Don't Laugh.

4:00 pm on Day Two and guess where I am - back home. This sucks.

I woke up at 7 this morning in Jean’s simple farm house to go back to the revival for breakfast and singing with her. Before we left the house, she gave me chocolate chip cookies for the road, a small bible and my choice of three other books of scripture and interpretation. I forewent the one by “Dr.” James Dobson of Spongebob Is Gay Witch Hunt Fame and chose the smallest one. Then she and I drove back over the verdant hills towards the morning service.

We talked a lot about religion on the way over. She told me we could talk all day about the Mennonite/Amish/Hedderite faction and still not cover all the differences between the three and between them and the rest of the religions. She also had a lot of questions about my breathalyzer, and even caught me in a lie. When we were leaving last night, I told her it was a security device that kept other people from stealing my car (I didn’t want to give her the impression that I’m a drunk, because honestly nothing could be further from the truth. No, shut up, really. I’m serious.) But, being the literate person that she is, she caught me in that one this morning when she read “Advanced Alcohol Monitoring” on the hand unit. Then she admitted to me that she used to drink and be “quite wild” when she was my age. She seems so saintly that part of me wonders if that is really true or if she just said it to make me feel better.

I had to try not to laugh when she tried not to gasp when I told her my mother is a pagan. That was an interesting moment to say the least. But I could tell she disagreed with my way of thinking when the conversation turned to homosexuality. She got real still and quiet as I waxed poetic on the idea that homosexuality is not a one-way ticket to Hell, but that was to be expected. I honestly think that if she weren’t raised as a Mennonite and that weren’t all she knew, she would be much more open to the idea of different lifestyles. She seemed like a smart enough, nice enough lady.

Things were just getting started as we arrived. She bought me a doughnut, the biggest one I’d ever seen, and a coffee and after eating we moved from the long food tent into the larger worship tent. We sat together for the music and I even sang along. (I sang along a little last night, too, but I definitely showed my true colors when the chaplain asked everyone who believed Jesus Christ was their Lord and Savior to raise their hands and mine stayed in my pockets. Then we all bowed our heads while the chaplain prayed for us, but I couldn’t help laughing to myself because I was so tempted to recreate the scene from “Saved!” where Susan Sarandon’s daughter starts jumping up and “speaking in tongues” just to piss everyone off. I would never do that, ever, but the situation definitely presented itself.)

Well, anyway, we sang and enjoyed the banjo and then they started the big auction, complete with the “HABADAHABADAFIVEHABADABADADOIHEARSEVENHABADAEIGHT” auctioneer guy. I was loving it! But I knew I had to get going so I said goodbye to my new friend. Jean stood up and hugged me, then asked me to follow her to the back of the tent because she wanted to pray for me.

It was a very special moment, saved or not. We faced each other and she laid her head on my shoulder and I on hers. She took hold of my elbows and I did the same, and I stared at the grass below our feet as she prayed, “Dear Jesus, please be with Jessica as she goes about her journey. Help her to be safe and prosperous in her travels. Help her to find the religion that is right for her, as although there are many choices, they all lead to Your light and grace. Please watch over her, in Your holy name, Amen.” I said, “Amen.”

Don’t tell anybody this, but I actually thought of praying out loud to Jesus for Jean as well, and the feeling of wanting to do so was quite exhilarating. But I chickened out at the end.

After she was done praying, Jean raised her head off my shoulder to look at me, her eyes bright under her glasses and a big smile on her face. “I don’t think it’s any accident that you and I came together.” I blushed hard as I agreed. Even now, typing this hours later, I have to try not to cry. I feel very blessed to have met her. Even if I don’t believe as strongly in Jesus as she does, I believe in the power of the human spirit, generosity, and love. And she embodies it.

As I pulled out of the revival parking lot, I laughed out loud. I laughed in joy at the friends I made and the wonder of the last 18 hours I had spent. I put the CD that Max had given me back to Track One and listened to Rilo Kiley as I made my way out of New Holland.

I drove through the foothills of the Appalachians and marveled at the towns built on steep hillsides. I passed a little bar that had motel rooms for rent and daydreamed about what would happen if I stopped. I let my imagination carry me inside, where I would make a bunch of friends and the bar owner would let me stay for free, then introduce me to his nephew, a young, handsome, simple man with a good heart, and we would have a whirlwind romance and then take off to Vegas to get married. He would want me to live there in that almost-shanty mountain town with him, and it would be a struggle in our young marriage as I decided if I could honestly do that, and I would tell him that he wold have to give me some time to see if I could really handle living there for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I would become the town’s social worker and help drug and alcohol addicted parents while my husband and I raised our two lovely children. I dreamt I would be a good mom and maneuver my minivan quite well in and out of the steep mountain roads. And then eventually I would end up staying because we had built our family there, and because I couldn’t tear my husband away from the town he had grown up in.

Well..... I stopped daydreaming as I saw the huge iron sign declaring “Welcome to Pottsville”, about 40 miles north of reading, via Rt. 61. In Pottsville, my bladder made the tragic mistake of needing to be emptied so I stopped at the little market to see to that. When I was finished..... my car wouldn’t start. My breathalyzer wouldn’t turn on. I was stuck. Or, as we young people like to call it, F-U-C-T FUCT.

Let me repeat - FUCT!!!!

I called the breathalyzer people right away. I got “my guy”, Craig, on the phone. He’s my good buddy and we have a certain way of speaking to each other. “Do you know what won’t work, honey?” I said with ice in my voice.
“Your interlock, obviously, dumbass”, was his answer.
“You’re absolutely right. And do you know where the fuck I am?”, my sarcasm and pitch rising.
“Tell me.”
“I am in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and one of you guys WILL be coming up TO ME to fix this!”
He let out a long breath. “Shit.”
“You’re right.”

We bickered about who should come to who and he told me to plug the unit back in and hold down the power button for 15 seconds (any of you who have never seen my stupid breathlayzer, I don’t expect you to understand any of this, but please bear with me), which made it turn on, but then it gave me the message that I would have to return to the shop for service within 6 days. “DAMMIT!!!”, I yelled into the phone. “Is it serious? Do I really have to come back there?”
“Yeah, girl, that means you have six days to get your ass back here.”
I was thoroughly pissed at this point, a blazing beacon of rage ready to erupt.
“Fuck you, Craig, I’m not coming back there! I’m out on my trip, you know all about this!”
Ever the voice of reason, he said, “Well, you don’t have to. You’re welcome to stay out on the road and just tow it here from Maine when it craps out again.”
I. Was. Livid.

But what could I do? I got back in the car, headed for the interstate, and made it back to Columbia, MD in record time. The fog was so bad at some points that I had to strain my eyes to see 20 feet in front of me but I just kept going.

And here I am. At Starbuck’s. In Maryland. In the town next to mine. And Philly cheesesteaks are going to have to wait until tomorrow, after I get a shower and a good night’s sleep at my house. My eyes are too tired after fighting with tiny airborne water droplets to even try to go out on the road again tonight.

So far only a couple people besides my parents know I’m here. I was too afraid of looking like a failure to call many people.