Tuesday brought much milling about and squirreling away. Pigeon Forge is lined with places you never want to go into but that you always end up buying shit at. Why? I don’t know. It’s some kind of universal law involving the eventual depletion of your checking account.
Amber and I were sitting and waiting on the folks to meet us when my mom walked up to us. “Y’all!” mom started, then laughed. “I was going to say, ‘Y’all make a good couple!’ but that’s not what I mean!”
I looked at Amber and back at mom with a smirk on my face. “Well, actually, I’ve got something to tell you…” I said dramatically.
Mom froze in her tracks and a look of complete terror overtook her. I laughed, suddenly completely embarrassed. “I’M JUST KIDDING!” I screeched. Mom looked more relieved than I have perhaps ever seen her. Amber and I devolved into nervous laughter and I realized that my parents must actually wonder about my sexuality since I never bring boys for them to meet and I am creeping up on thirty, unmarried and unashamed.
We sat down for dinner at a place that will not only make your food, but will make the plates it’s served on. The food was great and Amber and I were really bad at being sneaky about paying the tab for everyone. Oh well. Free food is clumsy sometimes.
We spent the remainder of the evening at the outlet mall, trolling for bargains or shiny things to catch our eye. Part of me feels guilty for spending so much time shopping, but then I realized that A) What was I going to do? Camp in the woods? HA HA HA B) I was helping our battered economy! C) I was buying much-needed Christmas presents for friends and loved ones! D) My other cultural options were pretty much dictated by Dolly Parton’s corporate handlers. So. I deal with the guilt pretty easily.
At some point, I managed to take this photo, which cracks me up, without exception, every time I look at it:
Amber and I came back to the cabin with a car full of sweet sweet swag, and tucked in, determined to watch The 12 Men of Christmas since that scamp Stephanie had given me a review copy and I was determined not to let her down. We made s’mores in the fireplace and drank champagne and I yelled at the television when I realized that my protagonist was a 3-foot-tall, obnoxious PR hack with a supersonic voice. Fun fact: That movie had not a damn thing to do with Christmas. Or men, really. Or the number twelve. Except that there are 12 months in a year and that is roughly the amount of time it will take me to forget that this movie exists. Fun fact part two: There’s a token black dude who gets roughly seven seconds of screen time. Hilarious!
Two bottles of champagne, another s’more, and an untold amount of honey bourbon liqueur later, we passed out.
Vacation!