There are things in this life I do not understand.
Like the recent abuse of words like yummy … and marinate. And our obsession with the royal family. Before you get all angsty and defensive, it’s not that I don’t think Kate Middleton is a lovely girl with a really cute nose and a wardrobe superior to mine … it’s that WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY BE IN THIS BOOK? It’s 144 pages long. And it’s not the only one. There are six other “biographies” of the royal romance on the market, and a “Kate Middleton Handbook”, which clocks in at a whopping 182 pages and probably doesn’t even bother to deconstruct those blasted hats.
Yet another thing I don’t understand is our fascination with dead people’s things. A few weekends ago, in honor of our new governor’s inauguration, Tennessee residents were generously granted free admission to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Considering a youth admission is typically $14.99, adult tickets are $21.99, and memorabilia makes my pores yawn, I figured this was the boys’ only chance to see, I don’t know, the guitar Hank Williams was clutching when he passed out drunk and froze to death on the Lost Highway. (Isn’t that how the story goes? I don’t read museum plaques that carefully either. Zzzzzzzz.)
So!
We arrived at the Hall of Fame, got our tickets, and were quickly herded into an elevator that would take us up to the Tammy Wynette exhibit. As we strolled past case after case of Tammy’s sequined dresses, I was doing my best to make the whole thing feel magical and EVENTFUL, pointing and ooh-ing and ahh-ing and LOOK-ing!, until we arrived at a glass case containing what I can only surmise was a recreation of Tammy’s former dressing room.
How shall I describe it?
You know at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City where they have animals of bygone epochs frozen in action amidst the lush foliage of their natural habitats? This was like that, except that instead of lush foliage, there was mauve shag carpet and a chaise lounge, and instead of taxidermy foxes and gazelles, there was Tammy’s collection of ceramic pigs and a bunch of dingy bedroom slippers lined up on the closet floor.
Like the recent abuse of words like yummy … and marinate. And our obsession with the royal family. Before you get all angsty and defensive, it’s not that I don’t think Kate Middleton is a lovely girl with a really cute nose and a wardrobe superior to mine … it’s that WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY BE IN THIS BOOK? It’s 144 pages long. And it’s not the only one. There are six other “biographies” of the royal romance on the market, and a “Kate Middleton Handbook”, which clocks in at a whopping 182 pages and probably doesn’t even bother to deconstruct those blasted hats.
Yet another thing I don’t understand is our fascination with dead people’s things. A few weekends ago, in honor of our new governor’s inauguration, Tennessee residents were generously granted free admission to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Considering a youth admission is typically $14.99, adult tickets are $21.99, and memorabilia makes my pores yawn, I figured this was the boys’ only chance to see, I don’t know, the guitar Hank Williams was clutching when he passed out drunk and froze to death on the Lost Highway. (Isn’t that how the story goes? I don’t read museum plaques that carefully either. Zzzzzzzz.)
So!
We arrived at the Hall of Fame, got our tickets, and were quickly herded into an elevator that would take us up to the Tammy Wynette exhibit. As we strolled past case after case of Tammy’s sequined dresses, I was doing my best to make the whole thing feel magical and EVENTFUL, pointing and ooh-ing and ahh-ing and LOOK-ing!, until we arrived at a glass case containing what I can only surmise was a recreation of Tammy’s former dressing room.
How shall I describe it?
You know at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City where they have animals of bygone epochs frozen in action amidst the lush foliage of their natural habitats? This was like that, except that instead of lush foliage, there was mauve shag carpet and a chaise lounge, and instead of taxidermy foxes and gazelles, there was Tammy’s collection of ceramic pigs and a bunch of dingy bedroom slippers lined up on the closet floor.
I am haunted by those slippers.
Haunted by the fact that given the best case scenario in life, in which you really make something of yourself, it still comes down to a bunch of tourists with muffin tops staring at the drab velour house shoes where your feet used to be.
Kill me now.
To be fair, there were things besides slippers. And I will say the Hall of Fame itself is an amazing space. If you LIKE ogling the posessions of the deceased this is a great place in which to do it.
Haunted by the fact that given the best case scenario in life, in which you really make something of yourself, it still comes down to a bunch of tourists with muffin tops staring at the drab velour house shoes where your feet used to be.
Kill me now.
To be fair, there were things besides slippers. And I will say the Hall of Fame itself is an amazing space. If you LIKE ogling the posessions of the deceased this is a great place in which to do it.
Someone's guitars.
A bunch of someone's gold records.
I do remember that this was Elvis's car, because knowing how that story ends, it depressed me almost as much as the slippers.
At one point during our tour, Gus looked up at me and summarized the Hall of Fame experience thusly:
"This is the awesomest exhibit in the whole world," he said. "And also kind of boring."
"This is the awesomest exhibit in the whole world," he said. "And also kind of boring."
Well said, little man. Well said.
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