.”

I ran to the front porch to find my German Shepherd, Rama, smacking his lips next to an empty bag of McDonald’s fries. Great watchdog.

While I was on the phone with him, Sharon came screeching to a halt in my driveway. “Those fuckers drove past again,” she said, marching up to the house.

I waved the phone at her and whispered, “They’re on the phone right now.”

Yanking it from me, she started screaming into the receiver some spiel about this being private property. Then she paused and asked, “Are you threatening me?” Meanwhile, Jon and Dan were walking along the perimeter of the property, like they expected to see the culprits perched on a tree bough.

“I’m calling the police. This is ridiculous,” Keri muttered after Sharon hung up. So Keri was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher while Sharon told us that whoever she was talking to was somewhere watching us, because he knew we were all standing out in the driveway, and apparently at one point, he threatened to kill my sheep. (My family had pet sheep. Don’t judge.)

I went back in the house and stood in the kitchen next to Keri, who was still on the phone with the police. My private line rang and at this point, I was ready to murder a fool. In lieu of standard telephone salutations, I yelled “WHAT?” into the receiver.

“Mrs. Kelly? This is Sergeant Hanson from Pleasant Hills,” the man on the other end said. I felt like an asshole for yelling and quickly put on my sweet little girl voice.

“This is her daughter,” I said politely.

“I just wanted to inform you that we’ve been receiving reports from other residents on your street of potential burglars in the area. Whoever it is could be armed and dangerous, so you should remain inside and keep all the doors locked.”

I was just starting to explain to the officer that we had been receiving threats when it dawned on me that he had called my personal, unlisted phone number. Why would the cops call that number and not the main house line. BECAUSE IT WASN’T THE COPS AND I WAS A FUCKING IDIOT.

Just as I started to say, “Hey—wait!” the fake cop disconnected the call. I was less creeped out and just really fucking pissed off at this point. Because the real police were on their way thanks to Keri, I had to pour all of my wine into the sink since I wasn’t sure if they would be coming inside the house, and if they would even take note that a bunch of underage kids were imbibing alcohol.

All that wine. All those years of dreaming of the moment I’d finally get to savor this gift from my cool godfather.

All down the fucking drain.

This was the impetus; this is what set me over the edge. I grabbed a cleaver and ran into the backyard, with Angie and Lisa trying to stop me. Everyone knew that if this was a real life horror movie, I’d be the first bitch to bite it.

And while I was out there, cutting the night sky with a cleaver, screaming threats to my hidden harassers, the real cops arrived. Sharon spoke with them first, out in the driveway, while I waited impatiently for my turn to speak.

They said they would search the area, that they would report back in a few hours.

That was pretty much the ultimate party foul, so everyone left after that, except for Keri, Dan and Janna, who decided to stay the night with me so I wouldn’t have to be alone.

I cried about it for awhile that night. The fact that my tofu entree had turned into an inedible brick of charred vegetarianism. That I never had the chance to prepare my baked apples for dessert. That I hadn’t succeeded in converting anyone to the meatless side of life.

“Hey, that pumpkin soup was really good,” Dan reminded me.

It was really good. Somewhere in between the harassing phone calls, flaming dish towels and threats to slaughter my sheep, I had forgotten all about that damn soup.

And what a great first impression for Jon, this poor unsuspecting guy who was just being introduced to me. Somehow, he stuck around for the next five years. Every once in awhile he liked to remind me that I still had his tire iron.

“Oh look, Halloween 6 is on,” I said. And that’s how we ended that scary, Scream-esque night. Watching a goddamn movie where people get stabbed to death by a psychopathic stalker.

Big surprise, the cops never did follow up.

***

About a week later, the truth came out. It was Janna’s boyfriend Matt and one of his friends. Matt despised me back then, certain that I was getting Janna to do drugs and have recreational sex with bait shop owners. So he did all of that to scare Janna into leaving, because god forbid she was spending a night doing something without her crazy-possessive boyfriend.

And how did that work out for you, Matt?

He did eventually apologize, and asked how he could make it up to me. But all the wine in the world could have never replaced that one special bottle.

(l to r) Janna, Dan, Lisa, Sarah, Jon, Angie and dumb old me in the front.

Growing up, my family only ever went to the big amusement parks: Cedar Point, Busch Gardens, King’s Dominion, Disney, and of course my beloved Morey’s Piers in Wildwood. (And by “big,” I mean “bigger than Pittsburgh’s own Kennywood Park.”) So naturally, I always had a taste for the roller coaster juggernauts; I never went to any of the little dinky parks when they were in their heyday, and it wasn’t until I became an adult that I developed an appreciation for these little, half-abandoned slabs of amusement history.

Erie, PA seemed like the perfect birthday getaway because it’s really close to Pittsburgh and there are two small parks in the area: Conneaut Lake Park and Waldameer. Anytime I would tell people where we were going, most of them would nod knowingly at the mention of Waldameer, because even though it’s small, it’s thriving; but when I would throw Conneaut’s name into the mix, most people were like, “Why? There’s nothing there anymore.”

But I had to see it for myself.

Even the balloons were wilted.

We didn’t have to get very close to the park to see that it was pretty desolate and dejected.

For as much as I love amusement parks, I am actually plagued by recurring nightmares where I’m in a flooding park at night, or I’m on a roller coaster with unfinished tracks, or there is actually nothing fatal occuring at all but the atmosphere is so decidedly sinister that I wake up feeling unsettled and scared.

I’ve never been to Conneaut but I’m pretty sure this was once the setting for one of those nightmares.

The Devil’s Den was one of the main reasons why I wanted to stop there, because I always see it listed on all of the dark ride enthusiast websites and it just seems fitting that some heathen hussy like myself should take a jaunt through the den of the devil. Sure, it was a small building filled with dangling K-Mart Halloween masks and a blaring horn, but it was charming and had that old, musty stench of The Way Things Were before all the roller coasters went steel and general park admission was eradicated. Hokey decorations or not, it made me feel like a kid again and Chooch deemed it his favorite ride.

Henry refused to buy a wristband so he didn’t get to relive his childhood by soiling himself. He did, however, purchase tickets to ride the lone coaster there, the Blue Streak. There’s some controversy over this old wooden coaster, which the ride attendant attempted to tell us about in a strange hillbilly telemarketer monotone.

I guess it was shut down for a few years, and then some company that this guy worked for out in California came here to do some repairs on it, but then Conneaut ended up unable to pay, so this company seized the park* and that is how we got so lucky to have this state certified mechanic supervising our totally harrowing, white-knuckle journey on the world’s most rickety wooden tracks.

(*I wasn’t really paying attention.)

“That was awesome!” Chooch screamed afterward as Henry and I reached for our imaginary walkers.

“Yeah, that’s because you couldn’t SEE anything!” Henry muttered, rubbing his thick neck. Unlike Chooch, Henry and I were tall enough to see what sorts of certain death lay below each time we crested a hill.

From the road, the Blue Streak actually looks broken down and overtaken by weeds. So, you know—totally inviting.

I really want the entrance to Kiddieland to be the archway into my future house. I think it’s fantastic, but I’m sure there are a ton of people (and almost all of my friends) who might be a little unnerved by it. But I guess I wouldn’t want my house to start attracting Megan’s Law candidates.

This is what restrooms look like after a tango with arson.

I got so incredibly ill on this ride.

There was an organ rally going on that day, which made the experience even better. Everywhere we turned in that park, we saw broken windows, pot-holed asphalt, rusted rides and carnival games that were chintzier than the ones we had at our fifth grade fair, but all these maudlin images were offset by cheerful calliope music grinding out of box trucks set up at every juncture, like canned happiness.

It was one hell of a mind fuck.

Walking down the main stretch of the park, there were gaping lots from where rides once stood.

I’m kind of glad that I never got to see it when it was flourishing, because I think I would have been too depressed to enjoy myself. But as it were, I was able to appreciate it for what remains.

You know an amusement park is dead when you’re the ONLY PERSON in the rest room. Not a single stall was occupied by a Croc-wearing mom screaming at her little unbathed ragamuffin.

(“WTF kind of Appalachian amusement parks are you going to, Erin??”)

Hotel Conneaut is right across from the park and is supposedly haunted, but when we walked through the lobby, I didn’t feel anything. And we all know I’m kind of an expert at ghost-detecting. It looks abandoned from the exterior, but it’s actually still up and running. It was probably fancier than our room at the Travel Lodge.

“Why can’t we just go to Disneyworld like normal families?”

Dreaming of dancehall days.

The midway had a boarded-up arcade and four sad games with really rad dollar store relics from the 80s to win. This was the first time in history that Chooch didn’t beg us for money to play games. Even he knew that the prizes weren’t worth the effort.

;

;

The rain did wonders for the cheerful and inviting ambiance.

I’ve got some more pictures to post tomorrow!

Well, any chance that Marcy actually wasn’t evil has flown out the window now that she’s sitting on Old Psychiatric Wheelchair, inhaling tortured spirits.

I have the perfect frame for this.

Who needs Wordless Wednesday anyway?

Oh man, I was so excited for Bayside!

They had already started by the time I dragged Henry over to the Tilly’s Stage (Taking Back Sunday’s set overlapped with their’s) so a decent-sized crowd had already formed. We had just staked out our spots over to the left of the stage when I noticed it.

On the ground in front of me was some kid’s school portrait, just laying there on the dirty ground, God only knows how many nasty scene feet had trampled it. I became determined to snatch it up for my collection.

(Honestly, I’m like the world’s worst magpie ever.)

The guy next to me elbowed his buddy and pointed down to the ground. POINTED DOWN TO MY PICTURE. But before he had a chance to say, “Look at that picture, let’s take it for our own,” he was interrupted and shifted just so that his back was now toward my targeted bounty.

I turned around and made eye contact with Henry, who knew exactly what was going on without needing an explanation. I started to open my mouth and he just shook his head and mouthed the word “Don’t.”

Bayside is now just background noise for a much greater scene. I sized up the woman standing next to the picture (her fat foot at one point had been flattening it against the asphalt): she didn’t seem very threatening, smelled slightly of patchouli; I determined with ease that I could take her down if she noticed my picture and decided to take it for herself.

I kept inching myself forward, forcing her to shuffle in slight incements to the right, until I was exactly next to her, flush against her side like we were old school friends whose Ma had dropped us off at Warped Tour; I’ve seen her Pa in his underwear; and she’d let me borrow a tampon if I suddenly needed one, but not without first giving my bleeding vag an introduction to all the boys in the crowd.

In other words, we were standing intimately close.

• Which wouldn’t necessarily be weird at a show except that we were on the outskirts of the crowd and no one else around us were smearing their flesh against one another.
• Even weirder is that she didn’t move.

   

I stamped my foot upon the picture, pinning it down with a fervor. I turned to give Henry the thumbs up and he just closed his eyes and shook his head again.

But instead of just bending down and picking it up like a normal person who collects sentimental trash off the ground at concert venues, I opted to keep my foot pressed against it, which seemed like a great idea until my foot started to cramp and the only solution aside from picking it up or walking away from it with some tiny vittle of diginity was to cross my legs so that my left foot could get a chance.

This not only made me look like I had to pee, but it was also hard to retain my balance. So I went back to standing normally (i.e. with the mannerisms of a strung-out bitch looking around for cops and rapists while trying not to urinate).

I stood this way until the very last note of the very last song, until almost everyone around me had vacated the premises, and then I lunged down and with one swift swipe….I missed and had to grab it again.

Having it finally in my possession, I fanned it in Henry’s face and made exaggerated o’s of jubilance with my mouth. “What are you going to do with that?” Henry asked wearily, as he was past due for his scheduled Old Man at Warped Tour Sit Down.

“Probably take it work?” I answered with a question. I couldn’t just leave him and his jacked up lip out there to disintegrate and parish to a place where no one looks at him anymore!

Johann is currently hanging up at my desk by a magnet. I keep putting off buying a frame, because I’m a shitty adoptive portrait mom.

Thank god you didn’t come here to read a review on Bayside’s set.

[I wrote this 5 years ago. Read or don’t read. Exercise your right! Wooo!]

“Please don’t butter my bread.”

Jimmy was going to play baseball that day. He liked playing baseball because his parents weren’t there with him on the field, arguing about taxes and Mother’s affair with the milkmaid and his sister Janie who got knocked up by the Hispanic pool boy at the Y. When the girls were watching from the fence, he would make sure to run real fast, heels clipping the backs of his thighs as he manuevered between the bases. If the girls weren’t there, and it was just Orvil and Petey, the two retarded kids who wore back braces and were not allowed on the field, he would jog lazily around the outfield, pretending like the low-hanging sun was blinding him if he tried to catch fly balls.

Sometimes he would write cuss words like fuck and cooze in the dust, coating the toe of his shoe with a camel-colored powder. If Alastair came too close, Jimmy could erase the evidence with one swift movement.

Alastair was a snitch. He told school bully Sam that Jake stole a piece of bubblegum from Sam’s cubby during recess, and Sam punished Jake with a black eye and made him choke on his own tongue as a final piece of retribution.

Jake had a problem with swallowing his tongue.

“Please don’t butter my bread!”

Jimmy hoped it didn’t rain today, like the weatherman said it would. He wanted to go down to the creek after everyone tired of baseball (usually after two innings) and fish for guppies. That’s what he would tell Mother, anyhow, but once he got down to the woods, he would climb into a tree and pull out Father’s dirty magazines from his satchel.

That’s how he got the best vocabulary in his class.

“Mother, please don’t butter my bread!” Jimmy begged one last time, watching her collect the freshly browned slices of bread from the toaster.

Jimmy liked playing baseball, and he liked sneakily etching swear words on the field and he liked the excitement of watching Jake swallow his tongue. He liked clandestinely pouring over his Father’s dirty magazines and learning words like “pulsating” and “cocktease” and “titty fucking.” Jimmy wanted to continue doing all of these things, but he wouldn’t be able to if his bread was buttered.

“Jimmy, what’s gotten in to you?” Mother yelled, as he wrestled the tub of butter from her hands.

“I watched Father sprinkle rat poison in the butter last night,” Jimmy said, grabbing his dry toast and running off for the baseball field.

Mother silently dropped the tub into the garbage can.

I. Watching grown men have their innards minced on spinny rides

Oh, Pete and Corey look ecstatic in these photos, sure; but the truth is that they were both trying not to give innocent bystanders a puke-wash. The fact that they kept everything down is a miracle, considering Pete is no stranger to losing his lunch on a carnival ride, according to Seri. Maybe he’ll let me interview him about that experience someday.

I was just happy that I didn’t have to ride the Sizzler again, after Chooch dragged me on once immediately upon arrival and then I needed to visit a witch doctor to get my brain to stop rattling to the beat of Call Me Maybe. But cold sweats sure feel great on a ninety degree day, even if they do bring on waking nightmares of child birth, except instead of a child, you’re birthing a nine pound fecal log of fear, anxiety and complete disregard for your own life.

II. Birthing a nine pound fecal log of fear, anxiety and complete disregard for your own life.

A/k/a riding the Zipper! My favorite ride of all time! The above picture is Corey after riding the Zipper! He hates it! AHHHHHH THE ZIPPER&*(&(*^&(*^%%$$##@#$!!

If only Henry could get me that excited.

Anyway, Corey reluctantly agreed to ride the Zipper even though he’s approximately 5 inches too tall and his feet bend backward every time the carny slams the cage shut on us. And then the ride starts and we’re in a state of perpetual tailspin and suddenly I’m strangulated by SHEER TERROR and I can no longer laugh at Corey’s anguish because OMG I’M IN ANGUISH!

BUT IT FEELS SO GOOD!

Have you ever ridden the Zipper? If so, you know that it’s a deceiving little sonofabitch, like a miniature ferris wheel flattened into the shape of an oval, and instead of offering a picturesque view of the lands below, you get a frontseat upside down glimpse of DANGER DANGER while being blinded by flashes of impending death, which may or may not include montages of Carrot Top going down on your granny while you’re scrambling around collecting your blown-off appendages like a warzone Easter egg hunt.

Meanwhile, Corey was muttering things like “Oh fuck” and “Why???” in a disgusted monotone that sounded uncannily like our father, who is perpetually displeased about most everything in life except The Bourne series and Caramel Caribou ice cream.

Some of the Zipper’s greatest hits include:

1. Bolts Popping in D Minor
2. I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight (When Our Zipper Cage Crashed To The Ground)
3. Somebody That I Used To Know (Puked On The Zipper)
4. What Makes You Beautiful (Is The Plastic Surgery You Had To Get After Your Face Was Cheese-Grated In That Zipper Disaster)
5. Part of Me (Got Amputated When the Carny Slammed The Zipper Cage Shut)
6. (The Zipper Launched Me Into the Atmosphere & Now I’m Up Here With the) Starships

III. Having other children there to entertain my child.

Having other children there to entertain my child. Highly recommended.

IV. CLOWNS!

A clown named Popcorn! Who couldn’t love a clown named POPCORN?! Other than people who have seen Killer Klowns From Outer Space and/or lost a loved one to a popcorn accident.

There was another clown there who was totally enamored by Seri. All the poor pasty-faced man wanted to do was twist her a heart from a balloon and she was being so standoffish! Damn, if he had shown me even an ounce of that attention, I’d have taken him back behind the 4H tent and twisted his balloon. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

V. Not Being Hogtied & Devoured By Children!

Seri was brave/dumb and left me (and Corey!) responsible for her children, who had only just met us, and you might know that I was born without the ability to properly interact with/control children. (Maybe there’s also a rap sheet out there somewhere that could tell you that.) Anyway, they were mostly OK! Until they tried to converse with me and I met all their social exercises with twitches, shrugs and “Huh?”s. Then they got bored with me and wandered off. Don’t worry, I knew where they were. (Mostly.)

I think they were with my kid? I wasn’t sure where he was though.

VI. Oh Shit, MAGIC SHOW!

Seri, Pete and Henry rescued Corey and me from the children just in time for us to enjoy a real life magic show with real life magic and illusionary mysticism! Thank god it started right after I finished eating, else I can’t promise I would have paid it much attention.

I kept turning around to mouth exaggerated “Ooooh”s at Corey and Henry. Henry was totally unimpressed by the whole thing, especially after he did a quick scour on Facebook and discovered that this guy was not friends with our magician friends, therefore exposing him as a FRAUD.

After the show, Josh Knotts the Illusionist announced that if anyone wanted his autograph, they could have just that for $2. OH DID I! Except that I didn’t have $2, and Henry — who hadn’t heard the announcement — was sceptical from the get-go and said, “I only have $1 and I’m not breaking a $20.” Then he did that moustache bristle and old man squint. So I asked Pete and he gave me a dollar, because I’m still a novelty item.

Anyway, I put on my best fake fan impression and then Josh complimented me on my Anthem Made shirt (it’s the Kellin Quinn collection, ya’ll!) which made me smug because Henry was annoyed when I bought it (It says “We Are The Scene” and Henry thinks it’s dumb). Then Josh made me have my picture taken with him and his assistant, which I immediately made Seri delete from her phone.

VII: JANICE!

At first glance, Janice was just your average fanny pack-wearing county fair attendee who randomly volunteered to help out during one of the magic acts. But it quickly came to our attention that she is a HOG for attention, oh my god. She did everything in her power to steal the show, including but not limited to flossing Josh Knott’s ass with a straight jacket strap.

She sure made all the hicks in the audience howl!

Corey and I became obsessed with her.

“I have a feeling Janice knows her way around a stage,” Corey observed.

God love her.

VIII. The Magic Maze Controversy

The boys basically spent all night running through the maze (and repeatedly slamming their heads against the plexi glass), but this turned out to be fortuitous because it enabled Corey and me to witness something amazing when we rejoined our pack after riding the Freak Out (during which some beefy carny said, “You might want to remove those” while practically dunking his head inside my cleavage; he was only talking about the sunglasses hooked onto my shirt collar though). I missed the initial conflict, which happened when some girl ran into the maze, causing the old man carny to legit hollar at her. Corey said he really screamed at her good and couldn’t believe that I didn’t hear. By the time he alerted me to the drama, I was able to watch as the girl came back out of the maze, exchange words with the carny, and run over to her mom in tears. Apparently, she had found someone’s discarded ride-all-day wristband and attempted to dupe the carny by holding it on to her wrist.

YOU CAN’T TRICK A CARNY. They’re the original tricksters. That’s how women wind up impregnated with gingers. Everyone knows that. So anyway, Old Carny was livid about this and sent that bitch packing.

“That was so mean,” Corey said sadly, wearing his pity for poor people like a Boy Scout badge.

“I know, and so late in the evening? He should have just let her go through,” I added. But then I got a good look at her, crying into her mom’s bosom, and I said, “But, isn’t she a little old to be crying about that?”

Corey studied the scene for a few seconds, and said, “No, you’re totally right,” and then started cracking up. So then I started cracking up too, and Henry was all, “What is so funny? I am old and lack mirth, please explain in laymen’s terms what has made you laugh.”

A few minutes later, Seri, Pete and the boys were on the bumper cars, so Corey, Henry and I were standing around in everyone’s way as usual. Actually, I think Henry was cranking up our debt by playing more games. The poor girl and her mom walked by us and I blurted out, “Oh my god, she’s STILL crying!” and we just died. Seriously, go home and have Pa make you a maze in one of his almanac and cat litter hoarding rooms.

IX: Corey Is Still Color Blind!

Sometime earlier in the evening, Corey pointed to the Skydiver and said, “Oh boy, there’s that orange and green ride again.”

I was able to contain my erupting laughter for a few seconds before blurting out, “OMG THAT RIDE HAS NEITHER COLOR!” and then frantically texting his girlfriend the good word.

God, I love when his color blindness comes into play.

Quite possibly the only lowlight was when Corey and I were standing in line for the Freak Out and he realized that horrible fun. song was playing on two different rides, on each side of us, and both songs were at different parts. I was so angry at him for pointing that out because then I couldn’t stop noticing it and it was sonic warfare on my poor ears. The brightside was that we had a brief bonding moment over a mutual dislike of one of the most obnoxiously commercial songs of 2012.

(Music snob footnote: The Format was so much better than Fun. and I have been preaching that since 2009.)

OK, that’s not true. There was another lowlight.

I’m giving myself fifteen minutes to write this bitch. Aaaand, go.

The last time we went to Laurel Caverns, Chooch was 4 and peed in his pants. Somewhere in there, we also thought Henry had perished, got a flat tire, and I hated Gene and Boots candy store. It was a pretty action-packed day.

Considering I promised Henry he could have a relaxing weekend doing whatever he wanted since he went to Warped Tour with me two days prior, I kind of hoped that we could just go to the caverns and act like a normal loving family.

But Chooch and I were really hyper and literally kept fake-beating each other up. He was trying to climb up my torso at one point, in the bowels of the caverns  and I kept flicking him in the head when he wasn’t looking, or shaking him by the shoulders. Henry didn’t seem charmed by any this.

The tour hadn’t even started yet and look at that grimace. You’d think he would be excited since he knows so much shit about rocks and stone, but I guess it  must suck for a hotdogging SERVICE man to have to listen to a FEMALE tour guide talk about everything he already knows.

Chooch didn’t swear once and that’s all I can ask for, really. Stifling himself for 55 minutes beneath the earth made him shoot off obscenities like a cannon on the car ride home, though. Good job for teaching him that shit, Henry.

 This isn’t just because of the flash. He almost always looks at me like this. I wasn’t allowed to walk behind him during the tour because I was being too “immature.” WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

Our tour guide HATED THE WHOLE GROUP and we actually really weren’t that bad of a group, just overpopulated. She was so joyless and bland, and kept making idle threats when people wouldn’t stop chatting with each other.

“I am NOT going to lose my voice today,” she said 11 different times. (I counted.)

I still thanked her when the tour was over though, because I’m a suck up.

This picture might not look like much, but it’s really special to me because I MADE THAT LIGHT COME ON. There is an entire passage filled with sound-activated lights, I guess to break up the monotony of being constantly told to shut up by the tour guide, and allowing us to actually exercise our vocal rights. Everyone was yelling and clapping, some people were woofing and making me roll me eyes, but Chooch of all people was doing nothing.

NOTHING.

He picked THAT MOMENT to be silent.

“Chooch, yell ‘Jonny Craig,'” I coaxed.

“NO,” Henry refuted.

So I did it, nice and loud, shouted, “JONNY CRAIG!” with all this passion and jubilation. I thought Henry was going to push me over a ravine.

There was no one hot in our tour group. This made me feel bored at times. I wanted Chooch to ask if we were going to get to see the basement, but he didn’t get it and kept shouting to me, “WHAT!? WHAT ABOUT THE BASEMENT?! WHERE IS THE BASEMENT!?” and I was just like, “God, nevermind, you suck.”

The first thing Henry did when we got home yesterday was Google what the guide was telling us about the bats just to prove that she was wrong about what’s forcing them into extinction.  Maybe he’ll want me to write a letter to Laurel Caverns on his behalf.

Thanks to my thoughtful (and thrifty!) friend Wendy, I have another old wheelchair for the collection that wasn’t a collection until a week ago! The seat is an ungodly 1950’s pea green and I couldn’t be happier! I’m halfway to a full dining room set. My first dinner party at my imaginary house is going to really be something. Maybe you’ll be invited! Bring a side dish and your neck brace!

Wendy and I took Andrea to Mad Mex for dinner on Friday evening, while Henry embarked on the covert cake-acquisition. (I literally texted Kaitlin last winter when Andrea first started tossing around ideas of coming back for a visit around her birthday and placed a tentative red velvet cake order; Kaitlin’s cakes are in high demand so I wasn’t about to sit on it.) I even made sure Andrea left some of her shopping bags in my car so she’d have to come back to my house afterward to fetch them; I was so afraid she was going to ask to go to back to her hotel right after dinner since we had such a long, napless day.

And then the first restaurant we were going to eat at turned out to be a taco stand, and the smells coming from it were fantastic, but it was 95 degrees out and none of us wanted to sit outside in that, eating tacos like real Mexicans. So we wound up at Mad Mex, which had a 30-45 minute wait until Wendy (who knew I was panicking and stressing behind Andrea’s back about the time) schmoozed us into a booth and we somehow managed to get out of there and back to my house by 8:30.

What’s the fastest way to ruin a surprise party? Invite Chooch.

As soon as we pulled up, Chooch came bursting through the front door and yelled, “SERI’S HERE AND SHE HAS A BIG PRESENT FOR ANDREA BUT YOU GUYS CAN’T COME IN BECAUSE WE’RE NOT READY YET!”

I tried to play dumb, like I didn’t understand what Chooch was mouthing off about, but it was clear that the jig was up. I went inside and sulked about it, while Andrea stayed outside talking with Wendy. Seri and Henry were in the house, being all calm and normal, while I was pacing back and forth, poking my head out the window to see what they were doing. Chooch kept running back outside, probably to tell Andrea what all of her presents were.

Who needs surprises.

I just wanted her to come inside and see the pinata that I zombified for her and almost broke my fingers trying to stuff. I did this on Monday night, before she arrived, and every day after that Chooch kept suspiciously saying to her, “DON’T LOOK INSIDE THE BASEMENT DOOR! THERE’S SOMETHING THERE THAT YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE!” Goddamn kids!!

I even bought a clown ring toss. Who wouldn’t want clown ring toss at their birthday party?

Finally, she and Wendy came in the house and I have the whole “Surprise!” part recorded, but the video is marred by my sad-sounding voice and heavy sighs. THANKS AGAIN, CHOOCH.

I bought a used Lil Wayne because it was intended to go inside the pinata but I couldn’t get it to fit. I’m not actually that cheap that I buy my friends used CDs. However, I’m glad the Exchange had the Lil Wayne album that kicks off with the seminal hit “Gonorrhea.”

With the exception of my used Lil Wayne CD and Lil Wayne embellished champagne chalice (which is how I like to make “wine glass” sound like a gift you might want), Andrea got good gifts from Wendy (a jeweled perfume bottle), Chuck and Amanda who shipped an art print to my house for her, and Seri who went back to Zenith on Friday and snatched up the courtroom sketch after seeing the picture I posted on my blog of Andrea holding it. I was determined to make her birthday a memorable one, and luckily all of these wonderful people were making my job incredibly easy.

Andrea tweeted a few weeks ago about how she hates being called “Amanda,” so of course I ran with that. When I do jerky things, that’s how my friends know I like them!

Printed out a bunch of inside-jokey pictures to accessorize the cake, such as: a music box, a picture of Creepy Dance Recital Man-Girl, Billy Ocean (the last time she was here, he was playing in my car nearly every time she got in because he was on my Roller Rink Birthday Party Mix, Holla!), Lil Wayne wearing a Free Jonny Craig shirt, and a rarely-seen portrait of her wearing her favorite Etsy sweater.

Pinata guts. Henry was positively tickled to discover that I had finger-fucked the piñata full of confetti for him to sweep up later.

Chooch wore the pinata blindfold first, but he was so sweaty that everyone else politely declined their turn.

Later on, Seri’s husband Pete came over with their boys and Henry got to be all Big Tough Fire Starter by setting off fireworks in our front yard, and it was just really nice to hang out in the grass, drinking, and being entertained by the possibility of a Golden Flower fountain exploding in Henry’s face. One of my perpetually drunk neighbors stopped by with his dog Buttkiss (I’m not sure if that’s really his name, but probably) and I was so happy that everyone out there got to eye-feast on a slice of Brookline.

Meanwhile, Maxton was in the house, watching TV while lounging on the wheelchair. Best investment ever. I want to buy at least 3 more to use as dining room chairs.

I think the biggest surprise of the night was the fact that Seri’s hair stays perfectly straight and shiny despite the 95 degree temperatures and swamp-like humidity. So jealous!

Anyway, it was eventually time for Andrea to go back to her hotel and pack for her early-morning flight. Everyone doled out sweaty, drunken hugs and just like that, another visit with Andrea was over. It was a long week and I was pretty jealous that she got to leave the heatwave (and Chooch) behind. Hopefully we didn’t annoy her too much.

I’m so glad that Pittsburgh decided to have a heat wave in tandem with Andrea’s visit from California. We don’t have a/c in our house, so the poor girl suffered all week. At least her hotel room was air-conditioned.

The cemetery wasn’t air-conditioned either, so she had to endure 90 degree heat & humidity for an hour in a wig and wedding dress while I took pictures on the Fourth of July. (More pictures to come once I can sit at the computer and edit them without sweat dripping into my eyes.)

We spent a lot of this week at the hotel pool, which gave Chooch and me short reprieves from the heat. We are like sweaty twins. Everyone else around us complains of the heat yet appears relatively dry; Chooch and I meanwhile have damp hair and faces mimicking glazed hams.

Some lady at the hotel pool let Chooch use one of her innertubes which I’m pretty sure he punctured.

Saw this at the cemetery. The universe is always throwing out Jonny Craig signs for me!

Bought fireworks.

That night, we went to Seri and Pete’s house to watch the Mt. Lebanon fireworks, which were completely underwhelming, but Seri’s Martha Stewart-rivaling hospitality more than made up for that. Their house is so inviting and she provided a handsome spread of finger food to be stuffed into my mouth. LOOK AT THOSE MARSHMALLOW KEBOBS! Even Andrea was delighted and she hates everything.

Andrea being delighted.

I didn’t want to take a cherry out of the narrow receptacle in which Seri had lined them up because it looked so perfect and decorative, but Andrea was all, “Just take one, stupid. That’s what they’re there for.” And then immediately after I plucked one for my plate, Andrea said, “You ruined it.”

Oh my god, and the sangria. So much delicious sangria! Seri was completely spazzed out all night, worrying that we weren’t having fun, but damn – I didn’t want to be anywhere else but on that couch hugging a red ball pillow that I had formed at unhealthy attachment to, eating food, telling stories, and having their two kids entertain Chooch.

It was a good night with new friends and old friends and even Henry smiled a lot. HENRY SMILED A LOT. And I learned that the key to placating Andrea is boxed wine and Latin music. Thank you, Seri and Pete!

(Also, the truth came out about Henry pushing a girl in a wheelchair at a Ted Nugent show. Will provide a separate post for that.)