BOOOOOOO!

OH! You should have seen your face! Ha! Hahahaha! I really got you that time. Hey, it’s Mermanda from Cusp of Normal. I’m bringing you today’s dose of Oh! How Lovely! because Jamie is busy eloping in Sin City. (Ok, not really, but I like to pretend.)

So today is Oct. 6. That means there is less than a month left of my favorite month. I love the red leaves, smell of burning wood, crunchy leaves, apple cider, costumes, caramel apples, carving weird things into pumpkins (see below), pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie, pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin, oh… and HAUNTED HOUSES!

Wu-Tang Pumpkin provided by Mermanda’s boyfriend’s mad carving skills.

I am probably one of the world’s biggest scaredy cats. I can convince myself I am about to die at any moment. It is actually a talent to be this afraid of everything. Do you think it is easy being afraid of bugs, being flattened by a suicidal jumper, germs, dying in a fiery car crash, drowning in a bridge collapse, being abducted, eating under cooked meats, being electrocuted in the shower during an electrical storm, salmonella poisoning, weak bladders, having my identity stolen, carbon monoxide poisoning, being bitten by a rabid squirrel, running out of ginger snaps, sitting by smelly people on the bus, finding a hair in my food, chipping my teeth, having my fingers run over by rollerbladers, strangers, broken noses, ear infections, and root canals? It takes a lot of energy, and I think I deserve some credit for being able to maintain so many fears all the while going about my life.

However, regardless of my fear of everything, I do enjoy a good haunted house. Not real haunted houses, like the one where my sister’s friend lives and claims to often be confronted by a little girl ghost. Hell no. Forget that. I can only handle poorly made-up actors grunting and screaming in my face. I mean, as long as I can hold on to someone and keep my eyes closed the entire time. That’s a pretty okay time in my book.

I didn’t always enjoy haunted houses, though. When I was in sixth grade, my friends went to haunted houses together and had a jolly time. I wasn’t allowed to go because my parents knew me. It was obvious that their daughter who still played with Barbies when no one was looking was not yet ready for a good haunting. So what did I do when my friends got to have their Halloween fun and I was stuck at home with Animal Lovin’ Barbie? I cried. I BEGGED my dad to PLEASE take me a haunted house because it would be SO FUN! I wouldn’t even be SCARED! I PROMISED!

Now my dad is a pretty smart guy, however, his downfall is that he’s nice. He listened to my stupid pleas and loaded me in the minivan for a trip to our local haunted warehouse. (Poor fool.) The whole five-minute drive there, my dad kept asking me, “Are you sure you want to do this? It is going to be pretty scary.”

“YES! I want to do it! Of course I do, dad! It’s going to be so fun. Kristen and Lauren went last weekend and they said it wasn’t even that scary.”

“Okay… I’m just making sure…”

There were two different attractions at this particular warehouse. One was a Halloween-themed kiddy-puppet show. The other was the real deal.

Giving me one last chance to back out, my dad asked if I’d rather see the puppet show. I probably rolled my eyes because I was just entering my sassy preteen years. (I shaved my legs for the first time that year… so you know I was headed for a pre-adolescent melt-down.)

We got in line for the haunted house. There were probably about a dozen teenagers ahead of us. I felt so grown up and cool to be in their presence at a HAUNTED HOUSE! Yeah!

I was psyching myself up, ready for the scare of a lifetime, when a dude in werewolf mask approached the line to explain the rules of the house. My heart began to pound. Ok. I know it was just a guy in a mask, but he was FRIGHTENING! I began to have second thoughts immediately. I tuned out his rules about not touching the actors as I tried to breathe deeply in order to stop myself from vomiting.

My dad watched my slow downward spiral and saw tears welling in my eyes. That’s when the door behind us slammed shut. We were stuck! There was no where to go but through the HAUNTED HOUSE!

“I changed my mind! I screamed. Please, Dad, let’s just go home. Please. Please. Oh my god. I can’t do this! Why did you bring me here?” The tears began to flow generously.

My dad tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. My panic only multiplied when the werewolf man ended his rule-spewing and lead the group into the HAUNTED HOUSE!

“No. No. No. I can’t. I can’t go in there.”

“You have to, come on. It won’t be that bad. You said your friends said it wasn’t even that scary.”

“MY FRIENDS ARE IDIOTS!”

That’s when I heard the chainsaws. Of course, I was then certain of my impending death. I looked at my dad and did something that would set my street-cred back about three grades. Back to when Mr. Fisher ruined my childhood by telling the entire class that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. (He made deer hoof tracks in the snow to fool his kids into thinking otherwise… that sneaky bastard!) I asked my dad to carry me. Now let’s pause to take in my shame. It’s a heavy yucky kind of shame, isn’t it? Thinking you are going to increase your cool points with the other sixth-graders, only to have your dad CARRY YOU THROUGH THE CHAINSAW KILLERS WHILE BURYING YOUR HEAD IN HIS SHOULDER AND SOBBING?

Well, guess what? I lived. However, my dad’s current back problems may or may not be attributed to that fine October day in 1995.