
Before I get to the post, please note at the bottom of the page, you can enter a giveaway for a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card and a signed copy of The Love Project.
Now for my quest to prove Miranda MacLeod a liar.
While working with Miranda on The Love Project, I learned something new.
Well, I learned a few things, but for this post, I’m going to confine it to one thing.
My self-preservation skills are severely lacking.
Here’s how I arrived at this conclusion. (Yes, I’ve suspected this for quite some time, but sometimes it’s impossible to look the truth in the eyes.)
In The Love Project, Miranda mentioned a location in Central Massachusetts that I’d never heard of: Satan’s Kingdom.
When I first read it, I thought she was joking, and I called her on Skype to tell her that addition was particularly funny.
This is when she challenged my world view, and I started digging my hole.
She said it’s actually a place in Massachusetts. Being me, I said, “I don’t believe you!”
Okay, I get that someone whose initials are the same as an infectious disease really shouldn’t be casting stones when it comes to names, but remember, I have zero self-preservation instincts, and I always think I’m right, even though I’m usually wrong.
So, I dug in on my stance: Satan’s Kingdom did not exist. Period!
Miranda said in her bemused way when I’m being an ass about something she knows is absolutely true, “It is. I’ve been there.”
“Wait.” I perked up in my desk chair. “Are you telling me this is a place I can visit and get a T-shirt?”
Miranda said that while sadly, Satan did not run a giftshop, I could get a photo of myself by the sign.
I continued to dig and said I’d bet her a day at the spa that Satan’s Kingdom didn’t exist, because she was obviously lying to see how gullible I could be.
She readily took me up on the bet, which should have been a blaring red sign overhead, but I kept burrowing into my disbelief that “rational” adults named a place Satan’s Kingdom. More evidence I forced from my brain happened last summer when Miranda invited me to visit a vineyard in New Hampshire, and I told her the state didn’t have any. Turns out, I was wrong. Click here to read that story.
Last weekend, I convinced The Better Half to hop into a Zip car with me to seek out Satan’s Kingdom. She wasn’t excited about the destination, but going for drives is one of the few things we can still do during COVID-19 times, so she didn’t put up much of a fight.
I punched Satan’s Kingdom into our GPS, and lo and behold, it gave us directions. I wanted to keep up my positivity, but my hope of proving Miranda a liar started to dwindle before we pulled away from the curb. If you’re about to say I should have Googled this before making the bet, I’d really like to know where you were a few weeks ago when I needed you.
As it turns out, Satan’s Kingdom was kinda hard to find, which is ironic since people have been telling me, for as long as I can remember, that I’m going to hell.
We’ve been getting a lot of snow, and Satan’s Kingdom is on some back roads, making the drive a bit arduous at some points. Eventually, the GPS said we’d arrived, but I couldn’t find the sign, and now, I wanted a picture of me in front of the sign. If I was going to be wrong, I might as well be really wrong with photographic evidence. I have a very hard personality to pinpoint. Most of the time, it’s best for me not to delve into introspection, or I’d probably lose my mind.
I typed in Satan’s Kingdom sign in the GPS, and it gave us new directions.
The first attempt failed because the road was blocked by a wall of snow. This really brings into question that old saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, because apparently the last mile was unpaved and unplowable.

We turned around, and the GPS recalculated.
Ten minutes later and voilà! There was the sign.
The surroundings were much more pleasant than I thought possible for a place called Satan’s Kingdom.
So, Miranda, when the world goes back to normal, I owe you a day at the spa. Marking my calendar for 2022. Or maybe 2023…
In case you want to hear Miranda’s side of the story, click here.