Before anything else, we really need to talk about The Cabin.
I am going to be dirty and honest with you about The Cabin.
I think it’s time.
When a boy you’re dating tells you his grandfather has a cabin, you think he’s trying to impress you. Or, in my case, you wonder why he’s droning on about a cabin you’re never going to see when he could be tacitly – and tactiley – noticing that you are, in fact, a girl.
But eventually that boy becomes your husband, that grandfather becomes like your own, and your mother-in-law pulls you aside to have a little chat with you. A chat about The Cabin.
Don and his dad speak of the cabin with love, Tina warned me that day. But I needed to consider the source. These are guys who believe going outside and shooting a bird is akin to a Happy Meal. To them, running water is an amenity and WiFi is the abomination of the twenty-first century.
I could go to The Cabin, Tina counseled, but I would not find a ski-in/ski-out chalet with overstuffed sofas and cozy comforters. I could go, she said. She went. Until Don was seven years old. When he was seven, she said, she felt he was old enough to go with his father and grandfather. When he was seven, she felt his father and grandfather were able to take him to the cabin on their own. When he was seven, she was liberated from her maternal watch at the cabin. The menfolk had it covered.
I took her advice. I steered clear. But one day, that grandfather who had loved me like his own up and passed away and there was just one place to celebrate his memory.
The Cabin.
Pop-Pop had built The Cabin, with his own hands and sweat and military surplus. The cabin he had outfitted with crispy Army blankets and – clearing my throat here – borrowed cinder and wood.
My first foray to The Cabin was a lesson in the definition of rustic. I learned that day that rustic is not synonymous with charm. There was nothing at The Cabin to impress a spoiled suburbanite like me. No wall-to-wall stone fireplace. No sprawling bedrooms with California kings and an abundance of pillows. No closet supplied with games and fluffy bath towels. In fact, The Cabin doesn’t even have a closet.
Stepping inside The Cabin to use the bathroom – indoor plumbing installed during the Reagan administration, thank you very much – I found a shower stall and toilet that may have once been white but were now a terrifying shade of brown. The fact that Don attributed the color to the years of mineral-rich water flowing over their porcelain and fiberglass skins made no difference to me. The thought of putting my privates on a toilet of such a startling color alarmed me, but what else could I do? The cabin is on a mountain, in the woods, in the middle of nowhere. The closest public bathroom is a solid twenty minutes away.
And no, I’m not a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl.
My OCD muscles clenched tightly, I used that mud-colored potty, completely unaware that my next challenge lay ahead of me, waiting like the snakes that I know surround The Cabin.
See, I wasn’t a mom yet. I had yet to discover the joy that is my ubiquitous supply of hand sanitizer. Which on that day meant I had to wash my hands at a sink that had spent two decades in the care of three dudes.
That day, I didn’t spend much time inspecting The Cabin, and I sure as hell didn’t spend much time inside of it. I was never going there again, so why bother?
But move our story forward a few years, and you’ll find that I have two lovely children. At the ages of 5 and 3 – old enough to walk, talk, and (mostly) use the potty, Don felt it was time to introduce the kids to The Cabin. He offered to take them on his own, one at a time, to spare me the trauma of the brown toilet and lurking serpents.
And thus the dilemma was wordlessly laid before me. Nobody could fault me for staying behind. My house has a lot of the amenities the cabin lacks. Civilization, for example. Starbucks. A dishwasher. A garbage disposal.
But The Cabin is my kids’ legacy. What kind of mother, wife, person would I be if I never accompanied my family to The Cabin?
Well, happier, probably. But could I really live with myself?
I have a friend whose fiancé was whisked to a strip joint – a celebration, of course, of his upcoming nuptials. On a lark, my friend and her girls crashed the club. Afterward, she told me it had been a mistake to go. You know in your head, she said, what goes on. But you don’t really know. Not until you see it.
The same goes for The Cabin.
I thought I understood that The Cabin has no functioning oven. That all food has to go in the refrigerator so the mice don’t get into it. I thought I understood that the TV only has rabbit ears and there’s no Starbucks anywhere – not even a Target with a Starbucks in it. I thought I understood that saws hang from the walls and mouse traps lurk in the cabinets, all right where little hands can reach them.
But I didn’t really get it until I was there.
The bunk beds covered with ancient electric blankets and even more elderly sheets meant that not only did I have to share a bed with my little ones – just three and five at that time, if you’ll recall – but that I spent most of the night uncovered.
Ummm…..no. I sleep with a sheet and comforter 365 days a year, no matter how hot the weather. And the sheet is a necessary buffer between skin and comforter. Comforter-to-skin contact is gross.
And no WiFi? Not only did the kids not have Curious George or Thomas, but I didn’t have HBO. The stupid government box that replaced the rabbit ears doesn’t even get ABC. No GMA. No Grey’s. And, apparently, no television show or movie made after 1985 airs on any TV station received at The Cabin.
No oven, no blender, and no griddle meant I had to be innovative when it came to breakfast. By “innovative” I mean come up with something different from mine and the kids’ usual breakfast of a smoothie (me) and homemade pancakes (them).
And no toys meant that we spent a lot of time – ugh – outside.
I am not my best when I’m at The Cabin. I refuse to wash dishes in a sink without a garbage disposal – that’s just as repulsive as sleeping with the comforter directly on my skin. So I just leave dishes in the sink and eventually Tina cleans everything.
I sound like a terrible person.
But look. It’s not like I’m not doing my part. I learned how to drive myself to the drive-in diner that’s 30 minutes away and still just barely in what could charitably be called a town. So what if I only did it in the (vain) hope that there would be a Starbucks? It’s not like, once I knew there was no Starbucks, the route slithered from my head like, well, yes, like the snakes that I know surround The Cabin. I can still drive to the diner.
And do you know what I got for my effort? I innocently brought the children there for lunch one day. Bunny Burgers, as we call it, has Coke. It’s no trenta black iced tea (unsweetened), but it’s caffeine, luscious and glorious in its little paper cup. Cokes and fries and a highway with real live people that briefly alleviate the sensation you’ve stumbled into The Twilight Zone.
There’s also Mennonites, selling fruit and pies. After consuming our grilled cheeses, the kids and I, one brave day, left the car for the Mennonite stand and its whoopie pies. But when we tried to return to our car with our baked goods and berries, our waitress intercepted us. A raccoon had taken up residence under my car, she warned. A raccoon amongst people in daylight hours is, in all probability, young or rabid, she continued. Either way, we risked getting scratched – or worse, bitten – if we went near the car.
See, that doesn’t happen in the suburbs. The suburbs are a nice reprieve between raccoons and the pestilence – rats, cockroaches – of city life. In the suburbs, the only thing you have to look out for when walking to your car is inclement weather. Maybe an annoying neighbor. Never rabid rodent wannabes looking for their mommies.
And of course I couldn’t call Don for help. There’s no cell reception at the cabin. Why would you need something so superfluous as a cell phone when you’re in the middle of God’s country?
As I mentally ran through my options, a Bunny Burger chef emerged holding a shovel. Sliding it gently under my car, he stimulated the (very) immature raccoon to run from the shelter that we all know a hybrid Camry can provide. He ran and ran, straight into that highway I find so much security in, straight into the path of an oncoming truck.
The impact of the truck flung Baby Raccoon onto the highway shoulder. He lay on his back, two legs grotesquely pawing the air, as though he were swatting at the flies that would soon swarm his carcass.
I couldn’t let this guy suffer. Clearly, I was going to have to euthanize him with the only weapon I had. My hybrid Camry.
As if reading my thoughts – and sensing my dread – Baby Raccoon rolled. Rolled right into oncoming traffic.
I looked at the kids, taking in this uneasy mixture of civilization and wilderness – a microcosm of their parents’ marriage.
“Is he dead?” they asked, their little faces unreadable.
“Yes,” I sighed, “yes. He’s dead.”
“Aww cool!” they shouted. Then, as if of one mind, they sloppily ate the blackberries we had purchased from the Mennonites. As the red juice spread on their faces, arms, and clothes, they gave voice to their plan. When they saw their father, they would tell him that the raccoon had attacked, the juice was blood, and they were now rabid.
I’m so glad I’m the only one traumatized by The Cabin.
The years have rolled by. Both kids have aged beyond seven, yet the six of us still traipse to The Cabin. Out of, I believe, a deep pity for me, Big Don and Tina have worked to renovate the cabin, give it more of a, well, cabin feel. There’s still no WiFi, but there is now a functioning oven. A skillet for pancakes. Cozy comforters. Throw pillows that serve no purpose whatsoever except to make me happy. I have procured toys and games and corrupted Don and Big Don into MeTV marathons and a VHS collection. If I could just get them to agree to satellite TV, I think The Cabin would be as close to perfect as it’s going to get.
And then. And then Big Don gets himself invited to join a hunting club near The Cabin. There’s a house and a sprawling 400 acres of land. Still no WiFi. Still no civilization. Don says this summer we’ll go. He and the kids will fish and I can pick blackberries of my very own.
Great. That’s just great. That was all The Cabin needed – one more place to be outside.
I wonder if I can get the guys in the hunting club to get a satellite dish……