Photoshopped In

Princess and I are on the queen size bed, drinking extremely good wine (Princess brought it) out of plastic cups that had been wrapped for our safety. In fact, everything had been wrapped for our safety and I was unsure how to get the toilet lid open . . . for at least a couple of minutes. Sex in the City is on the television. We are in our jammies. Princess has washed her face with all the things in her kit. I'm not sure this is what Marv had pictured when designing this room.

There are no window treatments . . . so getting into the jammies was an interesting show to the single wide trailers across the lake. I do not think of these things (being not shy . . . ) but Princess, she notices and is appalled. I set my stuff all over the edge of the forbidden hot tub and am sure that someone will know that I "used" it, in some capacity . . . to hold my makeup and toothpaste.

Princess has claimed the single bed in the corner to sleep in and falls asleep immediately. I am more awake, since I had coffee at dinner. I had turned on every light in the room at one point, to stave off the eerie red glow and now I cannot find the switch to one light in the middle of the room. It is not red, thank goodness, but I am a light sleeper and the light keeps me from sleeping soundly. Instead of my normal waking up at every hour, I wake every 15 minutes or so . . . to the point that I get up to search for the switch several times. Examining the lamp to see if the switch is contained on it. Switching on other lights to see if that switch might somehow magically control two. I get no sleep.

The shower is hard to find . . . behind the entry door with a large "SHOWER" sign, routered and varnished. I let Princess shower first (her hair takes longer). The shower is small . . . not as small as European showers . . . but small by American standards and the water smells awful. I know that it is because of the well water, but ugh. And this is what people fill the forbidden hot tub with? I leave the experience not really feeling clean and welcome the sounds of Princess complaining that her hair . . . it's going to be flat, because the water is all soft. I dress for the people with binoculars across the lake.

The sign on the inside of the door reads: "Be sure to take all your belongings. Items left will be disposed of in five days." Disposed and five are both underlined and unlike all the other signs in the place, this one is paper covered in plastic, letters green. "Boy, this place just has a plethora of rules." Princess muses.

Marv had talked up the complimentary breakfast, so we expected great things as we hauled our things through the kitchen again. Scrambled eggs, toast, and jiffy mix muffins. That was breakfast. The toast was being made two pieces at a time in an ancient toaster, with some of that Hillbilly bread that my grandmother used to like. I don't eat eggs, but I heard they were nothing to be excited about. The muffin . . . which was a Jiffy mix muffin (I've toured the factory. I know.) was underfilled and was dwarfed by it's pastel blue cupcake cup. We both took some coffee and both regretted the decision. Princess decided that the best way to deal with the brown water-like substance was to throw it down her throat. I was a bit more cautious, as it smelled much like the shower. In the end, Princess was nauseous . . . I was just cranky.

As I sat there, beautiful lake on one side . . . Princess openly wondering why anyone would paint on a saw on the other . . . I thought about the surrealness of the moment. Princess, with her perfect hair (despite, or perhaps in spite, of the soft water) and her general perfectness, sitting with a buffalo head over her head. It was if someone had taken a photo and then photoshopped her in . . . with the Mennonites and all the signs in the background. Couples, smiling from what I suppose was the hot tub experience, were filing in for their complimentary eggs and Jiffy mix muffins, and not a one was a day under 80. I suppose I looked Photoshopped too.

We made our escape but not before raiding the gift shop, full of more signs that Marv had evidently made for sale. Princess purchased three signs with giant dollar store pencils attached to them. "Word Processor" was wood-burned underneath each, in slanted handwriting, with "The Shack" sort of melted into the paint of each pencil. I bought some mugs, mainly for the "Jugsville" reference (Princess and I . . . the Jugs in Jugsville) and a small box that had "Three piece chicken dinner 99 cents" written in the same handwriting. If you slide open the box, there is a hole with three pieces of corn. My grandmother would have thought that was hilarious.

I was hoping that there would be a McDonalds . . . for some coffee . . . but no luck. Just corn and barns and single wide trailers and churches and more churches.