[Ed.Note: Today’s repost is about a pitstop we made on the way to Gatlinburg, TN for our summer vacation. The time we spent at the Mystery Hole was definitely one of the highlights of the trip, second only to getting to hang out with Bill & Jessi and making new friends. I anticipate another trip to Ansted, WV’s Mystery Hole sometime in the near future. You should come, too.]

Mystery Hole, West Virginia

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.

I figured after writing on the Internet since 2001, maybe now would be an OK time to start promoting myself and what better way to do that than with Henry’s unmistakable mug. And there seem to be two distinct and staunch camps: the Blame Henrys, who love to see him fail, preferably while weeners are being drawn on him; and the Poor Henrys, who are all waiting for the day when he rises up, Mortal Combat-style, and starts swinging, at which point I will kill him and then he will become martyred.

I designed these real quick yesterday and then Andrea made them into pins for me because she is the BEST.

I’m going to make some more swag too, probably through Cafe Press, maybe throw some Chooch-related slogans up in there too.

(“I can’t like that” and “You’re a douchecup”?

Yes, I’m totally trying to capitalize off my 5-year-old AND HE OWES ME.

) So if you always wanted an “I’d Rather Be Riding the Wacky Worm” t-shirt of your very own, well, you might have your dreams come true very soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dick laughed heartily at this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wanted to steal it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

Henry’s weeners.

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

[Ed.Note: Apparently roller skating was all I had going for me this year, because these seem to be the only events I find worthy enough of an end-of-the-year repost.  So take a break from Christmas Eve freak-outs and read this shit. IT IS ALL I WANT FOR XMAS. Seriously, make your friends and bail bondsmen read this, too.]

Henry and I went to the Adult Skate two weeks ago alone, kind of like a real life date, I guess. He didn’t even seem to mind when I blasted Dance Gavin Dance on the ride there while pantomiming in his face. (That’s his favorite part anyway, who’s he trying to kid.)

This particular adult skate was way less soul, more cracker because it wasn’t hosted by the Steel City Rollers. They did play my Return of the Mack song, though, which I’ve decided is my all-time favorite skating jam. But still — way too many whites. It was almost embarrassing. And maybe if I didn’t already have knowledge of the Steel City Rollers, I’d have been impressed by some of these Opies, but they just looked farcical out there. Especially the one older man who was fist-pumping aggressively to Queen.

Queen.

I was definitely the best white-girl skater there that night though, so I took satisfaction in that. And Henry even skated with me a lot, even to the tail end of “Rush, Rush,” and even after I admitted that I was pretending he was Jonny Craig. Henry is willing to role-play to keep me.

It became suddenly very apparent during this Adult Skate why Neville Roller Drome isn’t open all year. It was unseasonably warm that Sunday in April, and even at night the rink was trying to smoke us alive. The windows were open, and the exit door at the far end of the rink was propped open (which lured neighborhood children over to watch the grown-ups acting like teens on the rink; I raised the roof to them every time I skated past) but even then my whole body was moist with skate-sweat and I was starting to get scared of passing out. For the first time ever, Henry and I  spent more time sitting off-rink and downing fluids in the snack room than actually skating. That’s when it became apparent that we needed to find a new rink. (Though we’ll still be going to this one just  for the adult skates until the season ends.)

***

And that was the catalyst that led us about 40 minutes out of the city to Donora last Saturday. We let Janna come with us, even though she is A ROLLER BLADER.

Immediately upon entering the building, my tongue was slathered with a horrible taste as a Valley Skate-shirted woman darted around a corner and, in a very condescending tone (don’t listen to Henry’s version of this) asked, “Can I help you?” Her bug-eyes were sizing us up, realizing we were city folk, probably wondering what our motives were, like, why weren’t we at a martini bar?

I continued to stare back at her, making my eyes into slits of intimidating fuck-you-uppery, while Henry calmly told her we were there to skate.

I mean, I understand some people go to rinks to sell drugs to minors and have sex behind the skate rental counter, but bitch please. I have all the intensity of a professional roller dancer, but just to be clear: I AM HERE TO SHOW YOU WHAT A DREAM ON WHEELS LOOKS LIKE.

“Oh. Well it doesn’t start til 2.” And with that, we were made to go back out to the stench-laden vestibule, which was muggy as Hell thanks to the rainstorm performing directly outside the doors, where we had to stand with another family for an entire 10 minutes. (This will now be known as The First Thing That Pissed Me Off.)

And you know I was motherfucking that broad up and down, which prompted Henry to release his years-perfected elbow-clench (which, by the way, hurts but never makes me shut up). “She’s right on the other side of that window!” Henry hissed, pointing to the open plexi-glass of the ticket booth. “She can hear you!”

“OH I HOPE SHE CAN! THE DUMB WHORE BITCH!” I replied with my outdoor voice. (Which doubles as my Church Voice.) “LET’S JUST LEAVE! I DON’T WANT TO SKATE HERE ANYWAY, IT’S A DUMP.” (It was not actually a dump.)

“Don’t start,” Henry seethed. And then he tried to block me from taking her picture. NICE TRY, ASSHOLE.

Turns out (or, if this were Henry talking, “Come to find out”) she’s the daughter of the owner and also the go-to girl for purchasing skates, which is what I want to do, but now I’m not sure if it requires talking to her without the aid of a translator. Or a paper bag over my face.

They got the Ode to a 1987′s Trapper Keeper carpet pattern down to a T. I completely approved, even though I tried to act disgusted by it at first when I was still hating the place.

The Second Thing That Pissed Me Off: The kid working the skate rental counter did not put enough attention into assuring that the skates he plucked from the wall were in my best interest. As soon as he handed them to me, I said (apparently to no one, since neither he nor Henry appeared to notice my presence), “I can already tell these are too big.”

And they were too big. So I threw a small fit, which Henry took as his cue to go get me a smaller size. Meanwhile, I decided to utilize the facilities before skating-up.

The bathroom was clean enough, but it was concerning how low the stall doors were. Any adult could have stood on the other side and watched from above as I proudly peed currents of rainbows and the blood of  Christ, which is also rainbow-colored and serves as an astringent for anytime a Katy Perry fan might lay a hand on you.

Which leads me to The Third Thing That Pissed Me Off: getting bested by a motherfucking sink.

A SINK, I SAID.

After lathering my hands up real good (I’m not even so much of a germ freak), I held them beneath what I could only assume was a faucet and hopefully not the piece of farm equipment it actually looked like, and nothing happened. I fiddled around with the invisible knobs on top, banged around a bit with the heel of my hand and felt my face heat up as panic crept in.

I considered walking away, but I had this thick sheath of pink antibacterial soap on both hands and of course there was only a hand dryer at my disposal, nary a paper towel dispenser.

Suddenly, it was 2005 and I was in the lounge of a funeral home, waiting to be interviewed for a job. “Have some coffee while you wait!” I was told. But I couldn’t figure out how the coffee maker worked, which made me light-headed with anxiety. I didn’t really want coffee, but I was told to HAVE SOME COFFEE so I felt that I should do just that. I spent the whole time (at least a half hour, because the interviewer double-booked himself), slamming the carafe against the counter, sweating through my blouse, crying. Oh, I cried. And when I finally figured out its twisted puzzle, I was called back for the interview.

This sink was the new funeral home coffee maker, and I found my eyes were welling up much in the same manner. WHAT COULD I DO?! To my right, I noticed a water fountain. I tried to covertly assess how many people were nearby, and which of them appeared to be noticing this grown woman completely spazzing out in front of a sink (did I mention this sink was located OUTSIDE of the restrooms?)

I could rinse my hands in the water fountain, I thought, momentarily awash with hope. Just as I started casually walking over the fountain (to be clear, the Erin Version of “casually” is suspiciously clod-hopping with unbent knees while furtively glancing over my shoulders and drawing every last bit of attention to my person as single-handedly possible), a young girl skated over and took a hearty gulp from it.

I froze, like a priest caught with my hand up an altar robe, and she and I locked eyes for what seemed like an entire episode of that shitty television program where F-List “stars” pretend to dance. Then I decided to do that thing that people are always telling me about, where one human asks another human for help. So that is what I did.

“Oh! Here I’ll show you,” she said cheerfully, skating over to the trough. “You just step down on this,” and as she did so, glorious streams of water poured forth like a waterfall of promise. “And it’ll turn off on its own.”

I thanked her with way more enthusiasm than necessary, and she was like, “Um, OK,” then left me alone to have what I can only explain as my Virginal Hand-Washing Experience.

Meanwhile, I had been gone so long, Henry probably thought I was giving birth to my Internet Boyfriend’s lovechild in one of the stalls.

“You’ll never believe what happened to me over there,” I wheezed, out of breath from running the length of the building with jazz hands. I explained the situation and Henry, with a bemused smirk, said, “Let me guess—-did you have to step on something?”

“Fuck you,” I sighed in defeat, sitting down to put on my skates. Of course Henry would know! He’s so fucking old, ain’t no sink he hasn’t encountered.

Once Henry scraped the gum off my wheel, I was set free and it only took me .0002 seconds to understand just how perfect the rink was. It was smooth as silk, twice the size of Neville Roller Drome, and even had a small children’s rink off to the side, so the idiots could stay over there and learn how to act like proper human beings.

The Fourth Thing That Pissed Me Off: Really awful music. In a three-song span, I was ear-assaulted with Miley Cyrus, Who Let the Dogs Out and Smashmouth. SMASHMOUTH, REALLY? I almost had an angry-cry session right there on the rink.

“It’s probably just because the session hasn’t officially started yet,” Henry reasoned, like he always does because he’s a professional father. Eventually, the lights went out and the colored track lights came on, at which point the rink was soundtracked by a mix of somewhat appropriate pop (there was only one Katy Perry song, I couldn’t be too hateful), 80s rock classics and a little bit of 70s soul for a little flavor.

An hour into the session, I noticed that there were still really only about 20 or so people on the rink, and most of those were children who actually knew how to skate well. There was only one incident where a boy younger than Chooch decided to change directions and came careening into me. We completely crashed into each other because I have little to no reactionary instinct, though I managed to stay on my feet while he rolled a good five times before coming to a stop.

My heart was racing.

“I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM! WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE RINK REFS?!” I screamed at Henry, because he was obviously responsible for the near-carnage. There are two rink refs at this joint, the one with bleached blond hair was nowhere to be found, and the other (the asshole who gave me my skates) was sitting in the corner of the rink with some kid, yukking it up.

UNACCEPTABLE.

“I’m saying something to that lazy asshole!” I yelled with determination, because it makes me mad when patrons do not abide by the rules of the roller rink. YOU DO NO SWITCH DIRECTION MID-STRIDE. There were literally no more than 15 people on the rink together at any given time, so collisions should not have been a worry.

“Please don’t,” Henry said quietly. So I didn’t, because we were newbies after all, and I guess I didn’t want to get black-listed right after we finally found The Perfect Rink. (It’s where I’m having my birthday party this summer, probably. It will be at the end of July so if you want to come, just tell me. I need all the people I can possibly get to pose as friends.)

After a minute or so, Henry added, “You should just be a rink guard.” (He refuses to call them rink refs like I do.)

“I KNOW RIGHT!” I yelled, even though he clearly didn’t READ MY BLOG a few weeks ago when I wrote about just that.

“No one would come on the rink.”

That’s actually a pretty good possibility.

From some undisclosed location, the voice of Whore Bitch filled the rink and announced that it was Game Time. All fifteen of us gathered in the center of the rink for the Hokey Pokey, at which point we were all instructed by Whore Bitch to sit down for Spin the Pin. “The adults can remain standing,” Whore Bitch went on to say. “I know it can be kind of hard to get back up!” And she laughed, along with Henry who knows all about being old and unable to stand from a seated position. I sat with the kids because I’m not old. Janna and Henry stood like old people.

Spin the Pin was a crock of shit. The bowling pin was clearly about to stop while pointing at Chooch and me, but the tow-headed rink ref did something to make it keep spinning, I fucking swear to god, because he probably wanted a townie to win. So some other asshole got to win a free pass to come back, while Chooch and I sat there with our mouths twisted in the shape of WTF.

It was Katie’s birthday! I don’t know who she is, but she couldn’t skate for shit. She got a fucking purple balloon and I kept cheering and wishing her a Happy Birthday in a very exaggerated fashion, which was really pissing off Chooch because I think he thought I cared more about her birthday than his, which hasn’t even happened yet.

Then we played a game called Corners! How exciting! Along the rink, there were six numbers painted on the walls. Everyone had to split up and stand under a number. I went for 6, which was located above the DJ Booth. Whore Bitch was explaining where all the numbers were located and when she said, “And then number 6 is right above me!” I turned around just in time to make eye contact with her on the other side of the DJ booth glass. I don’t know why, but it hadn’t occurred to me this whole time that she was the DJ. Janna, Henry and Chooch were across the rink, standing under the number 1. Janna laughed when she saw my expression of extreme disdain.

One of the Rink Refs came out with a large felt die and had some asshole toss it. I’m chanting “666!” over and over, like some sugar-fed Satanist, and the die landed on 6! I was like, “HELL YES BITCHES! WOO!” but then Whore Bitch was all, “Oh, sad. Everyone under the number 6 is out! You must now leave the rink! Go stand somewhere over there.”

LONGEST SKATE OF MY LIFE. I had my head hung low, especially when I inevitably had to pass Henry and Janna, who were belly-laughing at my loss.

“I thought I was supposed to root FOR my number,” I hissed at them, before sitting sadly and alone on a blue carpeted bench.

Stupidest fucking game ever.

Chooch got to roll the die and rolled Janna, Henry and himself right the fuck out so I made sure to jeer and heckle them loudly from my spot in exile. Assholes.

AT least they didn’t piss around with Limbo. I hate Limbo.

The rest of the time was All Skate, with an occasional Couples Skate thrown in (I tried to get Henry to twirl me but he was too embarrassed to have to publicly place his hands on me).

By the end of the session, I was a hot mess of frizzy hair and brow-sweat, which is how I look at Warped Tour. That’s how I know it was the best day ever. And I didn’t even find a single skater I wanted to hate! Except for Janna. Obviously.

Henry and I get along best at the roller rink, it’s become quite clear to me. I’m thinking—we have hardwood floors, so maybe if we just go about our homelife while wearing skates, we might actually be able to achieve full-scale Love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except for Andrea, who merely sighed exasperatedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(I don’t pay attention very well.)

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

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

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

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

“No,” she said flatly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dick was showing us, wait for it……..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Took Henry’s son Robbie and his girlfriend Karen out to eat at the Sharp Edge tonight.

Chooch was borderline brat-like, but it was nothing a mini sundae bar couldn’t pacify.

Bonus: two pictures of Henry the Surly Douche.

One is from breakfast this morning. He was in good spirits because he got to share morning meats with his bromance, Tommy.

Speck’s burial was yesterday. After a week of crying, beating myself up over not noticing a problem (if there even was a problem with her), and eating nothing but candy (it was all I could stomach), I really needed closure. I needed to stop dwelling, to stop associating everything with her, to stop going over and over in my mind the last time I saw her and feeling guilty for not paying as much attention to her as I do to Marcy.

It was one of the worst weeks of my life and I felt like I was trapped in some sick nightmare. It’s hard to explain what was going on in my head and heart, but knowing that I’m emotionally immature and extremely sensitive would probably help to understand. Speck might have been “just a cat,” but in a life full of changes and dysfunction and being let down time and time again by my family, she was a constant. She was unconditional love. Her death triggered something in me that I had been repressing since the death of my Pappap. A huge chapter of my life closed with her passing and I have got to be OK with that.

I let myself grieve to the fullest one last time as we stood in a small mourning room with her tiny white casket on a table. And then up on the hill next to her freshly dug grave, I buried my face in Henry’s chest while Chooch accepted the offer to dump the first shovel of dirt upon her casket.

And then I just felt peace, like that raging fire in my heart had finally been put out.

Before I went to work, I was sitting on the couch with Chooch. I was still a little tearful and would sniffle here and there. Without looking up from his coloring book, Chooch said to me, “It’s OK. She’s happy where she is now.”

And I think she’s got to be. Choosing to bury her at that pet cemetery has made me feel better about things. She got a proper burial and she’ll never be alone there. She lives on a hillside with hundreds of other treasured family pets.

When I got to work, Barb sent me an email saying she would come see me when I was ready, that she didn’t want to make me cry, but I was fine. I was really OK. After a week of spontaneously bursting into tears at work, I just couldn’t cry anymore. I was literally all cried out. In fact, one of my tear ducts is even all jacked up from it.

I realize I’m processing this like a 12-year-old and I want to thank all my friends for bearing with me, especially my friends at work who had to see me crying every single day last week. I was an absolute fucking mess. I was really surprised at how nice the guys were, particularly. Even Glenn, who loves to make fun of me, was super nice and didn’t make me feel stupid when I cried in front of him.

And the other day, when our old department friend Derek stopped by for a visit and asked me, “How’s your kid?” what I heard was, “How’s your kitty?” which made me blurt out, “Which one, the one that died?” and then I burst into tears. Derek quickly said, “No, no, your kid! I said kid! Oh my god, I’m sorry!”

It was an awesome scene.

When I came home last night, I made a little nail art tribute to her. Speck will never be actually be dead to me.

When I start eating apples again, you’ll know I’m all the way OK.

I was able to get Speck a burial plot after all, thanks to the recommendation of my friend Jessy. Totally withdrew from my mutual fund to make it happen, but it is what I want for her and she is more than worth it to me.

Henry wrapped her up in her favorite blanket (“She’s peed on it enough times,” he tried to joke, but I silenced him real quick with one sharp look) and we took her out to an animal shelter in Elizabeth, PA, where I was left to stand alone near a young couple adopting a kitten.

“He’s gonna die someday!” I wanted to scream like a crazy old hobo lady, because I couldn’t bear to see how happy they were while I was standing there openly weeping, waiting for someone to bring me the burial paperwork.

And that was a bag of dicks, sitting in a drop-off room with a shelter employee while she asked me questions like, “Do you want us to seal the casket today or do you want to be able to see her again on the day of the burial?” I just wanted to die. “Can you bury me too?” is how I wanted to respond.

And there were no tissues in that room!

So then a woman came in with a cat mewling in pain. She calmly stated she was there for euthanasia and then proceeded to stand RIGHTNEXTTOME and watched as I started to cry harder.

After that, it was time to hand over Speck, and Chooch insisted on carrying her in himself. Look, I get that he’s only 5 and he really has little to no concept of what is going on, but when he brought her into the room, he loudly spat, “Ugh, this is disgusting!” at which point Henry snatched the blanket-wrapped Speck from him and I had to drag him out of the room because he started saying rude things about the cat who was there to get euthanized.

He totally made it a million times worse for me.

While Henry took care of Speck, I kept Chooch in the room with all the cats up for adoption and it was totally unbearable. None of them looked cute to me. None of them were Speck.

We ended up leaving at the same time as the lady who brought the cat in to get put to sleep. “And she talks like a man,” Chooch announced in his typical invisible megaphone voice, pointing right at her. It was utterly embarrassing. But then, an hour later, Chooch burst into tears while eating a waffle. This was after berating Henry for seemingly unrelated things, but I guess he was just projecting, just like me.

“I have never seen two people be so sad & mad at the same time as you two,” Henry said wearily. It’s enough that he has to deal with me and Chooch on a daily basis, but it’s a whole different story when it’s a mourning me and Chooch.

Today was one of the worst experiences of my life and I’m just going to go ahead and rank it up there with the death of my pappap. I just can’t stop crying. God, she was so annoying at times, but she was my Speck and I will never have another.

Chooch is the one that found her. She was laying at the bottom of the steps, like she had died in her sleep. It was his first encounter with death, really, and the tears came spurting out.

He seems fine now, and is already talking about getting a new cat (fuck no, not replacing her), but I went back up to my bedroom and I’m just kind of sitting here in shock, with moments of spotty sobbing. Held Marcy for a little bit. Looked online at the pricing of the pet section at the cemetery where my Pappap is buried and started crying because I can’t afford any of that so now what? Henry is going to toss her in a shoddy backyard hole? (Henry of course doesn’t give a shit. He knows I’m up here crying but hasn’t bothered to come up. Typical.)

She was my second cat. I got her two months after I got Marcy, who never really warmed up to her after 13 years. Speck had kind of become Chooch’s sidekick; she greeted him in bed every morning (mostly because she wanted fed) and seemed to quickly forgive him for cutting her ear with scissors two years ago. (Just a snip, not a lop.)

I did notice that she had become more solitary over the last few weeks. There were times when I would notice that I hadn’t seen her all day and I would have to call her until she would eventually come trotting out of the basement or from somewhere upstairs, like a happy, yet confused, puppy.

She was happy, gentle (except for the occasional times she would strike out at Chooch, and rightfully so); a perpetual kitten who was dopey, ditzy and quick to win over even the staunchest of cat haters. She is my first “I’m an adult & living on my own” pet to die and I’m not handling it very well. Kind of just want to drink a lot and stab a hooker.

I wish I could be like Henry and not care, but I’m afraid the trucker-creep moustache comes with that package.

This sucks. Fuck today. Pornament Party officially canceled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carol taught us that there are three classes of relics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So fucking creepy.

Father Mollinger, you guys!

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

I’m trying to post as much as I can while everything is still fresh in my mind, but so much awesome (and sweat-shoppish) stuff happened today that I’m ready to fall asleep as I type this. So this will be the condensed version for now.

We started the day by eating the best waffle ever at Waffalonia in Squirrel Hill. Seriously, Eggos can get fucked.

I’m a total waffle snob now. I don’t care how great your waffle iron is.

After that, we had to try to get from Squirrel Hill to Troy Hill to take a tour of the relics at Saint Anthony’s. I tried to call Henry to see what directions on their website we should follow, but he wouldn’t answer. This was after Andrea begged me not to call him. “He’s going to be so pissed,” she said. Earlier, Henry had said, “You and Andrea both have iPhones, so don’t even call me for directions.”

Yeah right.

So I texted him a succinct yet effective “911.”

He immediately called me back.

“Andrea made me call you. Are we west or east from Troy Hill,” I asked while Andrea was in the background mouthing off emphatically about how anti-calling him she was.

Apparently Henry had gotten out of line at the post office to call me back and it was all crowded because it was lunchtime. I was totally his favorite person after that, as you can imagine. He wasn’t mentally driving an icepick through my neck at all.

He told me what direction the city was and then hung up. We drove on the highway in the rain while listening to my Roller Skating Birthday Mix that I so fortuitously found in the glove compartment that morning. (When I picked Andrea up at her hotel, she had perfect Billy Ocean timing.)

“Shit, is this T’Pau?” Andrea asked, and I’m pretty sure there was a slight undertone of disgust and disappointment.

But we made it without getting lost! Andrea would occasionally spout off Supportive Friend catch phrases like:

“You’re doing such a good job!”
and
“Look at you, not picking up any hitch hikers!”

Troy Hill is apparently easy to get to. Who knew.

Saint Anthony’s was so amazing that it needs its own entry. It was a lot to take in, totally life-changing, and only served to exacerbate my newfound Saint Rita worship.

We also CRAFTED tonight. Can you imagine? Me? Crafting? Well, it happened. I’ll be posting my friend Brandy’s tutorial for a DIY voodoo Santa doll, and then later I’ll tell you about my trials & tribulations with following instructions and using a glue gun. Thank god Andrea was here.

Apparently, Andrea had such a smashing time in Pittsburgh last September that she decided to come back for an entire week this time!

I tried to go easy on her for her first day, so we spent a low key afternoon at my house, watching the Penguins 2009 Stanley Cup CHAMPIONS DVD (it totally won her over and she was crying into her Free Weezy t-shirt by the time—spoiler alert—they won the Cup in Game 7; Fleury is her favorite, in case anyone wants to send her trade her Pens memorabilia for My Pretty Zombie eye shadow), being terrorized by a mop-headed 5-year-old, and talking about apples.

I even gave her a slice of my Jonagold and she was like, “Did that really just happen?” When Henry found out later, he was absolutely bowled over. “She almost ripped my head off last night when she thought I was going to take her apple when all I was doing was moving a slice that was about to fall off the plate,” Henry confided in her and I could tell he was reliving the moment because he instinctively crossed his legs to protect his ballsack.

Seriously, I went so berserk on him last night in the kitchen that I even surprised myself. He’s lucky I only know how to cut my apples with one of those coring devices, otherwise it’d have been a sharp blade in my hands, ready to core his apple.

Ain’t no one be touching my apple, unless they’re Johnny fucking Appleseed and we’re filming orchard porn.

Later, Andrea had the pleasure of meeting one of Brookline’s savory half-schizo residents, who invited her to take in a performance of a barbershop quartet at the library. These are things that can happen if you stand on my front porch for longer than 2 minutes.

Long live Brookline.

(OMG she caught a glimpse of Hot Naybor Chris, too, who was in the driveway working on his muscle van. She was wowed by his hunky 80s ‘stache and could totally see why Henry would man-crush on him, for sure.)

Then Henry’s mom came over to watch Chooch while Andrea, Henry and I went to Primanti’s with my friends Rick, Tammy and the Castle Blood crew: Ricky, Chris and Kari. I only wish Dawn had been there too. Stupid Canada.

Through Andrea, I have become Facebook friends with this awesome mask creator and all around Halloween guru, Chuck. Turns out Chuck is some kind of Henry advocate and told Andrea he wants his autograph. This of course made modest Henry laugh bashfully, yet puff out his chest and rub his forearms like he’s wont to do when his masculinity has been boosted. (As you can imagine, this doesn’t happen very often.)

But then it occurred to me that Ricky probably knows him, being a fixture in the haunt industry. He does indeed, so I immediately made him pose for a picture with Henry, just to make Chuck’s head explode.

Wish you were here, Chuck! :( I’ll get you that autograph!

Rick’s new mission is getting me to eat meat again. He even suggested planning a huge party around it, like a true flesh-eating zombie party. At this point, the whole table was staring at me making me internally scream SPOTLIGHT! ABORT! ABORT!, and I had slammed back one whole Woodchuck on a stomach filled with one lone apple (and not even a whole apple thanks to Andrea guilting a slice off me) so I kept laying my head down on the table in an effort to create a
makeshift panic room; even after I (too quickly) devoured my cheese sandwich, I still felt completely giddy and immature. And Andrea was the one worried about being awkward.

“You’re a hot mess,” Andrea said, with a silent but implied “tsk tsk.” God, she’s here one day and she’s judging me! Thank god some waitress dropped a wad of sour cream, complete with all the nacho garnishes, on the floor next to Andrea, so she spent the rest of the time judging that chick & every Primanti’s employee who subsequently stepped over the slop while pointedly ignoring its presence.

It was a really big deal when some poor lackey finally came over and mopped it up. I thought Andrea was going to for sure give him a standing ovation.

Somewhere during all this, Andrea made disparaging remarks about Jonny Craig, Tammy made us think she killed a pet snake, and Henry prayed someone would ask him about the SERVICE.

Afterward, we all went back to Rick and Tammy’s to watch the hockey game. Chris and Kari stopped at Eat n Park and picked up some dessert. I was really considering having some apple pie, but now that I’m such an apple purist, I couldn’t bear to imagine an apple covered in all that non-apple stuff. I’ll just go home and eat a Jonagold, I said in the car, and apparently this was funny to Henry and Andrea, which offends me considering apple is my new religion.

(Oh my god, I just remembered my fake last name is Appledale! It’s all coming together. Please send me apple paraphernalia for Christmas.)

Thank you to my super cool friends for being so sweet and accommodating to my other super cool friend, Andrea. She will probably appreciate it even more by mid-afternoon tomorrow, after I’ve been dragging her around the flea market, throwing temper tantrums over Christmas trees and bending her (and Henry) to my will.

Barb and I found out recently that our co-worker Bob is dating some broad from Morocco, but we’re not supposed to know that Bob is dating some broad from Morocco which means we can’t outright ask him about it because then he’ll know we know when we’re not supposed to know.

So we have been thinking of ways to bring it up in conversation, when I realized, “Holy fuck! Let’s just talk about my Moroccan souvenir bracelet that I just got from the flea market!”

And that is just what we attempted to do earlier this evening, except that Bob wasn’t paying attention when Barb loudly exclaimed, “OH WOW IS THAT A PRETTY BRACELET WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?” to which I giddily replied, “WHY IT IS A MOROCCAN SOUVENIR BRACELET. FROM MOROCCO.” And then I had to turn and face the wall to hide the fact that I was laughing.

Nothing. Not even a slight twitch indicating that he heard us.

But because I hatch plans like Michelle Duggar hatches flesh-suits for her Biblical name collection, I wasn’t deterred. One of the reasons I was at Barb’s desk in the first place was because I had brought an unmarked apple to work with me. The sticker must had fallen off en route.

Side Note: I am keeping a log of all the different apples I eat because that is what obsessed people do, and probably also people who murder their mother and use the corpse as a body pillow. Henry has been trying to purchase different hybrids of apples each time he goes food shopping; however, I had already eaten one of each of this last batch. So I knew that the apple in my hand was one of probably five, and not knowing wasn’t really going to affect my “research” considering I had already sampled one of its kind. Different apples really do taste different! I never would have imagined.

I thrust my right apple-clutching fist near Bob’s face and said, “Do you know what kind of apple this is?” while creating subtle wrist quakes paramount for a good bracelet-jangle.

A thing you should know about Bob: he knows pretty much everything. So my inquiry was not dismissed, yet embraced by a do-or-die mission to prove to me that he knows some shit about a goddamn apple.

He considered this thoughtfully, turned the apple in his palm, held it up the light and began spouting off some nonsense about its shine. Of course Bob would be some sort of apple dork.

“I really want to say Honeycrisp, but something about it is screaming ‘Gala’ to me. Why don’t you just eat it and find out?”

I laughed at how nonchalant this suggestion was. “I’m just learning about apples, Bob!” I said. “I’m not going to be able to tell.”

Now, I really didn’t give too much of a fuck about this apple other than the fact that it had a hot date with my mouth later that night and we were going to go all the way. But now I felt like I had to pose my quandary upon Nate as well, who sits in front of Bob, to make it seem more realistic.

Nate immediately went for his phone and typed in “What kind of apple is this?” When that produced no results, he resorted the archaic methods of just looking at it. I believe he also guessed Honeycrisp, but I can’t remember for sure.

A few minutes later, I returned to my desk to find Nate, in a thoughtful crouch, gazing intently at my apple. He retreated with slumped shoulders, unable to be the apple hero of the day. I could hear him and Bob intently discussing the apple case behind me. A veritable produce parade of apple varieties were being tossed about in serious tones.

Then Nate came back with his phone, which he held up next to the specimen to compare it to photos of other apples. Bob soon joined him with a KNIFE and I was certain he was going to snatch my apple and pare into it in a manner better reserved for Grizzly Adams. Or that Survivor Man who drinks his own piss.

Barb was just coming back from the kitchen, so she stopped to watch Nate and Bob stroking their chins thoughtfully, knowing that this was all because of Bob not taking the bait when we loudly talked about my Moroccan bracelet. Glenn, who would rather be riding the Wacky Worm, paused to see what the fuss was about.

“Why don’t you just eat it?” he suggested in his “I’m Too Old to Understand All This Hullaballoo” tone. (Note: Henry has this same tone.)

“Because I eat my apple every night at 7pm,” I explained like that was the most natural thing in the world.

“Oh, right. Of course,” he said sarcastically while shaking his head.

Then someone asked me what the big deal was with me and apples and I said, “Oh, because I just learned that I like them.” I was met with no less than three blank stares, so I elaborated that it was mostly because I just learned to cut them.

Bob was incredulous at this point. “You don’t need to cut apples to eat them!” he exclaimed.

“You do when you don’t like to bite into them,” I said. Glenn was giving me one of those Henry Looks so I said, “I have fears, OK?”

“There’s a lot of issues going on in this corner over here,” he said, waving his hands around my desk.

I resented that.

Later on, Barb sent over George, whose family has apple orchards.

“It looks like a Fuji,” he said and looked at me with an ‘Am I Right?’ smirk. At his desk, I heard Nate say, “Ooh, that’s the first time Fuji came up!”

I sat in silence for a few seconds before realizing that George thought this was some type of afternoon work quiz and was looking for his prize.

“Oh, I have no idea what kind it is.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how you acquired this apple?” he asked slowly, with a hearty dose of skepticism.

“Oh. Some store, I guess. Henry does all that grocery store stuff.”

“You know, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was a Pink Lady,” George said, before walking away. Final answer?

Apple o’clock has come and gone and I have since eaten our little anonymous John Doe. At first I was like, “Oh this is not pleasing.” But then by the second slice, I was all, “Wait. This is good.” It was crisp, which I actually do not like, and slightly tart with a strangely familiar, sweet aftertaste. My produce palate is about as refined as Flava Flav so that’s really the best I can do. Does that help?

Maybe pictures will. It has to be one of these type:

Gala, Pink Lady, Honeycrisp, Ambrosia, Jazzy (Jazzies?), Cameo. Whatever it was, I want another.

EDIT!! HOLD UP! I got in The car after work and was excitedly telling Henry about the night’s events. Before I even got a few sentences into it, he interrupted and said, “It’s an Ambrosia. Chooch took the sticker off but I made sure I checked first.” Oddly, another co-worker, Aaron, was telling me earlier that he recently ate an Ambrosia and it was the only apple he’s ever disliked. He said it had a soapy bite to it and now suddenly all I can taste in my throat is something akin to goddamn Palmolive. Sonofabitch.

Game over. Everyone loses.

I love when I split entries into parts and then wait over a week to finish it. That doesn’t fuck with the flow at all. It has taken me approximately two weeks to bang this out and I don’t care about typos at this point.

TerrorTown
I always get a little skeptical when new haunted houses pop up in the city. Oftentimes they end up being huge, overpriced, crowded clusterfucks that become nothing more than a bad memory after one season.

However, the idea of it being located in a basement with known paranormal activity in the Strip District did wonders to sway me. Laura and I got there as soon as it opened, and played it safe by choosing a Sunday night. As I suspected, there were very few people in line, but technical difficulties prevented us from entering the building until well after 7:00.

Once inside, we were immediately ushered downstairs into the basement of a very cold, industrial space which at one time housed a grocery store. We paid our way in and then wended through the rope-lined queue where we wound up standing in anticipation for another 20-30 minutes. The waiting area alone had us creeped out: it was illuminated in corners with red lights and a soundtrack of metal scraping and gears grinding loudly drowned out the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake which was playing on a screen at the front of the line.

Unlike Cheeseman’s, no one wanted to talk to us in this line. In fact, the young couple behind us kept no less than five feet between us at all times. I was kind of offended. But mostly relieved. When we got to the front of the line, however, the lady working the door gave us the 411 on the history of the space, which for real has been proven to be haunted. There used to be a paintball place on one of the upper floors of the building, and employees had reported sightings. The door lady told us that the actors of TerrorTown had been seeing a 10-year-old boy who had died down there years ago.

When it was finally our turn, we were sent inside the doors with the young couple in front of us, where we were then sequestered in a room and berated by a crazy-eyed funeral director.

He let the couple go and made Laura and me stay for some more ear-beatings and I thought I was going to have a stroke. We were then given permission to leave, but she and I were on our own after that and it was fucking scary. I kept imagining in my head that I was going to see that 10-year-old boy ghost and wind up spending the rest of my days in a rocking chair, listening to Katy Perry.

I almost don’t want to write about TerrorTown because I know in my heart my words will never do it justice. I go to a lot of haunted houses. The majority of them are hit or miss. But this one was near-perfection. It was literally like taking a schizophrenic tour through the underbelly of Pittsburgh, where the resident bottom feeders were free to antagonize us and scream in our faces. There was a contortionist dressed as a babydoll in a room that was essentially a landfill of flea market toys; there was a clown hanging out in a living room with Christmas lights (the thick bulbs that I love!) strewn haphazardly and stacks of static-screened TVs lighting up one wall.

It was like walking through the inside of my head and Laura often had to pull me out of each room because I couldn’t stop looking around all wide-eyed and whispering, “Whoa.” It was a creepy picture-taker’s wet dream, OK?

Numerous times we were taken off guard, nothing was predictable. The scares were intense, there were lots of moments that even left us laughing, and those actors were fucking legit. This was one of those places that didn’t need to rely on a chainsaw guy to evoke pee dribbles.

$17 and well worth it. They held us hostage in their twisted underworld of degenerates for at least 30 minutes and it was just a real visual feast. Well executed, scary, fun and I hope it returns next year!

Demon House

Regardless of the haunted house, this night was exciting because it was the first time my brother Corey, my sister Amy, and me were all together. Kind of a long story, but my mom had given Amy up for adoption when she was born and then found her again in 1998 I think it was. I never met her back then, but Corey did. Then Amy found me on her own two years ago and I’m glad she did because she’s an awesome sister and not like our mom at all. (Lucky for her!) Anyway, we all brought our respective date-people with us and it was a grand ol’ time. (Henry was a game time decision.)

As we were walking to the ticket booth, I was filling in Amy and her boyfriend Dick about what they could expect from this particular haunt.

“And the best part is, they give your group a number and then you’re free to mill about or sit by a bonfire, so there are no lines to wait in…

” I said on my know-it-all tone right before we stopped to STAND IN A LINE to buy our tickets. “…except for this line we’re waiting in.”

Because I’m used to being a sort of conversation conductor, I urged Corey to tell Amy about his latest bout with color blinded. I wasn’t even finished suggesting it when he and his girlfriend Danielle began to laugh and shared knowing smirks.

“We were taking bets on how long it would take you to bring that up,” Danielle laughed, I guess because I’m OBSESSED with this story.

Then we got to hang out by a fire while we waited for our number to be called, and I was harrassed by a man wearing a burlap sack over his head. I kind of had a crush on him. It was his heavy breathing that did it for me.

Demon House was decent this year however I was a little angry at one point during the first leg, which is outside and built to mimic a mine shaft. One of the miners was pretty rude and normally that’s part of the schtick, but this guy I think was just rude in real life. He yelled at me for standing too close but I didn’t know where else to go and then I pouted about that for awhile.

Before we got to the actual house, there was a chainsaw guy. I didn’t actually see him, but I heard him and that was enough to send me sprinting ahead of the pack. I made it to the front door of the house and then had to wait alone while the rest of my group calmly walked up the path like sane people.

When Demon House first started about six years ago, I thought their resemblance to Castle Blood was uncanny. I have since learned that it was no coincidence, that they were literally sending people to Castle Blood with video cameras and more or less doing everything in their power to ruin Castle Blood. They have since abandoned the interactive portion of the experience that they so desperately wanted to do better than Castle Blood, and I did have a decent time within the walls (the decor is really good and there are some creepy moments) but knowing what I know now, I won’t be giving them my money in the future.

But the important thing is that I got to hang with my sibs. And we got ride a short bus to and from the parking lot!

Screams

This piece of shit bullshit of a haunt is the biggest waste of money. Last year it was called Hobb’s Manor. So basically they changed the name to trick poor assholes into spending $12 to be completely underwhelmed by a bunch of indifferent teenagers in masks. Also, Laura and I spent longer than it took us to walk through sitting in my car just waiting for the assholes to get their shit together and open the doors.

After that, it took us approximately 10 minutes to walk, not run, through.

And then right outside the exit door, the chainsaw dick made me slip and fall in the muddy lawn.

I was displeased. We should have just went back to TerrorTown. I’m adding these assholes to the Blacklist with Demon House and Scarehouse, which is the haunt that made me start the Blacklist in the first place.

Dormont Dungeon
After getting ripped off at Screams, Laura and I came back to my hood and spent $5 to walk through a tennis court covered with black tarp and garbage bags ad inhabited by a bunch of middle school kids who put more moxie and vigor in their performance than any of those apathetic teens sullying the name of haunted houses.

I was especially enchanted with the little chainsaw boy who chased us through a laundry-line strung tennis court at the end. Laura and I were laughing so hard we were crying.

And THAT is the sign of a fun haunted house.