There are a few things I haven’t told you about The Cabin. This is mostly because Don thinks these things make us sound rich.
I think you probably know I can tell you all about these things while utterly failing to make us sound rich.
For starters, we actually have two cabins. The Cabin I often cite in these pages we call “the old cabin.” The other cabin is “the new cabin.”
“New” is relative. “New” does not mean “free of mice” or “satellite TV-ready.”
Though the new cabin does have a better shower than the old cabin.
They’re basically right next to each other, a shared driveway between the two. Don’s grandfather Sonny built both cabins. For decades he used the old cabin while his sister used the new cabin.
Sonny’s sister eventually sold the new cabin. Sold it! I still struggle to believe there was a guy strolling this planet thinking he needed a mouse-inhabited, spider-occupied cabin with no phone line. I mean, it’s a solid hour and a half from the nearest gallon of milk.
But such a guy existed. A few guys, actually.
They must have come to their senses, eventually selling the cabin back to Don and his dad. My kids were young at the time, with no real knowledge this cabin had previously been in the family. They were the ones who designated the two cabins “old” and “new.”
Although I wasn’t really looking to make my life more cabin-y, the purchase has worked out for the better. We often go to The Cabin, the seven of us – Don, me, the kids, Don’s parents, and Pete.
I prefer to sleep in my father-in-law’s bedroom in the old cabin. The fact that he sleeps at the new cabin makes my bedtime preference a lot less awkward.
I had just reached a detente with the two cabins – I don’t hate them, I have things I love about them, it’d be great if I never had to take another shower – when the universe decided to upend the table.
Much like cats are naturally drawn to the one person in the room who hates cats, the outdoors seem drawn to me.
Sonny is legendary in the area around The Cabin. I mean, sure, there are about four people who live in that area anyway. But Sonny’s memory lingers in the mountain air like a beloved song.
There’s a hunting club near The Cabin. When the hunting club needed a new member, Sonny’s kid was the first person the invite was extended to.
My father-in-law, Big Don, jumped at the chance. My husband Don not only makes frequent use of the hunting club but will be eligible to take my father-in-law’s place one day. Even better, one of my kids will be able to take my husband’s place when the time comes.
The hunting club will be in my life for a very long time.
I needed one more harrowing domicile in the repertoire of homes owned by myself – or other Ranks – like I needed Willie to do well, any of the things that Willie does.
And since there are only about 1.5 places one can really visit in the vicinity of The Cabin, we often find ourselves at the hunting club. My kids enjoy hunting and fishing there and Pete – that traitor- loves the hunting club.
He’s a retired hunting dog. I didn’t set out to adopt a retired hunting dog, but like I said, outdoor things are just drawn to me.
I share this now because Don and I recently had a conversation about the hunting club. This conversation revealed just how irresponsible Don can be when it comes to his outdoor activities.
The hunting club has a house on its grounds. That house is haunted by a ghost named Mary. You’ll be surprised to know I am not the source of this legend. This is a tale that has existed amongst the club’s members since long before I came along.
Now, I’m going to tell you guys something. The first time I walked into the hunting club, through the back door and into the kitchen, I gazed down the dark hallway opposite that back door. And I knew we weren’t alone in that house.
I never said anything. But when Don and his dad told me about Mary my basic feeling was “of course this place is haunted! LOOK AT IT!”
Needless to say, my psychic abilities were not appreciated and were somewhat mocked.
I went into the basement of that house exactly once. Remember when Clarice Starling went into Buffalo Bill’s basement at the end of The Silence of the Lambs? Remember the weird tub, full of mud and God knows what else? How that basement just went on and on, into subbasement upon subbasement? How Bill was waiting to kill Clarice while the senator’s daughter screamed from the well?
I would rather be in that basement, under those circumstances, in the dark of midnight, with a few snakes slithering around for good measure than go into the hunting club’s basement ever again.
Among the usual basement horrors there is a weird room with a demolished shower. I think I can go to my grave happy if I never know why there was a pink shower in a freaky subbasement room of a remote hunting club.
Upstairs isn’t too much better. The first floor hallway is perpetually dark. The easy solution is to never traverse its eerie path. But the only bathroom is on the second floor. The stairs are only accessible by that hallway.
Traverse it I must.
The steps are only slightly less frightening than the hallway, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. And I’m not alone in that assessment. The kids refuse to ascend the steps without an adult present, promising to stay outside the bathroom door until they’re done.
And they’re teenagers.
Which brings us to the bathroom. Oh, the bathroom. Is it a rule with outdoorsmen their bathrooms need to have something ghastly from the outdoors as a perpetual occupant? At The Cabin, it’s spiders.
At the hunting club, it’s ladybugs. Now, you’re probably saying, “Surely she’s not afraid of ladybugs too!” Or, “It’s ladybugs! At least they’re not spiders!”
But the ladybugs are dead and coat every flat surface of the bathroom. It’s like wading through the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese except it’s ladybugs you and the E. coli must find your way through.
I’ve never had dead ladybugs crunch beneath my feet as I made my way to a toilet. The volume of dead insects means there is nowhere to step but on ladybugs. It’s difficult to do your business while contemplating how those ladybugs got in the bathroom and what, exactly, killed them.
Most horror movies have some kind of mass animal event. In The Ring 2 it was deer. The Amityville Horror? Flies. Poltergeist and The Conjuring both killed birds and family pets.
That’s not only scary to contemplate, but you’re pretty vulnerable when you’re on the toilet.
Also, shouldn’t you want to, I don’t know, clean up the dead ladybugs?
And why is there a box of tampons from the 1950s in the medicine cabinet?
Also, if anyone asks, I never looked in the medicine cabinet.
The house, of course, is surrounded by acres and acres of forest. I’m assuming it’s the years of horror movies that have made me afraid of the forest at night. But that fear is not shared by Don. He acts with a recklessness I never see in my usually practical husband. I am concerned.
A few weeks ago, Don headed to the club to hunt. This means venturing out while the moon is still about. To see, Don wears a headlamp.
If you don’t know, a headlamp is exactly what it sounds like. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the flashlights were these little handheld cubes. A headlamp is basically a TNG flashlight attached to a Richard Simmons-esque sweatband.
Don alighted from our 4Runner only to discover his headlamp had burnt out. He headed into the hunting club house where he found the light in the dreaded hallway was also burnt out, as it had been for weeks.
“Hold up,” I said. “Fifteen dudes running that place and none of you have fixed a burnt out light bulb that’s been that way for WEEKS?!”
He told me having light in the hallway doesn’t matter enough to any of them for changing it to be a priority.
I had to stop him again. The hunting club membership agrees the house is haunted by Mary. Ghosts are more active in the dark. Everyone knows that. Shouldn’t, then, the light bulb get replaced with all haste?
“I don’t think anyone really worries about Mary,” Don said.
Well, tell that to the dead ladybugs.
Also, wasn’t he a bit alarmed that TWO lights were out?
Not so much, no.
Don headed out into the woods, initially with no light whatsoever.
I had to stop him again. He was in a remote forest in the dead of night. How would he be able to see the ax murderer? If I was an ax murderer, I’d absolutely hide in a remote forest, waiting for some Richard Simmons-looking guy with a dead Star Trek flashlight to come traipsing through so I could make good use of my ax.
How could he see the bears? Or snakes? The witches? The werewolves? Shouldn’t he have watched Silver Bullet before being so careless with his lighting?
That’s when he told me he used his iPhone flashlight to get to his deer stand, which I kind of think he told me just to get me to quiet down.
I admonished him for not thinking of his responsibilities. That light bulb needs to be changed. He should pack backup lighting upon backup lighting upon backup lighting.
“Sure,” he said, which was said in the same vein as the iPhone flashlight story.
Last week, Don was back at it again. He texted me to say he found a chair in the woods and wanted to know if I thought maybe it was the Blair Witch. I had to explain to him he had clearly stepped into some kind of Deliverance scenario.
So I write to you today a bit nervous. My skeptic husband prancing about the hunting club, all willie-nillie. Two lights in my chandelier abruptly snapped and went out as I wrote this, a clear indication Mary is watching.
And waiting.
