Dyngus Reunion Tour and Polterwang

First, a lesson. Dyngus is most widely understood to be the state of Andrea, Autumn and I all being in the same geographic location, a great meeting of the minds, but is also the name for Easter Monday in Poland. To wit (and thank you Wikipedia!):

Dyngus Day or Wet Monday (Polish Śmigus-dyngus or Lany Poniedziałek) is the name for Easter Monday in Poland. In the Czech Republic it is called Velikonoční pondělí or Pomlázka. Both countries practice a unique custom on this day.

In Poland, traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and striking them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches (palmy wielkanocne); however, the earliest documented records of Dyngus Day in Poland are from the 15th century, almost half a millennium after Poland adopted Christianity.

Dyngus discovered the existence of this tradition sometime early in our 20s. Mostly we just liked the idea of a holiday where people run around slapping people's legs with pussywillows. A great tradition was born.

Dyngus is a little like Fight Club lite: We can talk about it, but don't really elaborate on his laws and customs. Suffice it to say that there are few things one can do to be evicted from the State of Dyngus, but there are frequent judge's rulings on issues of contention, e.g. "Judge's Ruling: Robyn is an Asshole."

With too-rare exceptions in the form of weekend visits, Dyngus had not convened since August 2003, upon our return from an International Tour in Scotland. As you can imagine, we were most pleased and excited when Autumn made the move to Lawrence this month and Dyngus reunited permanently for the first time since 1996. I know you are all excited too. In celebration of this extraordinary event, we decided to go on a Dyngus Reunion Tour, celebrating Dyngus as well as Andrea's 3oth birthday.

We went over the 4th of July weekend. Our first order of business was to officially discuss and determine a role for Ben, who committed to supporting Dyngus when he married me in October.

We had to have a new name.

When Ben is in residence, we are "Dyngus Plus Balls."

We headed to The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We chose The Crescent because it is a haunted hotel, having once been a hospital of sorts, that was featured on an episode of Ghosthunters. My friendship with Andrea and my many nights at her house has opened my mind to the possibility of spirits in the afterlife that stick around, although, with one exception, my exposure to these spirits has largely been limited to the presence of Polterwang, to be described later.

Some highlights and lowlights of our trip:

We ate in Nevada, Missouri at a place called The Cowboy Grill which offered chicken fried chicken (highlight), only to be informed that they were out of gravy (lowlight);

My fellow road-trippers allowed me to listen to three Celine Dion songs on the road trip (highlight, naturally);

The weather was gorgeous and Eureka Springs wasn't nearly as hillbilly as I'd imagined (highlight);

Still, Eureka Springs was hillbilly enough for me to feel comfortable, e.g. signs that said "Pete's Car Wash: Free Hand Job";

They had rocking chairs on the porch (highlight) and unlimited bacon on the breakfast buffet (major highlight);

There is a giant statue of Jesus, called "Christ of the Ozarks" that turned its head to look at me (highlight) but also had boobs (lowlight);

Andrea became overly excited in the glass slag pit of the gift shop and almost severly cut herself (lowlight);

I made that last bit up, mostly, but she was excited (highlight);

Our ghost tour guide thanked me for giving him good eye contact and minimal encouragers on the ghost tour (highlight) but refused to tell me the name of one of the ghosts so that I could summon said ghost in the morgue area (lowlight);

Andrea's GPS system, Angelique, tried to make us drive through a house (lowlight) and Autumn thought were were going to be attacked Deliverance-style, which was hilarious (highlight);

I was able to watch a fascinating show on the 50 states on the History Channel (highlight) but primarily caught information about Ohio (lowlight);

When the tour guide described a ghost that grabs people's ankles in the men's bathroom, I made a very clever joke about Larry Craig (highlight) but only Andrea and the tour guide heard me (lowlight, I hate when my comic genius cannot be shared, see: this blog);

Finally, at midnight on July 4th, my two best friends and my husband all wished me a happy birthday, and, since we were all in the same hotel room, it only took me tour hours to fall asleep, what with the fear of being attacked by ghosts.

In the end, other than getting a creepy feeling a bunch in the hotel, getting a picture of "orbs" that may or may not have simply been my boobs, and Andrea and Ben's insistence that a phantom made the papertowel dispenser dispense an extra towel independent from human movement, the only supernatural activity discovered on the reunion tour was the constant threat of Polterwang, or the effect of appearing to have a boner, (trust me, this is mostly Andrea) when you are female and generally boner-less. At least we think she's boner-less, but still a boner, no doubt.

Strangely, this phantom follows Andrea everywhere she goes.

Go gently, Andrea and her Polterwang, go gently.

Love,
Robyn