There was no late shift at work today; freebie for me!

It was nice to actually be home for dinner and I demanded Mexican food.

Mustachioed.

Pouting. When we left the house, he fell down the driveway.

Every day, I cry out DON’T RUN DOWN THE DRIVEWAY! in vail. He totally bit it today, scraped his knee, and is basically acting like he needs an organ transplant now. I have no idea where he gets this melodrama.

My new favorite Henry picture.

And now we’re listening to Dance Gavin Dance all the way home.

The pins have arrived! Chooch and I are squealing like little school bitches! They look so good I can hardly stand it! Thank you, Andrea!

And just to clarify: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does anyone want one? I was thinking $1.50 for each (to compensate postage & Henry’s grief), + I’ll toss in some extra art cards, etc I have for my Etsy shops. (I feel like such a sellout.) I was going to list them on Etsy but it seems stupid to have to deal with listing fees on such a small product, so perhaps directly through PayPal? My email address on there is erinr.kelly@gmail.com. Just let me know which one you want!

Chooch buttons coming soon!

(Oh, and speaking of Henry: I have a new interview with him coming later today.)

[Ed. Note: Today’s “Best of 2011 Repost” is from the Fayette County Fair, where I spent my 32nd birthday in July. I want to say it was a fabulous day, but the truth is that only parts of it were fabulous; still, it was enough to be one of my favorite days of the year and it makes me smile sinisterly every time I go back and read it. Apologies to the people who are annoyed that I am reposting shit they already read. Let me live a little, will ya.]

Spending a birthday at the county fair seems like a great idea on paper: gut-churning rides, complimentary (if not downright sleazy) carnies, fried desserts (calorie counts are nil on birthdays, everyone knows that), the cacophony of laughing children and tractor pulls (forgetting for a moment that I hate children and anything with even the slightest redneck-tilt).

Yes, a perfect day!

But then you add in Henry, whose face threatens to crack a million different ways if even the slightest hint of a smile creeps upon his lips; Blake, who is apparently an 80-year-old retiree in an 18-year-old’s body, adverse to sunlight and complaining of back pain and lethargy all day; Chooch, who is a little motherfucking birthday killer-in-training who makes the day all about HIM HIM HIM; and Janna, who won’t ride anything aside from a carousel and a 20-second-long Haunted Mansion ride that Henry’s SAT score out-scares.

Not to mention the fact that these assholes weren’t constantly fawning over me and winning me plush Family Guy characters. IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY, NEED I REMIND YOU.

Blake and his new friends, planning their upcoming move to Florida.

Awkward Standing.

At first glance, I was like, “Aw shit, this fair might be pretty good.” I mean, it was run by Powers Great American Midway, after all, and I am obsessed with them. However, it was only about half the size of the Big Butler Fair, and I’ll tell you: That fair can spoil a bitch. Power’s light blue unit brought along some choice rides. (Is it sad that I know which “unit” PGAM deployed to the Fayette County fairgrounds? Maybe I look at their website too much.) And I saw lots of familiar carny faces, one of which was Kirk’s! I didn’t talk to him, though. What’s the point when my lame non-carny boyfriend was glued to my side all day?

But the layout of the fair sucked. And it was super muddy and smelled like sewage, but that was probably because Henry kept standing so close to me. Still: 100% better than the shitty Washington County Fair. (I go to county fairs a lot. It’s kind of become A Thing.)

You know you go to a lot of fairs when you start to recognize carnies, is all I’m sayin’.

Blake: Jeepers, it’s so hot! I think I’m dying! And I left my cane at the home and missed my 3:00pm dinner! I wonder if Dad has any individually-wrapped prunes in his pocket before I pass out.

Thank God Lisa and her husband Matt met us out there a few hours after we arrived. They joined us in standing around awkwardly, which is something that people need to master before even attempting to hang out with me. (I suggest going to a crowded store and standing right in front of a doorway or at the top of an escalator for practice. Do not move when you find that you are blocking foot traffic, and ignore the scowls you inspire. Only then can we hang out.) Lisa was in a really good mood and I like to think it’s because she knows how delicate of a situation my birthday is, like the entire premise of Speed, with less bus more birthday cake, but actually Lisa is always pretty chill and somehow wasn’t completely put off by the foul moods of my companions who need to be reminded that SOME PEOPLE AREN’T LUCKY ENOUGH TO GET TO GO TO THE FAIR.

Fuck!

Within minutes, Chooch claimed Matt and I’m sure everyone at the fair assumed they were father and son after that. I’m sorry, Matt. But Henry and I were relieved to be off the hook for awhile.

***

A week before the fair, I was on the phone with Lisa.

“I hope the fair is a good one,” she said thoughtfully.

“Um, Lisa? Of course it will be. It’s run by Powers Great American Midways,” I informed her haughtily.

“I don’t know what that means.”

THAT’S BECAUSE SOMEONE DOESN’T READ MY BLOG.

***

Lisa and Matt agreed to ride the Orbiter with me immediately after they arrived. I was SO EXCITED. Finally! I get to ride something moderately extreme! But then we got in line and I saw it said “No single riders” and those asshole words are ALWAYS BEING SNEERED AT ME at fairs because I am perpetually single in this world of grinding traps of pleasure (amusement rides, not vagina dentata). I looked at Janna who had accompanied us to the line and she said no before I even asked her. Way to tag along on something you’re not a part of, then Janna! So I had to run over to Henry and Blake, who had combined to form a Dildo-ic Duo while Chooch rode some stupid train operated by Kirk.

I hadn’t even approached them yet and I was already absolutely wailing about how Janna ruined my life and wouldn’t ride with me and Blake, while I was still approaching them mid-run, said no. Henry, however, said: “Fine.”

“What?” I asked in surprise.

“I said fine,” he sighed.

I guess he was trying to make up for the fact that he failed epically in the birthday present department once again. (Seriously, he got me a shirt that I already have, which proves that he doesn’t look at me. Ever.) This was the SECOND ride he rode on! (We rode on the Swings when we first got there. They made him sick.)

Oh, I was so happy! And the best part was that it took so long for the ride to get loaded to capacity, that Henry and I had plenty of time to talk about Jonny Craig!

Henry bitched about the Oribiter for the rest of his time at the fair. “I have cold sweats,” he kept complaining, though I’m not sure to whom because last time I checked, his mommy didn’t come with us and she’s the only person who gives a shit about him. He didn’t ride anything else after that, though I kept trying to con him into being my partner on the Skydiver, since it’s less commitment that being my partner for life. He kept saying, “We’ll see,” which everyone knows means NO.

After Chooch and Matt, Lisa, Janna and I had our turn at sliding down the Fun Slide, which I hadn’t done since I was a kid and good goddamn is that scary. Ascending the steps alone made me clutch my heart. I felt like there was going to be a religious cult waiting at the top to push me back down the steps into God’s eternal arms. It was like walking into the hospital on D-Day and wanting to run back out the doors but having 3 nurses pull you back in because “that baby’s gotta come out one way or another, sweetheart!” Longest climb of my life.

“I’m scared,” I told the Mexican carny who smiled, probably assuming I said, “Let’s go fuck behind that lemon cart you pushed across the border.” What? The Pennsylvania border, you guys.

Lisa thought it was the funnest thing at the fair, Janna had no comment, and I was just glad I didn’t slide through piss, shit, vomit, a chewed-up wad of Skoal or semen. And by “it,” I mean the Fun Slide, not Mexican carny sex. I know you were probably confused.

Things took a turn for the worse when I decided I was ready to eat something and made everyone halt and bow to my whims. I ended up getting a small bowl of haluski, which seemed like an OK choice as far as keeping my stomach lining primed and at the ready for vigorous riding. (And yes, finally I’m talking about sex!) Besides, it was either that or throw away 16 years of vegetarianism for some unidentifiable meat on a stick. There was some lame square dance bullshit happening inside the 4H building, so we all sat around and pretended to care about that while I ate. (Lisa really did care, though. She likes the simpler things in life.) This was about the time Chooch turned into the biggest prick of all the fair, and Blake did nothing but antagonize him which only increased Chooch’s crowd-drawing by 500%.

I attempted to not look like I belonged to the two of them by focusing my attention on the asshole inside the 4H building who was singing the most ridiculous square dance songs for these idiotic plaid-tastic children to clomp around to. I almost wished he had CDs for sale so I could buy one and break it in front of his face. God, get fucked with your pathetic farm melodies, douchebag square dance warbler.

In the middle of the Chooch & Blake: American Assholes show, there was an older lady sitting nearby (the blond Peg Bundy in the background of the above picture) who said about Chooch, “Boy he sure is cute” but what she meant to say was, “Damn, child. Your mama needs to put you in a cage because you are acting like one hell of a mother fucker.” And then to me, she said, “We just ate some fried Oreos for dessert. Boy they sure were good!” and what she meant by that was, “Bitch, why don’t you go to the other side of the fairgrounds, far away from me, and choke your bastard child on some fried Oreos, because he is being one hell of a mother fucker.”

Chooch flipped over a chair in response while I pretended that Janna was his mom.

The square dance brigade had some young child canvassing the area with literature. He approached me with his stack of white and green papers and said, “Would you like one, they’re free?”

“I want a green one,” I said with just the right drop of bitchy entitlement. He looked slightly stunned, like no one had ever bothered to make a color request before. While he shuffled through the stack in search of a green one, I said smugly, “It’s my birthday.”

Lisa and Janna were watching this pan out. Lisa looked mildly amused and Janna looked like she was bracing herself for the ‘splaining she was going to have to do to the kid’s mom by the time I was done antagonizing him. This is just how I talk to children: in a very demeaning, ironic way. They seem to like it.

Meanwhile, the guy who was inside singing the square dance “songs” promised “this next one” would “speed up.”

“You should join our square dance group!” He sounded nervous, slightly intimidated by me. Just how I like boys to be.

“I’ll think about it,” I said, as I folded up the paper. (The age limit is 20, by the way. THAT KID RULES FOR THINKING I’M NOT OLDER THAN 20.)

“This next one” still hadn’t “sped up.”

“Dylan!” a lady called from inside the 4H house. “Come dance to this last song!” Sure, maybe there was some plaid lass inside who missed being partnered-up with Dylan, but I have suspicions that this lady just didn’t want him near me anymore.

“Yeah!” I yelled in my best “I’m riding the Wacky Worm, motherfuckers!” impression and when he looked at me all startled-like, I gave him a thumbs-up and said, “Do it! Wooo!”

Lisa hadn’t heard the lady call for him in the first place, and admitted later that she thought I was just spontaneously excited, though she was confused why I was telling some young boy to “do it.”

Then I called Dylan my “new son” and Chooch got all upset. I win at parenting.

I have no recollection of Henry being anywhere near us that whole time.

Oh apparently he was off supporting his cocaine habit.

I told Dylan I was going to watch him, but that was actually the time we rose up as a group and went to the petting zoo. Fucking with children is the one true talent your God gave me.

Here is all I remember about the petting zoo: I relayed my birthday woes to a camel and then Chooch fell in a pig sty and Henry had to take him and Blake home.

Coincidentally, my night really picked up after that! Janna bought me root beer in a tin mug from an old broad who tried too hard to sway our decisions and Lisa and I rode the Gravitron with the cast of Jersey Shore. It was fabulous!

Lisa encourages me to take pictures of every little thing she does. She’s like Chooch, but grown.

The only downside to the Fair: After Hours (read: After the Douches Left) was that neither Lisa nor Matt would ride the Zipper with me. I was only able to ride it once, earlier in the day before Blake’s desire to drink a glass of Metamucil and take a nap got the best of him. We talked a little bit about music while trapped inside the Zipper’s jaws, but I could tell he wasn’t having too much fun.

Everyone is growing up but me.

Janna, Lisa and I rode this moderate thrill ride called the Tornado, which is pretty tame but Janna was still clutching her rosary and trying not to re-eat her haluski while Lisa manually spun our car around on top of giving Janna dating advice. My favorite part was when the ride ended and Lisa’s safety bar didn’t release. She pulled it toward her, hoping it would spring back, but it only made it tighter. I fetched the carny and then ran away to stand outside of the ride’s gate by Matt, who had been relegated to little more than a Purse Tree at that point.

The carny gave Lisa a hard time for awhile before manually releasing the bar for her. As she and Janna approached Matt and me, Lisa yelled, “And I love how Erin just ran away!”

Behind her, looking a gorgeous shade of gangrene from her jaunt on the Tornado, Janna irritably mumbled, “Yeah. She does that.” Possibly Janna’s way of suggesting that Lisa spends more time with me.

Janna bought* me a birthday ice cream cone from a girl who had been punched in the eye. Lisa opted for more scatastically phallic fare. Then we said goodbye to the fair and immediately upon leaving the parking lot, Janna’s GPS lured us out onto un-lit backwoods lanes and I’m not going to lie: It was scarier than riding the Zipper in a lightning storm with the cage unlatched. This was after Janna got raped by a bug.

(* This mostly happened because when Henry left the fair, so did my money.)

Happy fucking birthday to me, to me, to me.

We had Christmas dinner at Laura and Mike’s, after getting spoiled with presents. One of the gifts Laura got us is a set of these dark wine-colored velvet drapes. Henry was especially thrilled by this because he’s spent the last 10 years living in a house that has pink see-thru curtains on the front window. (My house, my choice!)

Henry, thinking of how he’ll be able to prance around in his underwear now without those pesky Mormon missionaries seeing him from the sidewalk.

So many new rings!

Root beer float, made totally with vodka. Laura likes getting me drunk and watching Henry frown.

No one wanted to read the directions, so this game was put back into the box just as fast as it was brought out.

Malachi came with us! (Yes, he’s named after Malachi from “Children of the Corn,” and yes, he’s a boy.)

Speaking of corn, Mike made the most glorious creamed corn I have ever had in my life. It had GOUDA in it.

Apparently, when I get drunk, I try and breastfeed dolls.

It was a really great evening, but Chooch was really wound up and even though Laura assured us that he wasn’t bothering them, his behavior was embarrassing to us, so we brought him home and then searched the house for the wolves that raised him.

When I first saw this gargantuan Christmas bulb outside of our building, I thought, “Fuck, I hate Christmas.” But apparently when Nate saw it, he thought, “Fuck, I love Indiana Jones.

” So per his request, Sandy facilitated a quick photoshoot yesterday at work featuring Nate as Indiana Jones and Sean as an evil elf. I was told to show up with my camera, so I did.

These are just some of the things we do in lieu of working.

I wasn’t back at my desk for more than 5 minutes before one of my co-workers came over and said that she was surprised security didn’t chase us away because only “firm-approved” people are permitted to take pictures out there.

Thank god Nate made me a post-it badge that says “The Law Firm-approved Photog” under my name. TRY AND STOP ME NOW.

[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.

The day after Christmas, we visited Speck’s grave. Of course, none of the roadside places selling grave wreaths were open, so Henry had to run into a grocery store and grab some cut flowers, which is a no-no in cemeteries between November & March, but it would feel weird if we actually did things the proper way.

It made me feel better to have something on her grave, but my god did I cry a lot.

Merry Christmas, Speck. :(

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?

We went back to Union Dale yesterday, this time with a fully charged camera battery (apparently our spare is dead forever) and I had a moderate level of success this time.

I was still a big pouty bitch and yelled at Henry a lot because obviously it’s his fault that I am an amateur photographer. (Blame Henry 2012 pins coming soon!

) I am mostly satisfied with the results and now willing to admit that perhaps I need the Xanax hookup.

We went to Henry’s sister’s house tonight for some post-Christmas revelry. I specifically requested that we pick their mom up on the way because Judy has the best, oft-nonsensical stories.

A series of conversation twists had us talking about strip clubs, primarily a now-defunct club outside of Pittsburgh that not only had a swimming pool, but offered drive-thru services.

We kept pumping Henry for more insight, and he said, “I was never there!”

“Yeah right!” Kelly and I exclaimed in tandem.

“Well, not the drive-thru part!”

Judy was being unnaturally quiet during all of this, and with a thoughtful look on her face, she said, “One time I was in a backseat with another girl—”

Right away, we all got quiet.

“Mom, do I need to be drinking for this?” Kelly asked apprehensively.

“—-and the guys put a blanket over our faces so we wouldn’t see where they were taking us.”

Kelly, Henry and I all exchanged looks, unsure of what direction this was going.

“They took us somewhere in McKeesport—”

“To a strip club?” Kelly guessed.

“No, to an alley,” Judy corrected. “They were driving us down alleys.”

We were all laughing, but with more trepidation than mirth.

“For what?” Henry asked, totally perplexed.

“They were knocking on doors,” Judy calmly added.

“For drugs?” Kelly asked, horrified.

“Whores!” Judy shouted, like she couldn’t imagine why this was so hard to figure out. I nearly gave myself a migraine from laughing so hard.

“When was this?!” Henry asked in the high-pitched tone of a son disappointed in his mother.

“I don’t know, let me see. The 60s, no the 50s. The 60s. No, definitely the early 70s.”

“Oh my god, I was alive when you were knocking on doors for whores in alleys?!” Henry shouted.

“I mean, the 50s!” Judy cried, but she was laughing too hard for her retraction to be taken seriously.

During the course of the night, I also learned that Christmas in the 70s entailed Judy stomping on presents and then catching herself on fire. God love her. If only I could get her to guest post on here. Imagine all the Henry dirt she could share!

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. Here is the card I made that hopefully is now safe to post on here. It’s a smorgasbord of shit that pops up on the blog.

In no particular order: Wacky Worm, Law Firm Lamb Cake, Ugly Dancer, Warped Tour*, cemetery shout out*, rollerskating, best/worst picture of me + deodorant commercial guy, bait shop, ghost hunting, pig mask, JONNY CRAIG. I sent this card to some people who don’t read my blog and I’m sure they were thoroughly confused. Maybe you are too, which is why there are handy hyperlinks to click. (* Do I seriously need to explain these ones, though?)

I already had the first batch sealed in envelopes and ready to go, and then Speck died. I felt so guilty that Marcy was on the card, and not her, that I made Henry print out stickers with her face on it, then I ripped open every envelope and added her to the cards. For the second batch, I had him photoshop her into it because it was breaking my heart to look at her every time I peeled off a sticker. (For the record, that is the ONLY part of this card that Henry contributed to.)

And now, thanks to the suggestion of my friend Octavia, a larger version of the Jonny Craig angel has been printed out, taped to a straw, and shoved down onto the top of our tree. It’s glorious!

Andrea said her favorite part is how I’m protectively clutching Chooch’s arm, because that would never happen in real life. This is so true!

Thank god Christmas is done-zo for another year.

Finally, a reason to use the real camera! Not that I need a “reason,” but I’ve got to say, taking pictures with my iPhone and then uploading them straight to WordPress has really turned me into a lazy ass fauxtographer.

Henry had one responsibility all day: charge the camera batteries. Well, he did. Except the one is apparently dead forever and the other one he LEFT AT HOME. I managed to take maybe 3 pictures before the camera died and it was back to fauxtography for me. (Insert lots of screaming, swearing, crying and THIS IS THE WORST XMAS EVERing in between all of that though.)

Creepy Doll came with us. I haven’t officially named him, though I HAVE been calling him Buddy a lot. I thought it would be cute to recreate these two pictures from 2007:

Maybe that can happen when I go back with my real camera.

Every Christmas I say, “Next year’s picnic will be better, we’ll plan ahead and make it good.” And then a year goes by and there we are, snatching bags of chips and stale processed baked “goods” off the shelves of CoGo’s, just like the year before. I guess it’s part of the tradition, eating convenience store crap in the cemetery. This year, they were out of egg nog though. Fuck!

As soon as we got out of the car, this wicked gust of wind kicked up out of nowhere and we were fighting to walk through it. It was actually pretty intimidating and I kept telling Henry that I felt it was pure evil and he was sort of giving me this look that read, “What? It doesn’t feel like you at all. It’s much warmer.” It’s weird how some days I can go to the cemetery and carry on my business (gutting hobos to sell to the bait shop) like nothing, but then other days I feel decidedly unwelcome. We wrapped up quickly and split.

I mean, I’m sure Creepy Buddy had nothing to do with it.

Take Two happens today.

Christmas morning went way better than Christmas Eve, although we did at least get to see my dad and my brother Corey for a hot second.

And Chooch randomly found one of my weener drawings on my phone and we had a wrestling match as he tried desperately to show my dad. It was so embarrassing. I was able to wrench the phone from him but couldn’t stop him from telling my dad, “MOMMY DRAWS PICTURES OF WEENERS ON PEOPLE!!

” I deserve that, I know. This was right after my dad exclaimed, “ARE THOSE TATTOOS ON YOUR FINGERS? LIKE, PERMANENT?” He was probably thanking Baby Jesus for sure that I’m not his real daughter.

My dad is very old school. Henry got him a case of Faygo vanilla cream soda IN BOTTLES and he almost had a nostalgia coronary. And he thought the tiny donuts we brought over were like the best things since Cow Tails.

Corey got Chooch a very Chooch-esque hat:

I remember the days when Chooch was a baby and Corey used to hold him out and far away from his body like he was a swaddled bomb.

Barb hooks up Chooch, too:

It was bittersweet watching Chooch unwrap all his gifts this morning without Speck attacking the wrapping paper scraps. Marcy was lurking around, casting irritated and hateful glances at Chooch and me, but it didn’t make me miss Speck any less. I still can barely believe she’s not here anymore.

For as high-maintenance as my child can be (don’t know where he gets it), it’s nice to see that it’s still the little things that please him.

“OMG A NEW PACK OF MARKERS!” Seriously. I’d have knocked down a wall if someone had dared call a pack of markers a Christmas gift for me when I was that age.

Chooch really loves LMFAO. I don’t necessarily approve of this, but who am I to crush a blossoming love for music just because it’s not something I personally choose to enjoy? (Oh who am I kidding. I will needle him endlessly today.)

“You don’t have to be excited about it. They’re MY presents,” Chooch said to Henry, who apparently elicit the zealous response Chooch was seeking.

“I can’t believe Santa got me a book about BOOBS! I hope he doesn’t take it away.”

The gifting extravaganza was watched upon by our Obesitree’s new sentinel, the Jonny Craig Angel:

(That’ll teach Henry not to pitch my homemade Christmas tree toppers.)

Next up is our traditional cemetery picnic and then more Christmas revelry at Mike and Laura’s. Merry Christmas, Internet!

While out and about on the Southside, trying to get last minute shopping under our belts, we stopped at the Little Donuts Shop to get some, well, little donuts to take to my dad’s house.

“Little Donut, Big Jerk.”

The proprietor gave us generous samples and even threw in some extras. I was really pleased with the service and I’m happy to have a new tiny donut place to patronize, since the other one (Peace Love & Donuts) is run by a gay-hating bigot. (No, seriously. Don’t go there. Unless you hate gay people. Then be my guest, but let’s not be friends.)

Nothing says “Merry Xmas Eve!” like a dozen Lilliputian donuts capped with holiday sprinkles. (And hopefully a pitcher of spiked egg nog to wash it down.)