A Mystery

The September Rules are limping along to the finish line. Needless to say, there have been digressions.

Sometimes a girl needs to drink at a U2 concert tailgate because a.)the beer is free, b.) she has become keenly aware of how sad it is to now belt out "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" as a middle-aged woman.(Smug twenty-somethings, you'll blink and be doing the same at the snorefest of whatever Coldplay-Deathcab for Crappy-Kings of Bland bunch of wankers you love.) Furthermore, c.) the beer is free.

And sometimes a girl needs to eat an entire BLT pizza and fries and three large DD iced coffees the next day so as to not puke in her Odyssey on the way to a PTO meeting.

But my hangover is not what I've come here to discuss. Have we forgotten my original mission to report on inner suburbia? To uncover the underbelly of Utopia? To unearth the secrets and lies hidden behind pretty little boxes on the hillside?

To set the scene, I live in Stepford Wife country. Activities include sailing, golfing, mowing lawns, and popping collars. In nearly every driveway, you will find a blue Volvo station wagon. In nearly every house, you will find a hyper-fit woman who does not work, as well as two to four brats with bowl haircuts. What you will NOT find is a man because he is in an office, bar, or woman two towns over.

This is a town that is full of overeducated rich white people driving luxury cars to the country club or yacht club or soccer/lacrosse/field hockey practice, and yet . . .

This is a town that once banned an ice cream shop from placing a statue of an orange cow on its property because the Council of Constipated didn't think an orange cow fit the town's character, and yet . . .

This is a dry town, and yet . . .

it is keeping a secret.

Behind a house a half a mile away from where I type this sits an illegal, after-hours bar called the Shack. The story is that some crazy guy who lives with his mom has been running a bar in the garage behind her house for years. Everyone know about it--cops, politicians, reporters. And no one says a word.

I had heard rumors about the Shack for a while. Having only a vague idea of its location, I tried to find it without success. I dismissed it as a suburban legend, a myth, an impossible dream. But this weekend, I met a drunk chick at the U2 tailgate party who has been to the Shack and told me the street name. (A longish street with a few side streets that cross it, but still . . . I can work with it.)

It is my destiny to visit this Shack. It is my quest. No cul-de-sac shall be left unexplored. No lane left untouched. The Shack is my personal Holy Grail, and rest assured, I will find it and report to you my findings.

Has Mama finally found a place to hang her hat? An escape from the Mr. and Mrs. Perfects? Has she finally found her beloved ruffians and thugs? Oh, where, oh where, can you be?????