Hallmark Horror

Being on the shore of Lake Superior was restorative, as always.
But because autumn leaves = high tourist season, all the cheap motels in town were booked, and Marz and I stayed in a Tiny House airbnb in the woods, 30 miles from the lake.

Driving there through the tidy, touristy area, Marz commented that it was like a setting for a Hallmark movie.

Oh no.
Hallmark movies frighten me.
Behind all those mittened hands cradling mugs of steaming hot chocolate I always imagine the Stepford Wives or Get Out.

Ice tea on a rustic patio? RUN!!!

Sure enough, the signboard announcing the village near the airbnb read, A Family Community. I read "family" as code for "None welcome but 'decent, upright, white, Christian, law-abiding folk'".

(Also from Get Out, the Black housekeeper who says of her supposed white employers, "They treat us like family.")

And down the road from the airbnb flew a black, white, and blue flag:

"Those who fly the flag have said it stands for solidarity and professional pride within a dangerous, difficult profession and a solemn tribute to fallen police officers.
But it has also been flown by white supremacists, appearing next to Confederate flags..."

--"The Short, Fraught History of the 'Thin Blue Line' American Flag"

I can imagine how people who live comfortably in fairly affluent, homogenous places that jibe with the dominant culture like this Family Village can see places like George Floyd Square as monstrous, and the people there as barbarians who the upright police have no option but to pin down.

But to me, it's Family Village's seeming lack of awareness of the complexities of other people's lives that is threatening––
like a Procrustean Pinterest board where realities that don't fit the ideal are lopped off.

(Horror stories often trade on those unwelcome realities residing right within the communities themselves:
"The call is coming from inside the house.")

Anyway, the comments in the guest book at the airbnb praised the place with actual references to Pinterest and Hallmark movies. Marz was a little mad at me for laughing so hard when she read the comments out loud.

I wasn't really mocking the commenters themselves, though, as much as I was laughing at the contrast with my own life.
It was surreal.

(Well, maybe I was laughing at the comment that the rain on the roof was like a little cherry on the sundae.)
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[An Aside]

Have I mentioned that Ass't Man went to a wedding of old friends from college recently? And that he was struck by the contrast too?

"Someone was complaining that the place was out of turmeric water," he told me. "Turmeric water! It cost seven dollars! I wanted to invite them to visit our neighbors across the street, who don't even have running water... But later I tasted the turmeric water, and I have to say, it was really good."

"Of course it was really good," I said. "That's the point. Everybody should get the good stuff."

[End Aside]
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The feel of the airbnb itself was friendly though. A couple gay couples had commented in the guest book. Gay people like Pinterest too.

No. What really freaked me out there was... the twigs.
Twigs!

The sound of twigs breaking in the middle of the night--now that's horrifying. It kept me awake, on high alert.

I almost left the next morning, but Penny Cooper said she liked it there. "It's nice."
And really, it was nice, like turmeric water, if you like that sort of thing.
I'd rather be in a city.