Montic(h)ell(n)o

My parents came to visit for the weekend. This was fucking remarkable. In the 8 years I've lived here they have come to visit twice and one of those times was when i was getting surgery to repair my broke ass leg. Yesterday we went around the University and went to dinner at Mono Loco. Today we went to Monticello and Michie Tavern. I realized something at while at Michie Tavern that I did not know previously. It is that I fucking hate Michie Tavern. Michie tavern is such a pile of shit. So is Monticello, but at least that shit is sort of legit.

If you are unfamilliar with all of this, know that Monticello is the museum/ home of Thomas Jefferson. Michie Tavern is the bullshit restaurant and gift shop located just outside of Monticello. It pretends to be an old tavern with an "ordinary" which, as far as I can discern, means restaurant that serves that same damned food as Old Country Buffet except with less selection, no unboiled vegetables, and a ridiculously high pricetag. They serve something they call "stewed tomatoes" which seems like a bad idea to begin with and in practice is a fucking horrorshow. Now, i understand that the premise of this restaurant is to serve the same kind of shit they ate two hundred years ago in Virginia. That's fine I guess but do you really expect me to believe that after Thomas Jefferson travelled to France and Italy for years, he came back here and the best food he could think to produce was fucking fried chicken and goddamned stewed tomatoes? (and don't any of you fact checking assholes go sending me and articles you looked up that say that Thomas Jefferson liked nothing more that stewed tomatoes because I dont want to hear it.) The worst part was that they make all the people who work there dress in these obscene "period" costumes that I swear to god probably come from Cintas (you know, the uniform company). Its so dumb to see some guy come over in polyester knickers to ask you if you want anymore COKE. I mean jesus. But get this: they'll give you a fucking coca cola but you have to drink it out of a tiny metal cup, the volume of which is about .5 cups. Add ice and the volume comes to about .25 c. or 4 tablespoons if you're not into fractions. I swear to god that at one point the waiter came and brought two cokes to our table and i drained them both at the same time as if i were taking a shot and demanded that he go bring ten more. When he came back with a tray of "cups" of coke, i asked him why the hell they didn't just use glasses like a normal fucking restaurant. He said it was because the cups were more authentic. I informed him that since the cups were made of stainless steel (as were the plates and silverware) which was not invented in its modern form until the early twentieth century, it would in fact be much more authentic to use glass. Then, in my fury, i slapped the tray full of little cokes to the ground. Fortunately only 40 tablespoons of coke were spilled so it was cleaned easily using an extra napkin from the table. It was the stupidest event of the day.

OK, second stupidest. While at Monticello, we went to see the steel smith. He was this guy who is apparently paid to stand around making useless shit out of steel all day by heating it on the fire and then beating the hell out it on an anvil. It was actually pretty cool. The guy clearly didn't give a holy damn about safety as he was handling the material with his bare hands and didnt give a shit how close you got to him, he would just shower you with burning sparks until you moved away. When he was done making nails or whatever shit, he would let them fall to the ground and wouldnt pick them up or anything. We're talking red hot steel here. Enter my mother. After a rousing conversation with the slaves about how shitty being a slave is for them (and then getting directions about how to avoid traffic while driving to Dulles from 66), she rolls up and is amazed at how deftly the smith turns metal into nails. She then proceeds to bend over an pick up one that he had let drop to the stand his anvil was standing on like ten second earlier. She was about to try to hand the hot motherfucker to me when it occured to her that she was getting her hands burned to shit. Instead of dropping the bitch instantly, she set it back down on the stand very carefully so as not to mess it up. Needless to say I kept that nail as a souvenir. Don't get me wrong, I love my mother a great deal, but christ.

It might sound like I'm a miserable ass, but i did actually have a fine time with my parents. It would probably have been a little more ok if our waitress at Michie Tavern didn't look just like a girl I used to date, with whom i had a pretty mutually sad breakup (it got me thinking too much)(and all you afore mentioned fact checkers who want to point out that the story above includes a WAITER not a WAITRESS, just know that it is people like you who killed santa claus and the easter bunny for us all.)