Episode 62: Still High in July

It’s hot in the cabin. I can’t remember if there was any air conditioning, but I suspect not. The cabin is circa – well, I’m not sure, 1960s perhaps – and so are its furnishings. It’s a basic mountain cabin with boxes full of family fun, such as toys for children and puzzles with missing pieces.

I’m reluctant to walk around in the woods. This is bear and skunk country, among many other living hazards . Just recently. friends of mine drove from Virginia to Massachusetts with their miniature dachshund who encountered a skunk as he ambled about in the woods. A word to the wise: tomato juice doesn’t work on skunk stink. Nor does anything else, apparently. My friends had to drive 12 hours with an eye-wateringly schmelly dog in the back seat of the car.

Finally, it’s late enough to eat dinner, and put the little girl to bed. Shirley and John are on their second extra dry vodka martinis on the rocks with a twist. I issue another warning, which as before, goes unheeded.

We move to the front yard and indulge in the brownies. Before I realize it, John is already on his second brownie. Tyler and Jake eat a couple each and pull out a box of fireworks from somewhere. Even in my altered state, this seems like a bad idea. The forest is dry, but before I can say anything, a couple fireworks go off and Shirley is expressing exaggerated oohs and ahs. By the time the fourth firework explodes, I see little flames on the ground and call out to the boys, who rush into the woods and start stomping on the small fires. They look like a pair of Keystone Kops running here and there and jumping up and down.

Thank goodness, disaster is averted. By now, we’re all covered with large bug bites, and we go inside. Five of the seven of us have the giggles. I can’t stop laughing, even when Jake’s wife gives me an extremely back-handed compliment, "That shirt looks better than most of your summer stuff."

Shirley and John decide to go to bed. They are in the front bedroom with walls as thin as paper. We hear a curious conversation.

“I’m not sleeping next to the wall,” John says.

"I’m not sleeping next to the wall,” Shirley says sternly.

“Well, somebody has to,” John retorts.

We’re all looking at each other in the living room, trying to stifle ourselves from laughing too loudly. They would certainly hear us.

I mean, this is a no brainer. John goes to the bathroom maybe once in the middle of the night. Shirley, on the other hand, goes to the bathroom 10 times a night. In fact, she’s notorious in that no matter the time of day or night, if you go to the bathroom, she will soon be banging on the door, saying,” I have to go to the pot!”

This circular conversation goes on for a while, though no one has any doubt as to who will prevail.

Suddenly someone says, “There are men in the woods. Men who are going to kill us.”

Really?

Everybody but me seems to be taking this seriously. The men troop out onto the slightly slanted porch and glare into the dark in each direction until they are satisfied there are no men creeping about in the surrounding forest.

But it’s a buzz kill.

Jake, Tyler, and their wives retreat into the second and third bedrooms. Then it’s just me and the sway backed couch. I lay my top sheet down on it and prepare to climb aboard, when I hear Shirley open her bedroom door.

She has an odd look on her face.

“John thinks he’s a vampire,” she says.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula.