Lessons Learned

Back in Southeastern Pennsylvania

*** Thanks for putting up with the short, not-especially-creative, exceptionally-shittily-spelled blog posts done from my Blackberry Whatever whilst we vacationed in sweltering bliss in Lexington, Virginia. I'm back now, in the sweltering familiarity of our 2nd floor office/craftatorium, and I hope you will find the quality back up-to-snuff. Speaking of back up-to-snuff, I seem to have gained another follower! What the fuck?! I ought to go away more often. Welcome under my apron, Kari. That's hot. ***

They say you never stop learning. Of course, they also say that you can't take it with you, and that is so not true. You totally can, especially if your trousers have cargo pockets and your rear seats fold flat.

Idiots.

Anyway, getting back to learning-- they say you never stop, even when you finish school. And that's a good thing, because I was last in a classroom in 2008, and that was grad school, and I don't think that anybody particularly learns anything in grad school. You're just there to get another essentially meaning-free degree so that you're not earning $11.00/hr so you can afford to pay back all those bum-hole-busting student loans.

(Woot?)

They're probably right about this learning shit, and I say that because I was just on vacation for a few days (as you know, because I go on and on and on about it like I was bouncing around on the goddamned lunar surface, for Christ's sake) and I sure learned a hell of a lot. Don't believe me?

Well, while in Lexington, Virginia, I learned that...

* The further South you drive, public radio starts to sound more like Christian radio.

* They still manufacture and sell C.B. radios.

* The best innkeeper in Lexington, Virginia is British. And he rarely wears shoes or socks.

* Ham, bacon, and sausage can, and should, be consumed together at breakfast in one sitting. It's the Pigfecta!

* There is a certain type of frog that makes a "BOING!" noise as it lazes around.

* We were worried that we wouldn't be able to understand any of the locals. As it turns out, none of the locals could understand my wife.

* I am physically and emotionally incapable of safely mounting a hammock.

* Cats (female ones, I'm assuming) piss in a most extraordinary way. We saw one urinating in the parking lot of an antiques mall. It just stood there, arched its back, lifted its tail straight up in the air like a flag pole and let loose an inelegant yellow fountain all over the place. My wife and I watched with our mouths agape.

* Irish Spring soap smells like farts.

* Nothing is open on Memorial Day.

* Michael Palin (whose diaries I'm reading) sometimes waxed philosophic about the state of his feces, which makes me feel strangely better about doing same.

* You're supposed to spend inordinate amounts of time making polite conversation with your innkeeper/bed-and-breakfast residents.

* When returning home on Memorial Day, don't pee at a highway rest-stop unless you're prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an Indian man and a 12-year-old boy at the urinal. I nearly died.

But I sure learned a lot.

The Weirdness That Binds

I just got off the phone with a man named "Bernie."

"Short for Beh-nehd, actually."

He's English, and the proprietor of a bed and breakfast in Lexington, Vermont, where my wife and I will be staying this weekend.

(If you're into fabric with frogs on it or antique typewriters, robbing our house might very well be on your agenda, then, this coming weekend. Please just try not to leave too much of a mess. And feed Finley.)

My conversation with Bernie lasted exactly 6 minutes and 26 seconds, but, two minutes into the conversation, we were fast friends-- united by our common association with another British hotelier, Basil Fawlty.

Ordinarily, I don't bring up 1970's-era British situation comedies like "Fawlty Towers" with bed and breakfast owners, but it just came up so naturally with Bernie, so organically. In truth, in faith, I just couldn't help it. It was so easy. So... right.

He was taking me through the list of rooms available.

"Well, there's the Pheasant Room, which, in my opinion, is the nicer of the two, but it's got two twin beds in it, and I don't know if that would suit your particular situation."

Instantly, my brain was flooded with images, dialogue, and memories of episode three of "Fawlty Towers," called "The Wedding Party" in which scandal erupts when an unmarried, lascivious couple try to rent a room with a double bed from the obsessively prudish and notoriously repressed Basil.

Basil: "It's against the law."

Guest: "What law?!"

Basil: "The law of England, nothing to do with me!"

Later in the scene, the guest temporarily relents, saying that he and his lady friend will take the room with the two twin beds, "if that's alright with the police."

I told Bernard that Mrs. Apron and I are, in fact, married, and that we'd take the room with the Queen-sized bed, "if that's alright with the police." Bernard howled with delight on the other end of the phone.

"Oh, God!" Bernie cried, "don't get me started on 'Fawlty Towers,' you'll have me going on all day. I've seen them all a thousand times! My favo(u)rite is the one with the Germans-- 'Don't mention the war! I mentioned it once and I think I got away with it alright!'" he quoted with precision. I couldn't help but chime in.

"A Prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and two Colditz salads!"

It was like talking to an old, um, gay friend. Not that Bernie's gay. He's just English. And I know they're basically synonyms. Basically. I didn't know that I was going to hit it off with the innkeeper at this place. I didn't even know he was an ex-pat. I swear to God. I didn't know.

I guess some people would be disappointed to know that their Southern-fried bed and breakfast isn't managed by some overalls-wearing good ol' boy named Hanky Lee, like they're somehow not getting the full, below-the-Mason-Dixon-Line experience, but I'm not disappointed. Not one jot. I'm elated. I am, however, a bit worried that they won't have any salad cream.

Stupid.