I know I am behind on blogging again- the juggling act gets harder towards the end of the haunt season. It's really kind of unavoidable considering so much of my life revolves around the haunt this time of year. Everything else sort of takes a back seat in the hearse. I am forever living my life like someone with split personalities (perfect for the haunt I'm sure!). Or maybe a super hero. I like that much better, let's run with it. Average citizen by day (during the week) I write fiction, sing in a choir and work in a bakery- innocuous enough, right? Extraordinary superhero by night (the weekends) I rat out my hair, cover myself in torn clothing and zombie make-up, and become an unbalanced paranoid schizophrenic who screams random things at people. I am Super Schizo! I am the terror that raves in the night! Let's get medicated!!
Currently my two- three- fourteen- worlds are colliding more than ever. My choir is practicing for the Christmas show, so I find myself at least half of the time singing the Hallelujah Chorus and Go Tell it on the Mountain, and the rest of the time considering horrifying effects to terrorize people with. It's awesome to be inside my brain.
Not that everything we've ever devised has worked to horrify… Mystify maybe… Confuse… Baffle… and otherwise amuse.
Like the year we put together a prop that was supposed to sit up on a morgue table a la the Night of the Living Dead. It was a quite a simple mechanism really. The body bent at the waist, and thanks to pneumatics, sat up rapidly. It worked brilliantly the first dozen times. At least until our tour guide led one group through and the body rocketed up off the table on cue, but the head became detached and launched into space. It quickly became the Night of the Living Head and flew across the room and bounced off the wall, scaring the daylights out of our guide (not to mention the group). Too bad it isn't something that can be reproduced time after time. Like a yo-yo head on a retractable leash. Going to have to put a little thought into that one…
Then there was the time our 'monster in a box' got stuck. Again, a relatively simple mechanism involving a motor, a cam, and a steamer trunk. It worked brilliantly until the motor got stuck and then there was some smoke involved… We were forced to halt the tour (causing our guides to pull some fairly brilliant delaying tactics out of their pockets) while we went to attend to the 'almost' fire.
It isn’t always the props that create the bloopers. Sometimes it's the actors. Like the time one of our tour guides got lost in the graveyard and found himself leading the group around in circles for several minutes. Not deliberately. The scare actors had a heck of a time trying to find new places to leap out of. Repeatedly.
This last weekend my life became jumbled into one big knot. I am a person that has a tendency to compartmentalize my life. Call me a control freak, but I find it easier to cope this way. When the lines become blurred I tend to panic and become confused. My worlds collided in a spectacular fashion when my co-workers, friends and choir buds all visited the haunt on the same night. My secret identity was exposed! The horrors! Except that NO one recognized me… There I was, acting the fool in the dayroom, and not a single one of my friends realized it was me. Cool. Superhero status intact, I live to haunt another day.
I have to admit, my friends were some of my favorite groups- especially the choir member (who shall remain unnamed) whose catch phrase throughout the haunt was, 'What the (insert expletive here) is that!?' She made me giggle a little.
As much as I enjoy entertaining and scaring people, I have to own up to one incontrovertible fact- I am a complete coward when it comes to haunted houses. I am an easy scare, the consummate target of any ogre, ghoul, evil clown, witch, specter, banshee, walking corpse, and for that matter, even the lame guy who only sticks his head out and says, 'Boo!' Allow me to elaborate.
This last summer when we attended the Midwest Haunter's Convention in Ohio, (yeah I know, I already blogged about this, deal with it), part of the convention was a bus tour to a place called the Scare-A-Torium. My daughter led our particular group, with my husband bringing up the rear and me safely sandwiched in between. I felt fairly protected going in, surrounded by the armor of my loving family. I quickly found out I was wrong. It took no time at all for the scare actors to discover the weak link in the chain, especially considering my daughter was plunging on ahead, entranced by the inner workings of the haunt, and my husband was lagging behind, checking out every crack, crevice, nail and board in the place, leaving me to my own less than dubious devices. The actors sensed my (poorly concealed) fear and preyed upon me with unrelenting glee. I was stalked, terrorized, screamed at, and otherwise haunted beyond my capacity to endure.
Before long I was shambling through the place at a rapid pace, chewing my own knuckles, and trying to make my way through with my eyes closed. Meanwhile, I was desperately attempting to keep up with my daughter who looked as if she were on a sight-seeing tour taking in all the remarkable sights while I saw absolutely NOTHING but my own eyelids. Every time I opened my eyes to find my way, another horror awaited me.
I honestly thought I was never making it out of there. It seemed to go on forever. My daughter was laughing and pointing to various actors, saying things like, 'Good job! Got me there!' My husband was viewing various props and pneumatics and saying things like, 'Man! I wonder how they did that! Hey, honey, look at that! That's cool! Did you see that?'
NO! NO I did NOT see that! In fact, I saw NOTHING but the big, creepy dude grunting at me (OBVIOUS misdirection, but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker) and then the other creepy dude who came out of nowhere and scared me nearly into fainting. But the props? Not a thing did I see. I couldn't tell you what color the walls were. In fact, I couldn't tell you if I was inside or out. I only knew I wanted back on the safety of the bus. Yesterday.
Anyway, somehow I managed to make it through without completely humiliating myself or my family. (Lies, all lies! I humiliated us all in a grandiose fashion- BUT- the humiliation was not yet complete.)
We hit the exit- oh rapture! Oh, heavenly joy!- I nearly tripped over my own feet shoving my last born, my one and only baby girl, to the side in an effort to save myself. (She's old enough to take care of herself, damn her.) I was breathing a sigh of relief -after a quick glance around for the cliché chainsaw guy- which thankfully they did not have- when I discovered what they did in fact have, was a SECOND haunt.
COME ON! NO WAY! I barely made it through the first one. The only thing I could say for myself was that my pants were still dry. I had NO idea what had even happened in the first one. I could not tell you a single detail about ANYTHING in there! And now I was supposed to go through another one? Really??
Okay, my husband and daughter, ever the supportive family, were more than happy to let me out of it- but I being the brave, COWARDLY soul that I am, I pulled up my big girl panties and said, 'Nope, it's cool. I can do it.'
Brave last words from a BIG sissy.
The gentlemen that greeted us at the door to the second haunt was dressed like a ringleader- which should have been my FIRST clue. After a few rambling sentences (no clue what he was saying I was busy chanting to myself, 'Keep calm, it's all pretend. Keep calm, it's all pretend…') then offered my daughter the opportunity to go in alone. It was obvious he didn't know her. She was pretty much like, 'Okay!' and off she went. The brat. Had he asked me the same thing I would probably have fainted dead away right there.
Anyway, so there I stood with my husband, who eagerly volunteered the information of my sheer terror to the man at the door, who then said, 'You've been such a good girl, when you get inside the first room you'll see a wall of cotton candy, go ahead and grab one.' Now I am NOT a gullible girl. Cowardly should NOT be confused with gullible. Just saying. Naturally, I was not about to reach for the candy, which just as I suspected was a trap. The ONE and ONLY trap I didn't fall for…
I raced through that haunt like my ass was on fire and my hair was catching and caught up to my daughter in no time. I then latched onto the back of her and allowed her to drag me pretty much the rest of the way through the haunt, which, by the way, was a mixture of clowns (OMG!!!) followed by some toxic science experiment gone wrong. By the time we reached the exit I literally could stand NO more. I gleefully followed my daughter through the exit only to find myself back at the BEGINNING. I felt like some kind of Alice in a VERY twisted Wonderland. I was NOT pleased. In fact, I burst into tears.
My daughter turned to me and said, 'Mom? Are you CRYING?!'
My very mature response was: 'Shut up!' Sob, sniffle, snob. 'Just find the exit and SHUT UP!' Sniffle, sniffle, sob, snort.
We eventually made it out and I bought a T-shirt because, honestly, they had more than earned my money!! My superhero status has dwindled to Super Schizo Pee-pee Pants.
If anyone doubts my terror, the Scare-A-Torium's commercial is even now running on cable TV in Ohio. Yours truly makes a cameo appearance and can be found screaming her brains out around the middle of the commercial…
True story.
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