Recently I came across an article on the internets featuring photos of abandoned Pocono-area honeymoon resorts. I don't know if this was something people knew about across the US, but for east coasters, the Poconos dominated the honeymoon and couples-getaway market with a plethora of romantically-themed resorts to choose from. I can recall the theme songs from the commercials pretty readily, because that's the kind of effluvia that clutters up my synapses.[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tep528ZMSmE]This article took me for a walk down...ummm...not quite Memory Lane, because everything about the upcoming story is just so weird. Should Have Been An Acid Trip Lane? I Must Have Made This Up In My Fevered Brain Lane? Here's the deal:A thousand years ago, when I was but a slip of a paisley, I was married. For the purposes of storytelling, I'll call my ex Snidely. Snidely had a very good friend who had just ended a very bad relationship; a few weeks after that ugly breakup, this friend was at his office holiday party and won a romantic weekend getaway for two to a resort in the Poconos. Since friend was unattached and had sworn off women for a while, and his vacation package came with an expiration date, he gave his vacation to Snidely and me--here you go, Merry Christmas, have crazy fun. So far, so good, right? We picked a weekend (off-season, of course, because that's the block of time the voucher was good for), booked a room, and planned to whoop it up.In all honesty, I don't remember exactly which resort we stayed in. I suspect it was, indeed, Penn Hills (see the above commercial), but the Poconos are littered with abandoned resorts that shared similar sensibilities. These are the hotels that kitschy dreams are made of; the places with heart-shaped tubs and round beds with mirrored canopies. With red accents on every available surface and shag carpeting on the wall. Because carpet on the wall is for lovers.As an aside...is anybody else interested in spraying shag-carpeted honeymoon suites with Luminol? I'd imagine we'd need sunglasses. And I digress.The thing is, there's a desperation to these sorts of places. They wink at you and grab your hand before you can stop them. They're designed with this message: You? Are saucy. You? Can finally let go of your inhibitions! You? Can do IT. That's right. The big IT. And we all know what's going on, because we're doing IT too. It's like you're obligated to have sex while you're there, because it's racy and naughty and expected and then you can go to breakfast the next morning and do that shy smile-giggle as you see your freshly-laid neighbors coming out their hotel rooms too. Can we also take a moment to consider how mirrored-everything is a nightmare for anyone with body image issues?We pulled up to the parking lot and of course, this resort had a sign out front to announce events or welcome special visitors. You expect them to say something like, "TONIGHT! MAGYCK MOMENTS PERFORMING LIVE IN THE TIKI LOUNGE" or "GIVE HER SOME MORE MEAT WITH OUR TUESDAY NIGHT PRIME RIB SPECIAL FOR TWO", right?What you don't expect to see is this.That's right. Accordion players.I'm sure I had photos of this, at one point. I looked for them last night. If I had any, they are long, loooooong gone. Please enjoy my artistic rendering.It seems that we had booked our romantic, couples-only resort weekend on the same weekend that an accordion players association was hosting a convention. And while I appreciate the works of the noble accordion, we were surrounded by two hundred men (and only a tiny handful of women; ladies, you gots to represent!) with a country mile of great bushy eyebrows between them all, decked out in tuxes, accordions strapped to their chests. They would play accordion all day long. As they walked down the hall. If they took a smoke break and went outside. You couldn't get away from it. This doesn't say "sexytime" so much as it does "polka party".If we had gone there for a polka weekend, it would have been perfect.To get away from the 24-hour polka party people, we stopped in the hotel bar. And indeed, Magyck Moments (or whoever they were) were playing in the lounge, torching up songs that shouldn't have been torched. (Wait...I remember having to get up and go to a different seat, because from where I originally sat at the bar I could still see and hear the goings-on at the accordion banquet, while listening to the bewitching sounds of Magyck Moments. It was pure sensory overload.) The Magyck Moments singer, a woman, was murdering something totally poppy, taking "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" from bubblegum to dirge. I remember she had a Linda Evans, Dynasty-era haircut, only it was screaming red, and she was wearing some kind of holdout, '80s-leftover prom dress. It was blue and had copious amounts of sleeve. Like this one; though I remember hers being even more shiny.Since she was clearly past the age of prom, I can only assume she pilfered it from her daughter's closet.I can't tell you much more about that weekend. I remember things were kind of tense with Snidely because the whole situation was so weird, and this was at the point in our relationship where we still liked each other. Since we were there off-season, all the activities they advertised--things like horseback riding and nature hikes and tennis and golf--were not operational, so there was a lot of wandering around relatively quiet hotel grounds. It was as though I dreamed of all the ways that weekend could become an insane, not-romantic spectacle and it all came true. All it was missing was some sort of brute strength. If there was an assemblage of Scotsmen playing highland games, it would have been ahhh. maaaa. zing.[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28QFio97Nnk]You know what else I remember? I remember that the burger I got at Flood's was excellent. Please note: the honeymoon hotels are reduced to monoliths, sad reminders of the limits of kitschy romanticism. Snidely and I have long split. But Flood's is still in operation. It seems that a good burger withstands the test of time.Photo creditsHeart-shaped tub: www.roadtrippers.comRound bed: dcist.comWelcome sign: Me :)Prom dress: www.liketotally80s.com