Big Bass Hell

Or, How to Turn a Vacation into a Nightmare in 10 Easy Steps

#1.  Pick a nice house on a lake that happens to be at the epicenter of the bug population of the northeastern United States so that the gentle relaxing breezes on the lake's beach become a feeding frenzy on your skin for every diseased mosquito, gnat, and super-sized dragonfly within a 20 mile radius.

#2.  Bring four children under the age of 10 with you.

#3.  Hike through a never-ending trail in the bug-infested woods of Gouldsboro State Park on a bad knee with a hangover and then agree to carry one of the children under 10 on your shoulders while walking 27 miles back to the car.  In the hot sun.

#4.  Order a plate full of the "atomic" wings at a local restaurant known for its wings even though no one at your table wants any of them and the waitress warns you "no one ever orders them that hot."  Refuse the waitress's kind, repeated offer of milk as she watches you sweating, in pain, and nearly about to vomit, because you don't want the others at the table to question your manhood, especially after bragging that "no hot wing would possibly bother (you)".  Then, in shame, order the milk halfway through the plate.

#5.  Lose $100 on a hand at the brand new (and too small) poker room at Mt. Airy Casino when a donkey who had been going in on everything and losing tons of cash calls your $40 pot-sized bet after a pre-flop raise on a Q-10-rag rainbow flop when you have K-K, because "he has a feeling" then hits his A on the turn, squeezing another $30 out of you after you both check and he bets the river, because at that point, you just have to see for yourself that he had nothing other than the A that made him stay in after the flop.

#6.  Sit at the poker table next to one of Snookie's former classmates from Poughkeepsie the day after watching a Jersey Shore marathon on the small television in the house that distracted you and your friends from the four screaming children under 10 fighting for the 178th time that day over who goes first in the stupid game they are playing but will forget all about within 5 minutes.  Actually, the guy who knew Snookie was kind of cool, and the trip to Mt. Airy was the highlight of the vacation, if only because I got away from the kids for a few hours.

#7.  Be force-fed a steady diet of breakfasts from the "bacon" family of foods, including bacon, eggs, pancakes, bacon, potatoes, sausage links, sausage patties, onions, bacon, peppers, omelets, and bacon.  I think Tanya sprinkled bacon on the cereal the one day our stomachs revolted and we refused a full breakfast.

#8.  Leave your beers in a cooler outside because the refrigerator is stuffed with every kind of pork product imaginable so you're forced to rush through the swarm of bugs that emerges after dark, blindly attacking the windows and glass double doors to the deck to try to get to the light inside; then try to get back inside without letting too many of the swarm get in with you that will end up dead in the bathroom sink the following morning because the nightlight was left on, the only light on in the house overnight.  Yeah, it was disgusting.

#9.  Go paddle-boating and canoeing on the murky, bug-infested Big Bass Lake, which was definitely filled with bass, but none were big, and I was frightened the whole time that I might fall in the water and never recover from the malaria that would soon follow.  Of course, Aaron took a long swim at one point.  But he's psychotic.

#10.  Start drinking at 11 am every day and don't stop until you pass out sometime around midnight.  This is only a bad thing because of the havoc it -- combined with the eating -- wrecked on my body.  I definitely have to detox for about a month to get back into the shape I was in just a week ago.  You may ask why did you start drinking at 11 am?  And my answer would be, "did I mention the four children under 10?"

All in all, it really wasn't a bad trip.  The house was nice.  The weather was mostly beautiful, much cooler than here in NJ.  I missed the trip to Scranton because I came home to attend the Arcade Fire concert, but I heard it was quite interesting since they were able to see all The Office references in person (I did have some of the leftovers from Alfredo's Pizza -- not Pizza by Alfredo's, which doesn't exist apparently).  I also missed the trip to Pocono Raceway when I went solo to Mt. Airy, partly for the gambling but mostly to get away from the children.  The casino was very nice, all very new and well-done and actually incredibly packed for a Friday afternoon.  I couldn't even get on the table games so I went to the poker room, which was supposedly in a temporary space that housed 12 tables, most of them full, but in way too small a room to accommodate that many tables.  I was told they were moving to a new space on the third floor once tournament poker was approved in PA.  They had just received approval for table gaming (and poker) in July.  It was about a 2 hour drive to Big Bass from my house though (probably a little less to Mt. Airy), about the same distance as AC, so I can't imagine going back there, unless I get suckered into another "vacation" next summer in the Poconos, but if I'm that stupid to agree to another trip with four children under 10, I really do deserve to lose $100 on KK to some complete idiot at a poker table.

Nonetheless it was good to get away for a while, to get away from work for the first time in like a year, since I'd been saving up vacation time over fear that I was about to get laid off, which never ended up happening, or at least hasn't happened yet.  So getting away was good, despite the four kids.  I would like to say they actually weren't that bad, but I try not to lie on this blog.  I'm just glad we all survived.

Comments

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