Me, calling Henry at work for the 8th time in an hour: “Henry! I have really horrible news!”

Henry, snapping to attention because I’m really good at wrapping my words with panic: “What??”

Me, choking a little bit: “It’s so horrible, I’m not sure I can even say the words.”

Henry, voice all tense and mildly agitated: “I swear to god, if this is music-related….”

Me: “JONNYCRAIGISGETTINGMARRIEDOMGWAHHHHHHHH!”

Henry, sighing: “Goodbye, Erin. I have things to do.”

Totally wearing black to work today.

Today is Chooch’s first day of 1st grade at a real school! Good riddance, Catholic bitch-moms*! Goodbye, daily heart palpitations! Sayonara, judgmental glares!

Oh. Sorry. Didn’t mean to make this all about me.

(*This is not directed at all Catholic moms. Even I am technically Catholic. Just the Catholic BITCH-moms from Chooch’s old school.

You know, the ones who follow “God’s Word” SO WELL.

Their example is the reason I consider religion to be a joke.)

Do you know how many kids came to Chooch’s birthday party last year? 4. Because those 4 kids have parents who didn’t hold my blog against Chooch. Almost no one else even RSVPd. Punish the kid for his mom’s sins. That’s awesome.

Chooch was so excited this morning.

He had orientation the other night and is thrilled to be going to a school that, oh I don’t know, looks like a school. And his little buddy from next door is in his class, so his dad suggested that we just alternate walking them both up the street to school. I am so all about that. Any day where I don’t have to put on a bra pre-8:00am is a good day.

No more tuition stress, being looked down upon, and feeling like the heathen outcast. And trust me, that was way before any of the blog drama happened, and I stand by every word I wrote that they so vehemently disagreed with – if you don’t want called out for being a dick, then don’t act like a dick. There’s a thought!

There is really nothing like a good, fresh start.

A few weeks ago, Bridget approached me with a prank proposition. The prank would be aimed at her Work Nemesis, Brad. They used to work together at another place too, so their history is rich with jovial (we think) jabs and ridicule. When Brad first began working at The Law Firm last winter, Bridget made it her job to point out his uncanny resemblance to a Leprechaun (and then proceeded to tell him to watch out, because I like gingers; ONLY JONNY CRAIG! GOD!).

Brad’s office is pretty sparse, save for five empty picture frames. People ask him all the time, “Why do you have blank picture frames in your office, Brad?” I never really listened to his explanation, but it was obvious to me that this was his ploy to suck poor, unsuspecting Law Firm staff into some boring conversation.

I think in Brad’s head, photo-less picture frames = interesting.

Bridget decided that they needed filled with terrible pictures, and she came to the right person because she has a law degree, and is therefore smart. She knows that my sole purpose for breathing is to wreck people’s days with devious shenanigans. Also, it’s pretty well-known that I ain’t got much else going on in life. I already knew that he hated clowns (I interofficed him a picture of John Wayne Gacy as an initiation to The Law Firm), but I needed to know more. Bridget said he hates yogurt and that she once chased him around with some. We also tossed around the idea of filling them with pictures of Brad’s ex-girlfiends, because Bridget is ruthless.

Bridget made me friend him on Facebook so I would have access to his photos. I mean, we all know I’m a creeper, but poring through pictures of Brad at a wedding, Brad with his girlfriend, Brad looking like Tom Hulce from “Amadeus”, Brad at another wedding made me feel super sleazy.

Still, I needed one more picture to make but I had run the clown phobia into the ground by that point; thank god he posted on Facebook last weekend about his crippling fear of horses.

Jackpot.

Of course this also inadvertently became Henry’s burden to bear, since our printer at home is broken so he had to print the final products out at work, which caused several “THESE ARE ALL WRONGGGG!” (completely civil) discussions.

Then came the arduous task of getting him out of his office long enough to fill the frames.

First, Lauren was going to take him to get coffee, but then said, “I already went to get coffee with him this morning; he’s going to think I’m hitting on him!”

Wendy was busy. I asked A-ron yesterday but he changed his mind after he saw how busy Brad was pretending to be. So I went to Chris and said, “Bridget and I need to get Brad out of his office. Please do something.” So then all of a sudden, because CHRIS asked him, A-ron was on board. Barb said she’d help me stuff the frames. Bridget was our look-out.

In the end, I think it took 5 attorneys to get one attorney out of his office.

There’s a joke in there somewhere.

A-ron called Brad and asked him to come to his office, which is only right around the corner, so we knew we had to make this fast. That and the fact that A-ron called me and said, “Make this fast.”

I watched Brad start to walk down the hall, then he changed his mind and went back into his office. However, Barb didn’t see him go back and nearly barged right into his office until she saw me frantically signaling that he was still in there. God, way to go BARB.

(I’ll be kind to Barb and not tell the story of how she completely ruined a prank that Lee set in motion two weeks ago, also involving Brad. But just so you know, SHE COMPLETELY RUINED IT.)

Finally, it was a go. We worked so fast that I bent a nail back AND cut myself on one of the stupid picture frame prongs. (All for you, Bridget!) But it was all worth it when, 10 minutes later, Brad leaned back in his chair and found himself looking straight into Pennywise’s eyes.

I think my favorite part of this whole debacle was when Sean came over to ask me a question at the precise moment Brad left his office for the second time, and I shouted, “I CAN’T. NOT RIGHT NOW!” and almost fell out of my chair on my way to snatch the picture frames. Sean’s face went from surprised to utterly-disgusted in .5 seconds flat, then he retreated with a wave of his hand, like he was physically erasing the whole display.

God, nothing makes me feel more alive than a good prank.

After I “ruined his life” on the bumper cars.

There was definitely something different about the New Vrindaban community when Seri and I left the Temple, and then it hit me: the grounds were empty. There weren’t any kids on the playground or climbing all over the giant plaster elephant. No one was milling about in the courtyard or strolling along the lake.

It was just us.

And the 18 pounds of food playing Tetris in my stomach.

We sat underneath a lakeside gazebo for a few minutes, admiring the view and hypothesizing if we could ever get Henry and Pete to come back with us and rent one of the cabins on the edge of the woods.

Because that’s not a horror script that’s been written 87 times.

The lake was so serene. There was a swan at the other end and I tried to focus on that and not the 30-foot dancing acolyte statues in the distance, which were sincerely making me nervous.

Jonny Craig was there, too!

I was afraid that if we sat there any longer, we’d end up seeing something we wouldn’t be able to unsee, like a murder, so I suggested we keep walking. We kept hearing loud plops along the edge of the lake, and I was so sure it was a large frog so we both edged our closer to the water JUST IN TIME TO ALMOST STEP ON A LARGE SNAKE AS IT SLITHERED BACK INTO THE WATER. And then Erin and Seri, as animated by Hannah-Barbara, screamed and did their best unintentional cartoon run back up to the path.

That might have been my most religious moment there.

Shaking off that disgusting brush with nature, we continued walking down the path—albeit with our hands on our hearts— toward the large gazebo-like structure on the lake.

“Can we go in there?” Seri asked, but I was already trampling down the gravel-path to the door. I figured, as honorary Hare Krishnas, we were allowed to open any door we pleased. [Cue Pandora’s Box parable.]

I actually screamed a little when my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I saw a big ass swan boat staring back at me.

There was a throne-type structure built above the seat of the boat, which made me think this was reserved for special occasions, like Anglo-sacrifices. Boxes of fireworks lined the boat house walls, and I considered snagging some but with my luck, the swan would spring to life. Meanwhile, Seri was trying to get inside the boat and I very honestly said to her, “Look, if you fall in, I can’t promise that I’ll come in after you.”

Not now that I knew there were snakes in that water.

Leaving the boathouse, I finally realized what this place reminded me of. “The Wicker Man.” And not that shitty Nicolas Cage remake, either. Yes, everything was beautiful, but it came with an artificial, uncomfortable quality.

Plus, it was in the hills of West Virginia.

And teeming with Hare Krishnas.

Just then, we noticed that the peach-robed conch-blowing priest was standing further down on the path, watching us.

“We didn’t do anything wrong!” I said to Seri. “Just act normal.” Which means we continued walking with suspicious mannerisms illuminated by a beacon of guilt.

The peacock enclosure was next, so we were distracted by that for awhile, until I turned around and saw that he was following us at this point. So we continued on, across a small bridge, right smack into the feet of the dancing acolytes.

Are you kidding me?! Tell me these things don’t come alive at night.

This is basically what everything there looked like up close: cracked, broken, decrepit. What was once meant to be a flourishing testament to their gods and Swami was now grossly depreciating. Even the boathouse was full of cobwebs, and the swan boat was chipped and looked more scary than regal. It wasn’t hard to imagine this being the setting for tragedy and murder in the 1980s, when Swami P-dawg’s successor had fanatic cult members commit murders for him. Twenty years later, and it must still be hard for the community to shake that stigma, considering that’s the reason why Henry wanted no part of this little day trip. Of course none of this stuff is mentioned during the tour, though.

Chugging the blood of sacrificial white girl lambs, it’s what keeps them pacified.

And then Seri called Pete to tell him that we were being chased by who she thought was the Dalai Lama, who at that point was meditating in the grass by the boat house. I was actually offended that he wasn’t really trying to chase us down to convert us. Who wouldn’t want two nervous white girls? Seri could arts-n-crafts that bitch up! And I could….eat their food? Start a New Vrindiban blog? Teach them about Jonny Craig?

At that point, we had been there close to 4 hours, so we mutually agreed it was time to leave. Rather than backtrack and have to walk past the meditating priest, we opted instead to climb a hill back to the main road. It was a great ascent with my food luggage in tow. I didn’t want to die at all.

Somehow, we still managed to spend another hour back at the Palace grounds, admiring the rose garden and sitting by the lotus pond. On the way back to the car (to grab my unicorn mask; Seri promised she would pose in it!), we passed the cashier from the gift shop who exclaimed, “You girls are still here!?” Which made me realize that it had been about two hours since Henry had last heard from me and it didn’t occur to him to check in to make sure I hadn’t been slain. Thanks for loving me, Henry.

On the way back to Pittsburgh, we both agreed that this was totally worth it and that we would definitely return. Probably with more animal masks.

***

The next morning, I received a voicemail from someone named Jay Sree of New Vrindaban, claiming to have found my wallet, which I didn’t even know I had lost. She described it as “black, with a heart that has a picture of a young girl in it.” Definitely sounded like my iCarly pocketbook. I called Henry to tell him and he immediately got all disgusted and spat, “You were probably pick-pocketed!”

Luckily, I had my debit card at the bottom of my purse, because I’m so lazy when it comes to putting it back in my wallet. Ugh, all that zipping and tucking? So exhausting. So the only thing in my wallet that I really needed was my drivers license. When I returned the call, I spoke with a man at the Palace who sighed and said, “Yes, it is here in Lost and Found.” He sounded disappointed in me, like an Indian Henry.

It arrived in the mail several days later, and I was crestfallen to see that they didn’t slip in any religious pamphlets or sign-up vouchers. WHY DON’T THEY WANT ME!?

This sums it all up. Goddamn am I going to miss summer.

Until October. Then it’s all “Summer who? Fuck that ho.”

Henry’s reaction to my serious statement that I could survive without him. He reminded me of the time he took a Faygo-related business trip to Detroit for two days (otherwise known as The Dark Period of 2007) and I quickly retracted my statement.

(Then Circa Survive came on and he went back to frowning.)

 Swami P-Dawg, chillin’ in the Temple. Seri swore she saw him breathing.

I almost needed rolled across the yard into the Temple after winning the blue ribbon in my Lunch Buffet Bender Championship, in which I competed against no one. I couldn’t even stand entirely erect, so I’m sure all the community residents were thinking, “Sri Krishna, get a load of this lazy white American, how disrespectful that she comes here and demoralizes our cuisine with her trash-mouth and then slouches in your presence.”

Which is still worlds more respectful than the time my friend Brian took me to this tiny but intense chapel called the Burning Bush and first I got all resistant when I saw that I had to take my shoes off, and then I laughed out loud at a man lying prostrate on the floor in front of the altar; Brian kindly asked me to wait outside. Afterward, in the parking lot,  I realized I left my keys inside the chapel. Brian physically blocked the door with his entire body and hissed, “No! I’ll get them. YOU WAIT OUT HERE!” This is a story for another day.

Like the Burning Bush, we were asked to remove our shoes before entering the Temple. This time, I did so without acting like a Riot Grrl. Look at me, getting all mature!

Inside, a little Indian boy ran over to me and shoved a yellow flower in my face.

“Aw, thank you!” I said as I started to take the flower from him.

He snatched it back and said, “No! Just smell it,” and stuffed it back into my face, which still had Indian spices seeping out the pores. Thanks for making me feel like an asshole in front of all of your gods, kid.

And then of course I sniffed it like I was doing a bunny bump of Special K (which is probably the only way I’d ever make it to India); Krishna-forbid I do anything gracefully.

There were only a handful of worshipers inside, watching a peach-robed Hare Krishna fan the tableau of deities with peacock feathers while chanting the official Hare Krishna mantra, the words of which can be found all over the grounds. (But I still, to this day, remember it after learning it in high school.

) There were other words to the chanting as well, but we couldn’t tell what he was saying. It was monotone, yet fascinating. We followed the example of the other visitors and sat Indian-style on the cold floor.

Seri kept asking me questions about what was happening, and I was like, “I don’t know. I’m Catholic.” I know it’s hard for her to believe that I don’t actually know everything, and that’s one of the many reasons I keep her around. I’m practically her Swami.

After he was done with his prayers, he blew numerous times into a large conch shell. It was equal parts horrific, annoying and completely captivating. I felt all spiritual and cleansed. Except that my stomach still felt like an Indian food clown car.

“What do you think that means?” Seri asked when he finally ran out of breath on the last shell-blow.

“I don’t know. I’m Catholic,” I reminded her gently, making a mental note to add Hare Krishna for Dummies to her Christmas wish list. Where was our Palace of Gold tour guide when we needed her? (Taking a joy ride on an ATV, we’d later find out. It was probably bought with donations guilted out of us dumb Christian tourists.)

(I can’t believe I just called myself that.)

I do not know what these crazy anime-looking things are, but if I was promised shit like this to look at, I would definitely start going to church more often. (Scratch the “more often” part of that last sentence.)

While we were permitted to take pictures inside the Temple, there were signs everywhere that asked us to please not stand with our backs toward the deities.

“Are we supposed to walk backwards when we leave then?

” Seri asked sincerely. Good question.

Nowhere inside the Palace of Gold lobby could I find even a footnote about the cafeteria. I thought this was pretty strange, because eating is important, especially since we were in the hills of West Virginia and would probably have to skin a groundhog or worse – a Miley Cyrus fan – if we wanted to replenish all the energy we exerted being faux-spiritual in some dead Indian’s palace. What kind of establishment doesn’t post all kinds of ephemera directing visitors to their cafeteria?

I wasn’t leaving that joint without having my fat, heretic mouth fed the food of Krishna. I waited for the annoying redneck with the baby oiled-hair daughter to suck up by donating $10 to the repair fund, and then I sidled up to our shorn-headed guide and, in a tone reserved for a man inquiring about a happy ending, asked, “So, where’s the cafeteria?”

She seemed slightly surprised, I guess because most whities get their fill of the Palace and all of its splendors and then go back home to eat real food at McDonald’s. But not these whities. We didn’t just drive 80 miles from Pittsburgh for a 30 minute tour without ingesting some sort of edible souvenir.

“The cafeteria isn’t located in the Palace. It’s down by the temple and lodging,” she explained.

“Ok,” I replied, not about to be deterred. “Is it walkable?” She said it was only a quarter of a mile down the street and come on, this is the #7-ranked Walking Challenge Specialist in Pittsburgh, PA. A quarter of a mile ain’t shit.

But first we stopped at the gift shop, where the middle-aged cashier was talking to her friend on the phone the entire time (Seri said they were talking about someone having a mistress; I was too busy trying to keep my eyeballs from aooga‘ing over all the baubles) and had the audacity to ask if I could pay with cash instead of credit because she didn’t want to get off the phone. That doesn’t seem like something Sri Krishna would want his peoples to do.

I paid with my credit card.

Seri and I got matching bracelets to celebrate our independence from our men-folk! The only man for me is Swami P-dawg, anyway.

We walked the short distance down the street, passing nothing but fields, and then cows, before arriving at what I guess was New Vrindiban’s city center. We had to ask about the cafeteria one more time before finding it on the other side of the Lodge and a small playground occupied by happy Krishnan children. (Krishnan is probably completely incorrect but it sounds so, so right.)

Finally, we stumbled upon the open-door to Govinda’s Restaurant and walked in RIGHT BEHIND MY INDIAN ENEMY from the tour. God, I would have thought he had been halfway home on his high horse by then.

We walked into the cafeteria and were immediately met with a strong sense of awkward. The West Virginian red necks had probably bailed on the cafeteria in favor of Jeb’s pig roast, so that just left me and Seri as the outsiders. But I refused to be chased away by racial discomfort. Not on an empty stomach, anyway.

Turns out the secret mystery food of the Hare Krishnas is your regular Indian fare. How did it not occur to me that this was just going to be Indian food? I’m not sure what I thought it was going to be, but I was definitely hoping for some gold-plated pudding at least.

Still, I could be content with Indian food, especially since the last 87 times I suggested it to Henry, I was denied. What’s a girl gotta do to suck down some curry?

Drive 80 miles and consider converting to a new religion, apparently.

Seri, not being a big fan of Indian cuisine, was not as content with the Hare Krishna offerings, though. However, there were traditional American items on the menu too, for all the honky posers who are driven there by the power of George Harrison’s seminal hit “My Sweet Lord;” things like pizza and grilled cheese.

There was no organization to the ordering system, so we just kind of stood in the middle of the cafeteria like two maladroit dummies, until I finally had the foresight to approach the counter. Seri followed me, for I am her leader.

Too bad INDIAN DICK  beat us there and proceeded to naan-block us while scribbling out his family of five’s order. (There was a teenage boy with them who evidently skipped the tour of the Palace in favor of sexting his boo. WWSP-DD?)

(What Would Swami P-Dawg Do? Obviously.)

But then I made eye contact with the guy behind the counter who had a head tattoo. I wasn’t about to piss around with the menu so I just ordered the lunch buffet. Since Hare Krishnas are vegetarians, I felt confident in my decision. Finally, I could eat the shit out of a buffet without accidentally biting into bull testicle.

Part of the buffet had just been taken back into the kitchen when we arrived because I think they were getting ready to switch to the dinner selections, so Head Tattoo told me, “I will just prepare plate for you.” You don’t argue with a man with a head tattoo, even if he bears an uncanny resemblance to Aziz Ansari. (He totally didn’t. I just wanted to see if your Racism Bell tolled.)

While we waited, Seri watched a man eating alone behind us. “What’s that?” she asked me, pointing to a plate in the middle of his table.

“I don’t know. Maybe like some kind of pot pie or something?” I shrugged. It turned out it was naan. In my defense, my eyes are REALLY BAD.

Head Tattoo came back with two full trays. “Oh,” I started. “I ordered the buffet for myself—”

“No! It’s OK. I’ll take it,” Seri said as she retrieved the tray. When in New Vrindiban, eat like New Vrindibanians. I was infinitely proud of her for that.

The non-head-tattooed cashier told me there was a $10 minimum for credit cards, so I told her to add a mango lassi.

“How do you know what that is?” Seri whispered.

“Because I’ve eaten in Indian restaurants before,” I whispered back, hoping that she wouldn’t expose my Caucasian roots.

“Yeah, but how did you know to order that?!” she persisted.

“Because I saw it on the menu!” I hissed under my breath, so INDIAN DICK wouldn’t catch wind of the cracker bitch trying to play like a seasoned lassi drinker. God, that was all I needed was for him to smirk at me.

Indian food is some of the most visually disgusting slop this side of homemade baby food. But Krishnadamn, is it good. And Seri appreciated the nod to the Western World the buffet gave by providing a vat of pasta. Our naan order was up at the same time as INDIAN DICK’S teenage son’s. Seri said he tried to argue with Head Tattoo because our plate had four pieces as opposed to his two-piece plate, at which point Head Tattoo gave him a lesson in counting. “That’s because THEY have TWO buffets,” he supposedly said. I say “supposedly” because who knows if we can believe Seri. We go to the high school track at night and she thinks she sees armadillos and crashing planes.

INDIAN DICK, above the Pepsi can. Even blurred, I can still tell he’s a dick.

“I COULD LIVE HERE,” I moaned, shoveling food into my fat mouth with my naan-shovel. Seri ate slowly and like a normal human not competing in a speed-eating contest. I envy that about her. But the one thing we had in common in that cafeteria is that our faces were both melting off above that tray of food. Hot flash city.

“I’m never leaving!” I texted Henry.

“The Palace?” he replied.

“No, the CAEFETERIA.”

And Seri tried everything on her plate and even liked most of it! (You’re welcome, Pete.) As usual, I ate faster than my stomach could handle and wound up pregnant with paneer and rice. What a stinky baby that would be. Halfway in, my stomach was expanding and the waistband of my jeans were waving the white flag, but I still kept eating because I drove 80 miles for this and by George Harrison, I was eating my fill even if it meant perforating my stomach lining. I really thought I was hungrier than I actually was.

Seri kept trying to rush me out of the cafeteria, probably because she knew I was 2 spoonfuls away from having my stomach pumped, but I was like, “Hello, can I finish my mango lassi? Krishna!”

In the temple afterward, not only did I come close to gilding a deity tableau with my vomit, but I apparently donated my entire iCarly wallet as well.

Here is a reprieve from words.

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

Inside the lobby.

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

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

Lotus pond, unobstructed by the Indian dick.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Way to keep up your dharma, dumbass.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Henry and I took the day off today and while I’m sure he had grand visions of laying on the couch in his underwear all day, I planned his itinerary for him. Here, Henry is pictured frowning at the Jean Bonnet Tavern in Bedford, PA.

“You know, Henry, one day you’re going to wake up and realize you wasted your life being miserable,” I lectured.

“Yeah,” Chooch chimed in. “And having a girlfriend.”

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

Or!

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

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

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

(You’re welcome, Seri.)

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

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

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

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

(You’re welcome, Henry.)

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

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

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

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

Or, you know, a sign.

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

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

(You’re welcome, Tobe Hooper.)

(Please get Elizabeth Olsen to play me.)

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

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

This was Chooch, post-unicorn photo shoot. He is such a little snob.

Today I had big plans to spin a yarn for the younguns about how my friend Seri and I prayed and ate with the Hare Krishnas on Sunday (which of course really means we stumbled around their compound like doe-eyed idiots, ripe for converting, eating stuff we couldn’t pronounce), but then I was fed cake and champagne at work and have been in a goddamn coma ever since. I wasn’t too bad until A-Ron gave me his cup of champagne, too.

I should have quit while I was ahead.

So now I’m not going to do anything but eat my wasabi almonds and make more plans for the upcoming department Halloween desk decorating contest.

Oh, and work. I will do all of the work, too. But maybe I’ll just close my eyes first.

Just….for a little….while.