Boo

Let's talk about haunted houses. Do you like them? I do not. Why you may ask? Well, I don't like to have the crap startled out of me. I won't say that I don't like to be scared, because I don't think Haunted houses are scary, they just try to startle you. And that, they are good at. It doesn't take much to startle me. In fact, I sometimes jump, and perhaps let out a little squeal, if I turn around too fast, only to find my wife standing there. Of course, I can't prove that she didn't just appear there, which would make my heart rate increase justifiable. I didn't hear her walk in, but then again, after years of concerts, most with a close proximity to speakers the size of townhomes, I don't have the best hearing anyway. I can remember the first haunted house I ever went too. I was living in Springfield, VA, and the haunted house was set up in a building with a lot of rooms down a hallway. Each door was set up too look like a jail cell door. As I came around a corner, I saw the jail cells and thought I would be smart and hug the back wall, away from the arms reaching out through the bars. As I slid my back against the opposite wall, I felt a hand grad my back and a scream. I'd like to think that the scream was from the now visible prisoner, but we all know that scream came from my 10 year old mouth. What I soon realized was, that the jail cell and prisoner I had tried so hard to avoid, was actually a mirrored reflection of the same prisoner that now had ahold of me. That was a dirty trick, one I would never forget. That gauntlet of reaching arms from 6 or 7 jail cells, emptied into a room with an assortment of bowls that you could put your hand in so you could feel what eyeballs, intestines and brains felt like. I later learned that the "eyeballs" were peeled grapes and God knows what the other two were. That trip made an impression on me. As I got older, I no longer feared the people in the houses, but I knew their ultimate goal was to make a grown man cry. I've also realized that I don't function well in the dark. I don't like to be in pitch black, that is why I pay my electric bill on time, every time. I'll go without water, I can pee in my backyard, but I will not go into my basement at night without lights, it's not natural. The last, and I do mean last, haunted house I was in was probably 20 years ago. I went with a group of friends, who for some unknown reason liked haunted houses, at a local grocery store that was known for their yearly scary basement. The trip started pretty well, I was on the lookout for the upcoming predictable jumping from behind the curtain, or arm grabbing me from behind a wall, but there were new obstacles that I hadn't encountered before. The first was, in that pitch black room I mentioned before, a room that seemed to have no exit. After a few minutes of feeling around the walls, and suddenly realizing that my friends were now all gone, I began to panic. Where had they gone? Did someone take them? Good, those assholes are the ones that brought me here and I don't want to be here anymore. As I contemplated balling up in the fetal position and whimpering myself to sleep, I heard one of those so called friends say "Mark, crawl." I yelled back, "That's what I was going to do." Well, I didn't want her to know that I almost gave up on life itself, merely because I was left alone in the dark for about 30 seconds. Now, on my hands and knees, I began to feel the wall at knee high, until I found the next portal to hell that my friends had all ready passed through. I found it, but soon realized that the crawl space was made for someone who is 4 foot 2 inches when standing, which I am not. I am 6 foot 4 inches, and crawling with that height, still makes me taller than whoever built this thing. So now I'm half crawling, half slithering in the dark, to the next section that I want nothing to do with. I keep moving, following the laughter of my friends who are obviously drunk or mentally unstable, for what seems like a mile. I hear my friends voices getting closer, so I know it's just a matter of time until I punch one of them in the face and claim it was an accident, in the dark. I finally bump into one of them, but something weird has happened. Apparently, the crawl space was only a few feet, but I continued to slither not knowing that I could stand up. As I smash into the calves of my friend, she says, "You can stand up now." Well isn't that helpful, thanks for the info. Now on this trip, I had been leading the line, not by choice, but by default, because I was the only guy. If they knew how nervous I was, I think I would have been stripped of my guy title and banished to the end of the line, which is the second worst place to be. After all, some of the scare people wait for the line to past, jump out in the back to scare you forward faster into the next trap. I was trampled many times because of this tactic. Since I'm now at the back of the line, I have a decision to make, do I stay back there, or do I whine my way back to the front. It's a lose, lose, situation, but I opt for the leader of the death march and work my way forward. We are in a hallway that is barely wide enough for one person, but a man determined can collapse his skeleton like a rat and get into spaces 1/4 his size. Now as the leader, I plug on, praying that we will soon be in a group of people complaining at how short this haunted house was for the money we paid. I'd be right there with them, vowing to NEVER come back to this waste of money, when in reality I would pay double if they would turn on the lights and come get me. It's still dark as night, and I have all ready smashed into so many walls trying to find my way through that I can barely see through my glasses that are now bent and smudged, partly from wayward fingers from other wall gropers and partly from the sweat that is forming on my fear riddled face. I'm moving along well, when my hand goes into a wall crevasse, and I feel a face. At this point, I'm not sure what to do. Do I acknowledge that I know he/she is there and possibly beg him/her not to scream at me, or do I just move on, knowing he will jump out at the end of the line, thereby causing my friends to rush forward pushing me right into the next scare position that will cause me to squeal like a girl, again. I go with the acknowledgement that I knew they were there, in hopes that they will just let us pass and wait for the next group. Yeah, that didn't happen. As soon as I revealed their hiding place, which apparently infuriated them, they screamed, scared the shit out of me and my friends STILL rushed forward, but instead of us getting away from this new scare person, now I'm in the arms of said person. This is no time to be romantic. I wiggle my way free and head off to the next section. The next section had what I would call a low beam. The 4 foot 2 inch person who built this death trap might think that it's just a low ceiling, but to a 6 foot 4 inch person, this is a head buster. I whacked my head on the padded beam nearly knocking myself out, but most certainly knocked myself backwards into the crowd of people that had formed behind me. I regained my footing, lowered my head and plowed forward, only to step on a soft squishy part of the path that caused me to tumble forward and fall to the ground, only to have the now panicked crowd trample me on their way out the exit into the night air. I'm alone, in the dark, in the haunted house, with scary people near me, but I don't know where. To say that I got the hell out of there, would be an under statement. I burst through the door, leaving the hellions behind, probably laughing at the big doofus who was battered nearly to death by his friends, and wonder why it smells a bit like urine on the squishy park of the trail. So as the ads start popping up in the newspaper, on the TV or on the radio, tempting you to plunk down your hard earned money to wander around in a haunted house, remember this. That place is flooded with urine and tears from people like me, and you my friend, just paid to walk in it.