My Gay Adoption Day 7 :: Do babies come from cow patties?

For those of you voraciously reading the chronicles of our quest to adopt an infant (and I must say, there seems to be quite a lot of you - thanks!), you no doubt expect this chapter to describe, in full, our weekend in Vermont meeting with a prospective adoption agency. Alas, while there may in fact be "almost" nothing to do in rural Vermont (more on that later), it would seem that finding adventure among the denizens of the fourteenth state - which include farm animals, moose, and the indigenous Verhick (short for Vermont hick) is appallingly easy. There's a lot to tell. And if you think I'm going to simply cave to your endemic attention deficit disorder or your need for instant gratification, you're absolutely right. Just not in this episode.

Driving up to Vermont from Boston is largely a process of highway lane subtraction. It also bears just a little resemblance to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, for within the borders of this verdant state you'll no doubt find the unfathomable darkness at the heart of every human being increasingly and paradoxically sitting in plain sight: yes, I'm talking about Wal-Mart. But if the drive - three hours of endless highway pavement, winter chill, and Broadway showtunes (shoot me) - seemed to stretch on mercilessly, our reward was the quaint village town of Woodstock, Vermont. Apart from the actual adoption-related proceedings, this was the highlight of our trip (too bad it was so sudden, and so fleeting) - and the highlight of the highlight? A country store.

Wait: perhaps I should capitalize that. A Country Store, for those who have never seen one, is where you can buy the disco lights, the retro club clothes, the liquor, the banquette where you make out with the guy you just met from the 1950s toys aisle, an extensive array of organic mints so that he doesn't recoil from your breath after you taste all of the garlic-honey pretzel dips, the condoms you'll need after you discuss the inner workings of a Vermont weather stick, generic laundry detergent with which you can remove every single stain from the bedsheets, the cure-all aspirin/cyanide mixture invented by Shirley Waitcloth in Crane Falls that's guaranteed to kill off your hangover, and even an Ultra CDP 11 .45 ACP pistol so that you can get that guy out of your house after you realize his teeth are removable. Of course Kevin and I just bought a few stocking stuffers and some penny candy, but I know my audience.

Seriously - Woodstock was quaint. And I mean that in both senses of the word. It's eccentric and enchanting, and it's really quite small. About two hours ought to do ya; and after you've got your Starbucks-substitute fix, taken a few lovely photos, and scored a set of wind-up chattering teeth for the kids, you'll be on your way, smiling and happy.

With 72 hours of Vermont left.

Nevertheless, it was around 6pm before we pulled into the luxurious arms of our home-away-from-home: the Holiday Inn in Rutland, Vermont. Population 17,000 (the town, not the Holiday Inn, which we're pretty sure had three rooms booked, including ours) - a veritable metropolis of strip malls, run-down movie theatres and eateries from the 1960s. Here, sandwiched between ski resorts and farmland, you'll find a series of chain hotels with peculiar similarities: wood-paneled foyers, fake fireplaces, artwork nailed to the walls, and - curiously - oversized, indoor swimming pools surrounded by hottubs. We visited the latter one night, despite its run-down appearance, and found that nothing beats back the unique redolence of backwater Vermont like bathing in a 80/20 chlorine/water mix. Rutland is also home to the legendary Paramount Theater (where Christopher Lloyd was recently found meandering about playing Willie Loman when not ensconced in nearby Weston, population 630) and the upscale Diamond Run Mall - Vermont's third-largest shopping center, and home to commercial interests that might engage the moneyed clientele of 5th Avenue - such as Sears, K-Mart and the always popular $ellPhone$, where you can dump your old iPhones since clearly AT&T never heard of the Green Mountain State.

High point: we did meet a fabulous hip lesbian working in American Eagle there. She gave us a discount, her Facebook name, and told us that if she were pregnant and wanting to make an adoption plan for her baby that she would totally choose us. Next time she's in Boston we're going to take her somewhere truly cosmopolitan so she can see how the other half lives: perhaps California Pizza Kitchen, or if we're feeling really flush that month, Cheesecake Factory.

Speaking of eating, that night we also ate at a curious establishment: The Sirloin Saloon. This popular steak and seafood restaurant chain is home to an "award-winning" salad bar and something called "bison bread." I must give this culinary chophouse a mixed review: the salad bar was somewhat limp and the "bison bread," while hearty and sufficiently tasty, had the heft of a brick - it might be used to take down a bison, but I'm not sure I'd use it to slake my appetite a second time. But in Rutland your choices are slim: it's this place, Applebee's, one goldmine we discovered the following night (stay tuned), and a lot of fast food. I see bison bread perched uncomfortably in my future, sort of like a crap-colored grim reaper.

After a brief pilgrimage to worship at the altar of fabulousness that is Cher in the effervescent, if ridiculous, "Burlesque," we sacked it in for the night. After all, we had to rise at 5:30am and there was plenty of time on Saturday night for clubbing.

The following morning we awoke somewhat excitedly; here was the start of our adventure, after all. And just like a heterosexual couple's initial, thrilling foray into the world of babymaking, we began our journey with orgiastic, carnal pleasure: donuts and gingerbread latt�s from Dunkin' Donuts. Of course, had there been a Starbucks on Route 4, I would really have creamed my coffee - but it was not to be.

It was super-critical that we arrive at our "Get Acquainted Workshop" on time; having driven into the wilds of Vermont for this purpose, should we arrive at the home offices of Friends in Adoption significantly after 7:30am we might have been spurned and told to return at a later date - and that was NOT going to happen. So we strapped on our GPS, warmed up the BMW, and trekked into the mountains of southern Vermont in search of Middletown Springs (population 823).

I say "trekked" because this simple thirty-minute drive ultimately became the first emotionally-exhausting, arduous, frustrating ordeal of our adoption process. And it ended with a near-death experience.

How's that for foreshadowing?

Within five minutes of tripping south on Route 7 - a happy, two-lane, 55-mile-per-hour highway, our GPS (which shall go brandless, but which I'm now convinced stands for "Guidance Plan for Simpletons") ordered us to take a right. I missed the turn; after all, when was the last time you successfully took a sharp right from a highway directly onto a small road? We turned back, and despite our misgivings (Really? That little road is the way? I thought the adoption office was on a major road?) we followed the GPS' advice. And then things went from bad to worse.

For the next twenty minutes, the GPS took us on a tour of backwater Vermont, cavorting down single-car-width roads-that-were-not-roads in a sedan clearly not built for the punishment you'd inflict on the Vermont state car: a Ford 4x4. We nearly began counting cows, and at one point Kevin yelled out "wild CHICKENS!" to which I suggested he try to catch one, as we were likely never going to emerge from the rural hell inflicted upon us by the mindless makers of technology who evidently thought that the quickest path between one point on the map and the other has nothing to do with how fast you can rumble over ditches and might need a chicken for roasting over a fire kindled by adoption paperwork and ignited via a cigarette lighter.

Ultimately, the GPS took us back to pavement - although by this time we were already a few minutes late for the seminar. I sped up (please, like someone's going to pull me over for doing 55 miles per hour on Route 133 without Kevin's playing mailbox baseball), we careened the final few miles, and stopped at our destination.

A cowfield. Stupefied, we looked back at the GPS, which waved a convivial red flag over the patch of nowhere in determined smugness, as if to say, "You're here, boys. Get out and find yerselves a young'in." Instead - after all we'd been through, and facing the likely frustration of missing the workshop entirely due to this crap piece of technology - we reached for our phones so that we could call Friends in Adoption for directions. And discovered we had no service. Not even one stinking little bar of reception. We sat there, dumbfounded, lost and angry, each of us reduced, like Joseph Conrad's hero, to our own baser instincts. Kevin screamed in frustration and almost started weeping. I calmly lowered the window, unplugged the GPS, and tried to lob it out of the car.

Kevin stopped me, of course. And then we sat there, quite simply not knowing what to do next, nor how this backwater state got the best of the two Boston boys so damn easily.