Day 14: Three Tits
It’s a little jarring, but that’s what they’re called, the Three Tits. Or maybe the Three Nipples is a more accurate translation. I’m not sure, it’s French: Les Trois Tétons.
Regardless, the story goes that these gruff Canadian trappers alone in the wilderness, starved of their Québécois counterparts, wishfully re-named the mountain range in honor of that which they missed most: the three-boobed lady from Total Recall.
It’s bizarre that it stuck. I mean, I imagine it was partly that it’s a foreign language. Easier to codify something like that when you don’t know (or can feign ignorance of) its meaning. Though I’m sure every middle-school boy in a 300-mile radius is acutely aware of the translation. To the oblivious anglophone, it likely just registers as sounds, divorced from its original meaning, but I wonder how odd (or not) it is to native French speakers who stumble across it on holiday. Conversely, imagine traveling to, say, Japan and discovering a mountain called Yama Big-uh Bust-o. That would be very weird. Funny and surprising. Potentially offensive, but mostly just weird. I would be compelled to ask “Why did you keep this name? Did you not know what it meant?”
And that’s where we were headed, to America’s version of Japan’s Big Bust mountain.
Bland provided a pretty cozy place to crash. Some serious pro-designer meets bachelor-pad vibes. I later learned that the mattress on the floor that I slept on was an emergency loan from his sister. Thank goodness for older sisters.
The DIY cat climbing sculpture.
Bland’s theory, which makes sense, is that fancy people would not want a typical low-brow —carpeted— cat climbing sculpture in their public space, but they might swing for one disguised as art. Very crafty, this one.
The aforementioned tiniest of hands. And the pop-up Dr. Seuss book that Bland attempted to operate with his very small hand.
Reading the Dr. Seuss book the night before reminded me about a strange glitch of my remembered childhood. I confirmed my memory with Bland’s and now I’m curious what you remember about these characters:
Let’s do a little choose your own adventure. Think of their name, the titular name of the series, and surname of the authors. Now say it aloud.
At any point did you make the sound /ān/ — as in stain?
As in… Berenstain.
If you remember these bears as the Berenstain Bears, turn to page 284. If you remember them as the Berenstein Bears, pronounced /stēn/ or /stīn/, then continue reading and follow me down a rabbit hole.
Nowhere do any printed copies of the Berenstein Bears exist. The authors, their adult children, and millions of fans claim that it is, and always has been, the Berenstain Bears. And yet, a large subset of the population distinctly remembers Berenstein. Including you and me.
There is help
If you experience this as an emergency, call (310) 273-6700 and Bo Burnham will tell you a joke.
What does it mean that millions of people share a collective memory that even more millions of people label as false? It could mean we were all three years old and our parents were lazy mispronouncers. OR it could mean that we are living in a parallel universe, that there are many worlds, and sometimes they collapse and merge, leaving small irreconcileable traces behind.
For instance, small pockets of the population claim that:
Darth Vader said “Luke, I am your father” (he says “no, I am your father”)
Curious George has a tail (he doesn’t)
The Monopoly man wears a monocle (also no)
The Fruit of the Loom logo has a cornucopia in it (wait, it doesn’t?)
The evil queen in Snow White says “mirror, mirror on the wall” (nope, it’s “magic mirror on the wall“)
Smokey Bear is called Smokey the Bear (now I just feel dumb)
Sinbad starred in a low-budget genie movie, Shazaam, that was later re-made as Kazaam starring Shaq. (Never happened, and yet there’s still talk of a crossover film. Hollywood, bless your heart, always looking out for the little guy.)
Queen’s We Are the Champions ends with the line “we are the champions of the world” (this is just people being confused)
Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 80’s (seriously, people remember seeing news footage of the funeral, riots, and a moving eulogy from his widow)
That last one gave a moniker to this peculiar phenomenon, now known as the Mandela Effect. It even got its own movie. Spoiler: the movie is pretty good, but it posits that we’re actually all part of a computer simulation, instead of the quantum physics many-worlds theory. Being code in the Matrix would make for a pretty unsatisfactory discovery, but infinite parallel worlds that sometimes crash into each other? SIGN ME UP. Even better, how can I hop between them like they did in Sliders? (Remember Sliders? Lol.)
Stepping outside of Bland’s condo in the daylight was a little like stepping into a parallel universe. It was very Vivarium. This was the most bland/least Bland of all the things in my friend’s orbit. I half expected Bland to live in a treehouse made of thousands of identical factory rejected lipstick tubes and a decades-worth of abandoned skis. If you know Bland, this would make sense.
When Bland got up he was ready to spring into action. Old Faithful. I was ready to go back to bed. Old Folks Home.
But there were adventures to be had!
We were going to meet Bland’s sister, her husband, their friends and get shuttled to an island on a lake to camp. And they weren’t going to stay. Wait, who isn’t staying? Unclear. But let’s pack up and head out, they’re waiting for us on the water. Breakfast burritos scrapped together out of condiments from Bland’s empty-ish fridge (surprisingly good), then over-packing (a trait Bland and I seem to share), and off to buy snacks and sandwiches.
Oh, but between snacks and sandwiches, we stopped at Bland’s shop to grab the Hammocraft. What is a Hammocraft, you ask? You’ll just have to wait for Day 15 to find out.
The place we stopped for sandwiches was a local favorite, but entirely too busy for Bland’s liking. Normally one can call and place an order. Sometimes even from outside while standing in line. I shared with Bland that I used to pull that trick at Nana’s, the much-beloved Japanese restaurant in the town where we went to college. It was a little bit of a jerk move, but at the time I thought I was efficient and clever- the food was ready just after paying for it, instead of 15 minutes later. No such luck today, we had to stand in line with everyone else. Somehow my sandwich didn’t have any meat in it. Didn’t find that out until we were on the water. Mmm, cheese sandwich.
There are several lakes around the base of the Tetons. Years ago, during my origin-story visit, we went to Jenny lake, my mom’s favorite. Today we were shooting for Jackson lake. The entirety of the Tetons, the lakes, and more are all part of the very large Grand Teton National Park, much of which was gifted to the state of Wyoming in 1949 by John D. Rockefeller Jr. Since the land is public, there are all kinds of, theoretically, enforced rules around what goes in the water. We had to stop twice to negotiate with park rangers about the paddleboards on the back. The boards separately are non-regulated, but when tied together technically constitute a vessel. It’s a gray zone. A gray zone that, the last time it was an issue, involved one of Bland’s friends giving a false identity to the cops while they were all on mushrooms. In this state of mind, his friend became an international criminal on the run, living a double life and spying for the Israelis. Or something like that. Being on drugs can get weird. One time I thought I thought I was being chased by two delivery men in a box truck. I wasn’t.
Driving to the lake, Bland got audibly annoyed with the “rubberneckers,” people who slow down to gawk at the fauna. It causes lots of congestion and long wait times. I can understand why someone from the area would get frustrated with this dynamic. There is always a lopsided mismatch between the transitory new people who unthinkingly do something once and those who are stuck in continual exposure to the never-ending stream of people doing that same stupid, unthinking thing on repeat. It’s like Chinese water torture. I’ve experienced some version of this in retail.
At the dock there was a parked boat with the best name I’ve ever seen on the side of a sea-faring vessel.
I told the guy that it was a great name. He said that it came with the boat. Sure it did, red-headed guy.
Bland was attempting to reach his sister, but service out here is garbage. His plan basically amounted to standing on the dock and waiting for her to see him from the water. I think that’s her, he points to one of several far away white boats. Surprisingly his plan worked. But it took a minute and I used the opportunity to go to the bathroom. When I saw myself in the mirror I laughed at how much of a bro I looked like. Rare form. Had to take a picture.
And there they were. Bland standing on the dock reeled them in. We’d briefly considered getting out the paddle boards and building the Hammocraft- it’s distinct enough to be noticeable from a long distance, but thankfully we didn’t need to.
They told us to drive to the other dock and park there, that’s where they’d parked and we’d have to load up stuff from their cars too, so might as well do it all in one shot.
Bland and I drove off, stopping at the lodge to get some sort of permit or something. Inside, I noticed one of his pieces in the restaurant.
An attractive member of the staff made a point of getting far away from my shot, lest I accidentally capture her. Bland stopped to ask her a question, as he turned to walk away I pointed to him and then the sculpture and mouthed “he made that.” She looked impressed and batted her eyelashes. I told Bland about this later, suggesting he might follow up, but he didn’t seem to care. Probably happens to him a lot.
On the boat I met a cast of characters, and I can’t remember everyone’s name. Though I do remember Bland’s sister’s name because it’s also unusual- Padgett. Not pageant, there’s no N. I feel like there was a Sam in there, maybe an Ani or Evi, and, uh… Will? I won’t even try to guess the dog’s names. They were cute. Except for the one that kept barfing. Apparently, dogs can get seasick too. Poor thing.
Padgett, driver of the boat, loaner of the mattress.
Blandular Hokums. Don’t think you’ve seen him yet, here he is.
The doggos.
Annnnnnd some other very nice people who’s names I totally don’t remember.
I’ve never really spent much time in boats, definitely not any this nice. It was basically a floating sectional. And the lake was the living room. Just tootling around was pretty enjoyable, watching the waves, making small talk, eating my stupid cheese sandwich. But then the one dude (Sam?) pulled out the hydrofoil, and that’s when things got really interesting.
A hydrofoil is a wake board with an additional submerged structure, a foil or fin, that magically elevates the rider above the surface of the water. It’s pretty wild to watch, and even crazier to experience. Dude-bro made it look easy. It was not easy. I tried the normal way and it felt like my arms were going to get pulled out of their sockets. So I opted for superman style. Not as cool, not as hard, but still ridiculously fun.
The most impressive part of Dude-Bro Sam’s hydrofoiling was that he was able to catch the wake of the boat and ride it without being pulled. You could tell because the rope would go slack. The people who are top level are able to let go entirely and just surf around. Between waves they pump their boards to propel themselves. Go look it up, it’s a hell of a thing to watch.
After everyone who wanted to try it was sufficiently satisfied (and cold) we headed for the island where they had a campsite reserved. I didn’t realize until it was unfolding the elite level of Jackson Hole adventuring that I had stumbled into. We had an entire island to ourselves at the base of the Tetons. There aren’t very many of those spots available, they’re basically impossible to get. Luck on top of luck. Pretty grateful I got to join in.
As the sun set, folks starting setting up their camps, Dude Bros were working on dinner, and Bland convinced me to try the drysuit. I’d heard of wet suits, but not dry ones. Honestly, I didn’t really know how either functioned. Somewhere in my memory was the notion that an internal layer of water was part of the wet suit, but when I tried the hydrofoil, there was no such layer with the wet suit. Just skin-tight neoprene. The dry suit was a lighter, looser material that cinched around the wrists and neck. It was more like a water-tight onesie pajama, booties and all.
Bland mentioned that you could inflate the suit around you, so I did. It was a funny process, pulling the neckline over my mouth, breathing in through my nose and then out through my suit-covered mouth. I felt like a hyperventilating Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which elicited giggles from both me and Bland.
It was cold in the water. Wait, am I getting wet? No, that’s just the coldness. I floatilla out from the shore and just… starfish. Ah, the tranquility of a glassy lake, and I splayed like the aloof Gerridae Heteroptera. From the shore, Bland suggests that I snow angel. DONE. But now it’s getting really cold. Almost as if the water was leaking into the suit. Almost as if a lot of water was leaking into the suit. Becauuuse, you guessed it, I have crushing amounts of student debt. No, well yes, but that’s not the point, there was a hole in the suit. Or maybe many holes. Not sure. But what I am sure of is that I was wearing every single article of clothing I brought with me because Bland assured me I’d need them to stay warm in the suit. Ha. The Dude Bros had a field day flicking shit at Bland, make sure to wear ALL your clothes. Poor Bland was so embarrassed. I actually wasn’t too bothered by it, it was all part of the adventure. Plus everyone chipped in random clothing to get me back to dry and warm.
Dinner was great, grilled veggies and bratwurst made on the campfire. Something about cooking over an open flame. Maybe it’s just psychological, but I swear it tastes better. I remember one-time camping as a kid, we were at this shitty campground with a decrepit rec center where white guys whose pants were falling off practiced jumping to smack the vent system as an apparent mating dance, which seemed to be working for whatever that’s worth, and where was I going with this? Oh right, Princess Diana had just died, and we were camping in New Jersey (coincidentally, not causally). My mom made goulash, which I later learned from my uncle isn’t actually goulash, and it was so good. Much better than cooked at home. I told my mom it was good and then stream-of-consciousness speculated about the psychological vs. actual improvement of the food, because presumably my mom hadn’t done anything differ… GEE THANKS MATT.
After dinner I was pretty tired and ready to crash, but Bland insisted that I play at least a token round of glow-in-the-dark Bocce Ball with him. It was pretty great. I lost terribly. The rest of the gang continued on for a while, crashing through the entirety of the island in the dark. It sounded like a lot of fun, I wish I’d been up for it. Instead, I curled up with a glowing hot rock wrapped in tin foil, wrapped in my wet shirt. It was supposed to get down to freezing. Would a luminescent rock save me from freezing? Let’s hope so.