Thursday, September 20, 2012

Field of Screaming, Shaking, and Hyperventilating


Target has a candy and decoration section. Seasonal costume stores are springing up. One of my dogs as a costume. Halloween season of scare is upon us.

One of the big attractions on Halloween is haunted houses. Field of Screams in Pennsylvania has one of the earliest openers which my current paramour wanted to attend. My date has been acting in haunted houses for years in his hometown and is doing it again this year. As a veteran, he doesn’t see this as a scary enclosed space; he’s taking notes and critiquing it in his head.

I don’t watch horror movies because of my hyper-active imagination. I’m somewhat high strung and can startle fairly easily. I don’t enjoy being scared. My gentleman caller knew I was apprehensive but I don’t think he fully appreciated what that meant until after we got there.

The haunted hayride was broken so we went to the insane asylum themed house. We were part of a larger group and I quickly learned that the people that get picked on the most are the first, last, and most reactive. I quickly stuck my fearless date on the end and stayed close to the couple in front of us.

The girl was losing it, hard. If I reacted by jumping and making a small noise, she jumped higher and shrieked. Once I reacted, I got left alone. I liked her. The air flow wasn’t great so it was warm and stuffy but it was pretty bearable.

I was doing fine until we got to the end of the creep clown room. You know the stuff they make bouncy castles out of? Imagine two walls stuck together and you have to push your way through. I was thisclose to grabbing one of the actors in a clown mask and saying “Get me the fuck out of here,” family friendly language be damned.

My date held my hand and talked me through the castle of claustrophobia and I still came close to hyperventilating. After that my nerves were shot and we were maybe halfway done. I hadn’t lost the girl who screamed so I was doing OK until my date stopped to look at something and called me back. We hesitated long enough that we lost the other couple. Since I was the only one of the two of us who reacted to anything, I was getting picked on.

After that each time I saw an exit, I stopped and thought about it. I was trying really hard not to wimp out. We finally got to a point where I could feel fresh air behind the door. It’s a black and white checked room, I manage to dodge the clown with the chainless chainsaw but found my path blocked by another guy with a chainsaw.

I had no fight left in me and I wasn’t supposed to touch the actors (but plenty of them touched me which was totally unfair). One of the guys actually prodded my leg with the chainsaw. Not funny. Not cool. If I’d had more energy or fight, I’d have probably kicked him in the chest and he’d have deserved it for cornering people and giving them no way out.

I left sweating, shaking, and not too far away from hyperventilating and/or crying. I made my date sit there and hold me until I calmed down enough for him to do the second house by himself. Then I we got a funnel cake because I earned it dammit.

Our deal was that I’d do a haunted house for him and he’d go to a hockey game for me. With the current NHL lockout, I was traumatized for nothing. I wonder if I can rope into a road trip to a Hershey Bears game…

Current Music: The Greatest Show Unearthed by Creature Feature

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