Everything about the bed-and-breakfast this weekend was perfect. The ambience was just right. A reconverted, reimagined, reconstructed 1850s barn-- vaulted cathedral ceiling in the living room complete with an impressive stone wall, exposed beams, re-purposed barn wood, rich and on fire, used as a plank kitchen floor. Our room was a violet heaven, tastefully appointed with period furniture, and none of the quaint vom you often find at bed-and-breakfasts, especially in the Lancaster County area.
The establishment sat on acres aplenty of farm land, complete with a horse (and eighteen outdoor cats-- some of whom used my car as a jungle-gym when we were asleep-- evinced by muddy paw prints all over my trunk, roof, and streaks down the windshield that they used as a sliding board). The entranceway was grand and comforting all at once, and so impressive was this B&B that it played host to not one, but two weddings this past weekend in glorious, sun-drenched weather.
The only flaw? As we were being given the tour, I spied only one table in the dining room.
It was like the scene in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" when Dell Griffith (shower curtain-ring salesman to the stars) and Neil Page are forced to stay in a shitty motel room together, complete with one bed.
"We serve breakfast at 9am."
Oh, no. One table, and one meal time means only one thing: we were going to have to sit with... and talk to......
OTHER. GUESTS.
For most people, this is no big thing. But, for an award-winning a-socialite, I was grief-stricken. See-- I don't really like... people. I'm used to B&Bs with several small tables in the dining room, and staggered breakfast times, so you can have the most available chances at avoiding other carbon-based life forms. But, at this one, it just wasn't going to happen. And so it went that we shared two meals with two couples in their early sixties-- the type who cracked open bottle after bottle of wine in the great room and played Harry Connick, Jr. on the BOSE at full blast, laughing and carousing until 11:30pm and then, in the morning, ask, "Did we keep you up last night?"
"This question," I said to my wife later, "is almost invariably asked by the type of person who would be overjoyed if you answered, 'yes'."
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Snow Day cover reveal
4 months ago
I am not a morning person. Neither am I particularly a people person. And while I love B&Bs, I, like you, prefer a table for two and the only interaction to be "would you like some toast?"
ReplyDeleteI've never encountered one big table but I swear it would almost be enough to make me sleep in, and fuck breakfast.