Have you seen those stupid Dish network commercials with the Worst Father in the World and the big Cable Conflict Boxes that float around and menace his family?
Well, in one of them there's a little boy in bed, and it starts out with him yelling "Dad? Dad?" And then he complains about the box, and every time it comes on my flesh crawls and I want to jab my brain out with an ice pick.
Because William has that exact same voice, and he uses it the same way. And it's horrible. Oh, the horror.
It's almost always at night, and I'll usually be doing something like watching TV or sitting down to a hot drink or just laying down, after he's gone to bed, and then I'll hear it:
"DaaaAAAAAaaaaaddd!"
And it's just like that, too, only it's one part zombie moan, three parts banshee wail, two parts ghostly howl, and all parts horribly annoying voice. And I'll come in, my flesh crawling, and he'll be laying there in bed, and he'll look at me, and then what comes next is something that makes me want to immediately go from two kids to one. It's something like:
"Do you know where the spare bullet to my Nerf shotgun is?" or
"What if there's a crocodile in the front yard?" or
"Where does the stuff you flush down the toilet go that's not water?"
You get the picture. And then if I get mad, he gets all hurt and upset, and is all like "I'm just curious" or "you'd answer it if it was Victoria" or "you can't really throw me out of the house!"
I'd probably answer the questions, too, if it wasn't for the voice and the fact that he waits until TEN MINUTES AFTER BEDTIME to ask why Kool-aid doesn't come in water flavor.
And don't even get me started on the whole "did I tell you I have this big homework thing due in two days I haven't started?"
Monday, November 12, 2012
Flying Squirrel Gets Fixed
For all you diving afficionados, I have a special bonus feature for you: diving pictures, plus a story! Because everybody likes stories.
First, a photo of the Flying Squirrel in action. Note the look of incredible focus and concentration on her face, despite being about a foot above the board:
Okay, so here's the story:
Last week there was a meet in <name of town redacted to protect those involved>. At most meets, there are three judges for diving (like shown in the photo above). But at this meet, there were five judges, three from the conference and two who just happened to be coaches on the other team. Because they needed judging practice, I guess.
Everything went pretty well through the first three dives or so. But it soon became apparent that Vic was probably going to cruise to victory, even though she didn't have her best stuff on the night (she attempted two dives I had never even seen her do before).
And then...the strangest thing happened! Suddenly, one of the judges started to score her about a point underneath the other four judges. Now, it is true that this score gets thrown out - in a five judge meet the highest and lowest go out - but it did seem strange that suddenly he was lower than the other judges.
Even stranger, the same judge was suddenly scoring one of the opposition divers 1 to 1.5 points higher than the other judges. Weird, huh? It was completely inexplicable. I couldn't think of any possible explanation for this, but perhaps you can cogitate for a while and come up with one.
So after five dives, without her best stuff, and with the Russian judge actively working against her, the Flying Squirrel came in 2nd place, but about 0.85 points.
Now for the funny part: during the entire 70 minute drive home, she was hot. I mean, raging hot. It took about five minutes for her to speak in something other than swear words, and then another 5 for me to get a word in edgewise. Because she's all sweetness and light until somebody starts keeping score, and then it's all Drago from Rocky saying "I must break you" and doing her best to utterly destroy the competition.
Finally I got her calmed down, and I said "so despite all that, she beat you by less than a point. So what does that tell you if you meet her on a neutral board?"
"She's doomed," Vic says.
And then we ended with her Diving Affirmation. It goes like this:
"Victoria, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their teammates!"
Below the fold, another photo from the diving meet of intense concentration:
First, a photo of the Flying Squirrel in action. Note the look of incredible focus and concentration on her face, despite being about a foot above the board:
Okay, so here's the story:
Last week there was a meet in <name of town redacted to protect those involved>. At most meets, there are three judges for diving (like shown in the photo above). But at this meet, there were five judges, three from the conference and two who just happened to be coaches on the other team. Because they needed judging practice, I guess.
Everything went pretty well through the first three dives or so. But it soon became apparent that Vic was probably going to cruise to victory, even though she didn't have her best stuff on the night (she attempted two dives I had never even seen her do before).
And then...the strangest thing happened! Suddenly, one of the judges started to score her about a point underneath the other four judges. Now, it is true that this score gets thrown out - in a five judge meet the highest and lowest go out - but it did seem strange that suddenly he was lower than the other judges.
Even stranger, the same judge was suddenly scoring one of the opposition divers 1 to 1.5 points higher than the other judges. Weird, huh? It was completely inexplicable. I couldn't think of any possible explanation for this, but perhaps you can cogitate for a while and come up with one.
So after five dives, without her best stuff, and with the Russian judge actively working against her, the Flying Squirrel came in 2nd place, but about 0.85 points.
Now for the funny part: during the entire 70 minute drive home, she was hot. I mean, raging hot. It took about five minutes for her to speak in something other than swear words, and then another 5 for me to get a word in edgewise. Because she's all sweetness and light until somebody starts keeping score, and then it's all Drago from Rocky saying "I must break you" and doing her best to utterly destroy the competition.
Finally I got her calmed down, and I said "so despite all that, she beat you by less than a point. So what does that tell you if you meet her on a neutral board?"
"She's doomed," Vic says.
And then we ended with her Diving Affirmation. It goes like this:
"Victoria, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their teammates!"
Below the fold, another photo from the diving meet of intense concentration:
Monday, November 5, 2012
A Big Loser
I'm married to a great big loser. No, no, it's true. Don't try to convince me otherwise.
Angela entered a contest at work, where everybody put in money and then the three who lost the most weight got a share of the pot. But it wasn't quite clear if it was based on BMI, or inches, or weight, or what. So she tells me this, and I came up with a brilliant plan:
You go to the weigh in wearing a parka stuffed with fishing weights and with big, heavy boots. Then you go to the final weigh-in wearing a skimpy string bikini. Everybody wins! I even offered to drive her to the final weigh-in.
But Angela, being fair-minded and obsessed with "the rules" insisted that she wasn't going to cheat to win. I say, if it's worth winning, it's worth cheating for, which is why nobody in the family ever lets me deal when we play cards.
So anyways, after several weeks, the final weigh-in comes. Angela's lost 8.5 pounds (a little better than one a week) and several inches, so she's all excited about finding out what happens. She insists, all afternoon, that we need to go back to the rec center because on the paper it says the winners will be posted right after the final weigh-in.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"It's on the paper!" she says, shaking the paper like a totem. "See!"
So we go back, and sure enough, it's not posted. But one of the women there does know that she's the ultimate winner of the contest. And anybody who would know anything more isn't there.
All weekend, Angela's mad. Which I think is vaguely funny, but keep to myself for my own personal health. Every time she walks by the paper, she says "posted that afternoon my..." grumble grumble grumble.
The whole spectacle is pretty funny, at least, it's funny in retrospect because SHE WON SECOND PLACE!
And more importantly, she won cash. Yee-haw! I was very proud of her.
Hot off her victory, she enters a second contest at work, slightly shorter this time, and apparently possessed by a strong case of megalomania, when asked what her goal is she says "Ten pounds!"
When I got home she was trying to hacksaw off her arm. Which is stupid, because the blade on the hacksaw's not going to cut through bone, so I gave her the jigsaw, which is better for such things.
Angela entered a contest at work, where everybody put in money and then the three who lost the most weight got a share of the pot. But it wasn't quite clear if it was based on BMI, or inches, or weight, or what. So she tells me this, and I came up with a brilliant plan:
You go to the weigh in wearing a parka stuffed with fishing weights and with big, heavy boots. Then you go to the final weigh-in wearing a skimpy string bikini. Everybody wins! I even offered to drive her to the final weigh-in.
But Angela, being fair-minded and obsessed with "the rules" insisted that she wasn't going to cheat to win. I say, if it's worth winning, it's worth cheating for, which is why nobody in the family ever lets me deal when we play cards.
So anyways, after several weeks, the final weigh-in comes. Angela's lost 8.5 pounds (a little better than one a week) and several inches, so she's all excited about finding out what happens. She insists, all afternoon, that we need to go back to the rec center because on the paper it says the winners will be posted right after the final weigh-in.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"It's on the paper!" she says, shaking the paper like a totem. "See!"
So we go back, and sure enough, it's not posted. But one of the women there does know that she's the ultimate winner of the contest. And anybody who would know anything more isn't there.
All weekend, Angela's mad. Which I think is vaguely funny, but keep to myself for my own personal health. Every time she walks by the paper, she says "posted that afternoon my..." grumble grumble grumble.
The whole spectacle is pretty funny, at least, it's funny in retrospect because SHE WON SECOND PLACE!
And more importantly, she won cash. Yee-haw! I was very proud of her.
Hot off her victory, she enters a second contest at work, slightly shorter this time, and apparently possessed by a strong case of megalomania, when asked what her goal is she says "Ten pounds!"
When I got home she was trying to hacksaw off her arm. Which is stupid, because the blade on the hacksaw's not going to cut through bone, so I gave her the jigsaw, which is better for such things.
The Flying Squirrel Flies Again!
As regular readers (all three of them) of the blog know, Victoria is a diver. And once again, diving season has started. Last week there were two meets: one local against another school, and the other an "open".
The two-school meet went really well, and the flying squirrel showed her true colors as she soared to a dramatic victory. More importantly, for the first time in her diving career, she broke 100 points, scoring 103.8! Yay, Victoria! Of course, thanks to a math error they announced 113.8, but it's all good!
At the open, it was a three-dive meet and she didn't fare quite as well, coming in 8th. She was all depressed and unhappy, so I asked her where the next-closest girl from her school came in. "Oh, she was 16th."
"Wait, so there's like how many girls diving?"
"I dunno," she said. "A whole bunch."
Oh, I see. 8th out of a whole bunch is terrible.
Goofus.
This week is three more meets, so we'll see how the flying squirrel does as the season goes on. Can she stay above 100??
The two-school meet went really well, and the flying squirrel showed her true colors as she soared to a dramatic victory. More importantly, for the first time in her diving career, she broke 100 points, scoring 103.8! Yay, Victoria! Of course, thanks to a math error they announced 113.8, but it's all good!
At the open, it was a three-dive meet and she didn't fare quite as well, coming in 8th. She was all depressed and unhappy, so I asked her where the next-closest girl from her school came in. "Oh, she was 16th."
"Wait, so there's like how many girls diving?"
"I dunno," she said. "A whole bunch."
Oh, I see. 8th out of a whole bunch is terrible.
Goofus.
This week is three more meets, so we'll see how the flying squirrel does as the season goes on. Can she stay above 100??
Haunted Awesomeness
I'm not going to bad-mouth Salt Lake City. It's a really nice town - clean, well-laid-out, thoroughly modern, and full of nice people who generally want to help you get what you need. And it's the closest large city to where we live, and it has a Costco.
Having said that, it's not exactly a mecca of excitement. This is okay with me, but sometimes, I'm wanting to do something cool or unusual, and it's often not going to come to SLC. So when Angela announced that she'd found a haunted house in town, I was not really looking forward to it.
I did some research, hoping to find another haunted something to visit during our mini-vacation, and you know what? SLC has a shockingly large number of haunted somethings. Haunted prisons, haunted farms, haunted houses, and at least one haunted warehouse. And they all carried the strong disclaimer: "FOR AGES 12 AND UP!"
Let me tell you, I have two children, both 12 or younger. So I take such warnings seriously. And one has zombie aversion, so the whole "Zombie-apocalypse themed haunted house" was right out.
I ended up conceding that we'd go to Angela's haunted house. Only it wasn't a haunted house. Or even a haunted block. It was an entire haunted authentic pioneer village.
Many years ago, my brother and I used to run a haunted house out of the basement of our church. We'd have killed for a setup like this place, which was awesome. Several buildings (at least 20) gathered around a few streets, laid out in a perfect order to move people through. Lots of actors. Good sound system to pipe in spooky music.
When I went to buy the tickets, the lady said "we don't suggest this for children under 12."
"Oh, well," I said to William. "You're coming anyways. Try not to wet your pants in terror."
After a brief wait we were shepherded into the Community Center, where they show you the movie that is the setup for this whole event. It centers around a grave robber, who promises to return and feast on the souls of the living. As a whole, the story is a little goofy - grave robbers, even zombie ones, aren't that scary - but it gets bonus points for being true.
After that it's off for a wait in the Social Hall, where you stand in a room that smells of donuts while you wait to enter the Haunted Village proper. And you know what? After thirty minutes of donut stink, you start to get a little nauseated.
The whole time we're waiting, we get to listen to the football team in front of us, a gaggle of 12-15 year olds. We learned three things:
1) They're a football team
2) They ain't afraid of nothing, because they're a football team
3) They're a football team
Time comes to go upstairs. The spooky/tipsy lady watching the door insisted that we sign a waiver. The football team, being a team, all signed it together (I never saw so many X's), but I signed for our family. "Hey, your name isn't Elvis Presley!" Victoria yelled. "Shut up!" I said. "I don't give up my right to sue for nothin'!"
The entry stairway was appropriately festooned with spider webs and whatnot. The football team goes first, followed by the football adults, followed by Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, followed by Mr. Awesome and his family (that's me, by the way).
Just as the first football player steps foot on the top step, somebody in the darkness hits a hammer on a board. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! And this entire crew of brave football players screeches to a halt and begins to wail like a bunch of pansies.
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then one of them flinches, the hammering starts again, and they shriek again. The whole scene is just pathetic.
"COME ON, LADIES! HIKE UP YOUR SKIRTS AND GET A MOVE ON!" I yell mockingly, and finally they move. The adults are just laughing their heads off.
They ushered us into a room with a "fortune teller" passed out up front. We're sitting in silence, with the football team up front hollering out mockingly from time to time. "Hey, lady, wake up!" they're saying, and whatnot. I'm sitting in back with my family, just near the exit. I can see what's coming from a mile away.
Finally the "fortune teller" comes to and tells us about how danger is everywhere, we have to be careful, if we see the grave robber we're doomed, and...
SUDDENLY THE GRAVE ROBBER COMES RUNNING IN!
Didn't see that one coming, did ya? Well, neither did the big bad football team, who proceeded to begin shrieking like a nursery school class that ran out of juice boxes. These guys are just freaking out, so we make a hasty retreat out the exit before they trample us.
And then the fun really begins.
We manage to get in front of the football team, which I figure is a good thing, and right behind us is Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend. We pass the time idly chatting about what to expect, with him insisting that it'll all be okay and there's nothing to worry about (really? I was expecting this to be my last family outing, but if Little Justin says it'll be okay, I guess I can relax). Then after a brief wait to separate the groups, we were released into the haunted village of doom.
First up: the spider-webby building. Nothing serious, no big worries, right? We stroll right on through with red lighting and webs hanging down, and Victoria starts to relax. She skips up on top of a bench and is prancing down without a care in the world when...
BOO! A guy jumps out from behind the only tree within 20', which practically had a big neon sign that said "guy in spooky costume is here don't be surprised when he yells boo!"
Guess what? She was surprised. We had to run and get a defillibrator to get her heart re-started. She's convulsing on the ground in abject terror, with me and Angela trying not to die laughing. When she finally gets up, she is pretty much tattooed to my arm, which is a problem, because William is trying to twist my other hand clean off.
"You know what?" he says. "I gotta pee."
We go on, with a spooky guy now following us, and then another spooky guy comes out of the building up ahead, and the second spooky guy has a sheriff hat on, so you know what's coming next:
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Well, you know, and I know, but Victoria pretty much didn't know, and so she collapsed into a paralysis of terror again. It was good stuff. Thanks to her histrionics, Little Justin has caught up to us now, and he says "since we caught up can we all hang out together?"
And my stupid children are all "yeah, there's safety in numbers!"
And I'm all thinking "only if some of the people up ahead are cannibals who will demand human sacrifice."
So for much of the rest of the haunted village, we are treated to the same repetitive refrain over and over of him saying "no worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times."
At one point, Angela says "If I put a shoe up his butt, do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, she says "I'm gonna kill him and feed him to one of those prop cows. Do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, I say "Honey, I'm worried if you don't let go of his neck he won't start breathing again."
So then we go through another building, and this one has somebody in it, only we don't know until we're about to leave the building and they pound the door and shriek out in a blood-curdling scream.
Which, of course, sends Victoria over the edge, and if I hadn't caught the shoelace of her ghost as it floated out of her body towards heaven I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it.
William looks up at me, and he says "It's official: my pants are wet."
After a few more buildings like this, we get to the "The Moaning Lady." She was pretty freaky because she made a noise that normal people can't make. And she was on a bed reaching for us, and William pretty much tore my arm out of socket dragging me through the room and saying "nothing to see here we need to go let's hurry don't dawdle I was tired of mom anyways if that thing eats her no problem you've got a good job and can find another woman let's go stop dawdling what is your problem I'm in a hurry let's not loiter around any more come on get the arthritis out of your butt and get a move on you old man."
Then, we came to...the statue. This building wasn't all that scary, but there was a figure sitting in a chair with a big old wig on it and I couldn't really figure out if it was a mannequin or if it was a person or what. And we debated it...what was it? William thought it was a woman. Angela thought it was a woman. I thought it was a mannequin.
Victoria thought it was death incarnate. And when, just as we were about to step out of the room and it let out a 462-decibel shriek and I had to check my pants for pee, I was pretty much agreed. Because nobody who can scream that loud should be that small and sit that still in a haunted house. I mean, what is this person in real life? An air-raid siren?
So then we got to the field. And at one end, we go over this little barbed-wire fence to get in, and there's this big, smelly herbivore (cow? bull? llama? sheep? I dunno - go ask a farmer). And it's just sitting there, and I can smell poop everywhere, and I'm worried that I'm getting poop on myself, and that's scarier than anything I saw so far.
Then on the other side, there's this whole group gathered where one of the costumed actors is chasing this woman around, who is giggling and laughing like an idiot. So we cross over, and Little Justin breaks into his patter to yell "hey, dude, we know you need a girlfriend so just ask her for her number!"
Of course, being Little Justin, he continues to yell this. So the spook turns its attention to harassing him. And as we go by, I'm pretty sure that Angela pinched the spook's butt just to get it riled up, because it kept Little Justin back for quite a while.
"Hey, this is a dark corner," Angela says as she picks up a branch. "Let's lay in wait here and murder little Justin. How about it! That's scary, right?"
"No worries, mom," William says as he picks up a rock. "I'll bean the girl."
"Come on, you two," I say. "You're wasting valuable scary time."
"There's not any more scary stuff, is there?" Victoria asks, trembling. "I'm worried that- OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE PLEASE EAT THEM FIRST I HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR IT'S A FRANKENSTEIN AND WE'RE ALL DOOMED! PLEASE GOD HEAR MY PRAYERS!"
And with that, she was out again. Bear in mind that Frankenstein was like twenty feet from us, and facing the other direction, and made of crepe paper.
We carried Victoria for a while, and finally she came to. We went by another animal in a field, and I worried about poop. William continued to accelerate, and steadily we were leaving Angela behind. Who goes through a haunted village at a Sunday Stroll pace, I don't know, but apparently she thought "old man feeding ducks speed" was the appropriate velocity for traveling through "deadly killer dark haunted death village town." In case of zombie invasion, I'm definitely not waiting around for her.
So we get to a chain of buildings; me and the kids, anyways. I'm not sure where Angela was at this point; perhaps she was back at the parking lot. In any case, I had no feeling in left hand and William dangling off of it and insisting that next time we will respect the age limitations of the haunted park. Victoria is rambling crazily and asking how old she has to be in order to buy a shotgun.
I'm laughing. Because I'm, you know, tough. And we travel through the graveyard, with open graves and coffins and everything. And it's totally a missed opportunity. There's a cowboy running around dragging a shovel with sparks flying off of it, which is cool. And I'm making fun of the children as I drag them into the hospital, because they're little weenies. I think the conversation goes like this:
"Come on, you two, you know it's only make-believe. Don't be such a couple of- AAAAAIIIIIEEEERRGGH!"
And I pee my pants.
And maybe, just maybe, fill one pant leg with poop.
Because, in a clear violation of haunted house etiquette and my rights under the Geneva convention, there's a dude in a top hat and straightjacket hiding just around a doorway in an asylum, with another dude in clear view who has distracted me, and as I come through the doorway he goes something like "Hello" or something like that.
And I freak out.
When I got to the other side of the asylum, I had William's right arm and a clump of hair. When Victoria caught up, she had a weird-looking bald spot. William was a little cheesed off, becuase he was never scared at all beacuse he saw the dude, and that's the arm he writes with, but I told him his handwriting sucked anyway so he needed a change.
I have no idea where Angela was, but I heard her mocking laughter all around me.
I don't really remember the next few things, because I was busy changing my underwear and copiously swearing. I do remember that the last room was a spooky lady doing something spookily (librarian?). And we ditched Angela, who at this point was walking so slowly that she was literally going backwards towards the asylum in a violation of the space-time continuum.
Victoria, eager to be done with the whole event, sprinted up ahead and was skipping her way down to the exit. Just near the end, she dropped into "Ninja crouch check for danger" mode because she was sure that one last scare awaited her. She was kind of right, because I sneaked up behind her and poked her in the back and yelled "BOO!" and she jumped twenty feet up.
William just laughed and laughed and laughed.
About ten minutes later, Angela arrived.
"Where have you been?" we asked.
"Oh, I was talking to one of the ghost guys." She said. "They're quite nice."
"What did they say?" I asked.
"Well, you guys kept leaving me behind, and then they'd start messing with me, and I'd say I had to catch up because you were ditching me, and they'd go 'oh man, that sucks.' So then we'd chat a few minutes and I'd go on."
So to recap:
-Victoria has a heart condition now
-William is all out of clean underwear
-I have a nervous disorder and a fear of asylums
-Angela got four phone numbers
And that was our visit to haunted village, Salt Lake.
Having said that, it's not exactly a mecca of excitement. This is okay with me, but sometimes, I'm wanting to do something cool or unusual, and it's often not going to come to SLC. So when Angela announced that she'd found a haunted house in town, I was not really looking forward to it.
I did some research, hoping to find another haunted something to visit during our mini-vacation, and you know what? SLC has a shockingly large number of haunted somethings. Haunted prisons, haunted farms, haunted houses, and at least one haunted warehouse. And they all carried the strong disclaimer: "FOR AGES 12 AND UP!"
Let me tell you, I have two children, both 12 or younger. So I take such warnings seriously. And one has zombie aversion, so the whole "Zombie-apocalypse themed haunted house" was right out.
I ended up conceding that we'd go to Angela's haunted house. Only it wasn't a haunted house. Or even a haunted block. It was an entire haunted authentic pioneer village.
Many years ago, my brother and I used to run a haunted house out of the basement of our church. We'd have killed for a setup like this place, which was awesome. Several buildings (at least 20) gathered around a few streets, laid out in a perfect order to move people through. Lots of actors. Good sound system to pipe in spooky music.
When I went to buy the tickets, the lady said "we don't suggest this for children under 12."
"Oh, well," I said to William. "You're coming anyways. Try not to wet your pants in terror."
After a brief wait we were shepherded into the Community Center, where they show you the movie that is the setup for this whole event. It centers around a grave robber, who promises to return and feast on the souls of the living. As a whole, the story is a little goofy - grave robbers, even zombie ones, aren't that scary - but it gets bonus points for being true.
After that it's off for a wait in the Social Hall, where you stand in a room that smells of donuts while you wait to enter the Haunted Village proper. And you know what? After thirty minutes of donut stink, you start to get a little nauseated.
The whole time we're waiting, we get to listen to the football team in front of us, a gaggle of 12-15 year olds. We learned three things:
1) They're a football team
2) They ain't afraid of nothing, because they're a football team
3) They're a football team
Time comes to go upstairs. The spooky/tipsy lady watching the door insisted that we sign a waiver. The football team, being a team, all signed it together (I never saw so many X's), but I signed for our family. "Hey, your name isn't Elvis Presley!" Victoria yelled. "Shut up!" I said. "I don't give up my right to sue for nothin'!"
The entry stairway was appropriately festooned with spider webs and whatnot. The football team goes first, followed by the football adults, followed by Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, followed by Mr. Awesome and his family (that's me, by the way).
Just as the first football player steps foot on the top step, somebody in the darkness hits a hammer on a board. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! And this entire crew of brave football players screeches to a halt and begins to wail like a bunch of pansies.
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then one of them flinches, the hammering starts again, and they shriek again. The whole scene is just pathetic.
"COME ON, LADIES! HIKE UP YOUR SKIRTS AND GET A MOVE ON!" I yell mockingly, and finally they move. The adults are just laughing their heads off.
They ushered us into a room with a "fortune teller" passed out up front. We're sitting in silence, with the football team up front hollering out mockingly from time to time. "Hey, lady, wake up!" they're saying, and whatnot. I'm sitting in back with my family, just near the exit. I can see what's coming from a mile away.
Finally the "fortune teller" comes to and tells us about how danger is everywhere, we have to be careful, if we see the grave robber we're doomed, and...
SUDDENLY THE GRAVE ROBBER COMES RUNNING IN!
Didn't see that one coming, did ya? Well, neither did the big bad football team, who proceeded to begin shrieking like a nursery school class that ran out of juice boxes. These guys are just freaking out, so we make a hasty retreat out the exit before they trample us.
And then the fun really begins.
We manage to get in front of the football team, which I figure is a good thing, and right behind us is Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend. We pass the time idly chatting about what to expect, with him insisting that it'll all be okay and there's nothing to worry about (really? I was expecting this to be my last family outing, but if Little Justin says it'll be okay, I guess I can relax). Then after a brief wait to separate the groups, we were released into the haunted village of doom.
First up: the spider-webby building. Nothing serious, no big worries, right? We stroll right on through with red lighting and webs hanging down, and Victoria starts to relax. She skips up on top of a bench and is prancing down without a care in the world when...
BOO! A guy jumps out from behind the only tree within 20', which practically had a big neon sign that said "guy in spooky costume is here don't be surprised when he yells boo!"
Guess what? She was surprised. We had to run and get a defillibrator to get her heart re-started. She's convulsing on the ground in abject terror, with me and Angela trying not to die laughing. When she finally gets up, she is pretty much tattooed to my arm, which is a problem, because William is trying to twist my other hand clean off.
"You know what?" he says. "I gotta pee."
We go on, with a spooky guy now following us, and then another spooky guy comes out of the building up ahead, and the second spooky guy has a sheriff hat on, so you know what's coming next:
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Well, you know, and I know, but Victoria pretty much didn't know, and so she collapsed into a paralysis of terror again. It was good stuff. Thanks to her histrionics, Little Justin has caught up to us now, and he says "since we caught up can we all hang out together?"
And my stupid children are all "yeah, there's safety in numbers!"
And I'm all thinking "only if some of the people up ahead are cannibals who will demand human sacrifice."
So for much of the rest of the haunted village, we are treated to the same repetitive refrain over and over of him saying "no worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times."
At one point, Angela says "If I put a shoe up his butt, do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, she says "I'm gonna kill him and feed him to one of those prop cows. Do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, I say "Honey, I'm worried if you don't let go of his neck he won't start breathing again."
So then we go through another building, and this one has somebody in it, only we don't know until we're about to leave the building and they pound the door and shriek out in a blood-curdling scream.
Which, of course, sends Victoria over the edge, and if I hadn't caught the shoelace of her ghost as it floated out of her body towards heaven I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it.
William looks up at me, and he says "It's official: my pants are wet."
After a few more buildings like this, we get to the "The Moaning Lady." She was pretty freaky because she made a noise that normal people can't make. And she was on a bed reaching for us, and William pretty much tore my arm out of socket dragging me through the room and saying "nothing to see here we need to go let's hurry don't dawdle I was tired of mom anyways if that thing eats her no problem you've got a good job and can find another woman let's go stop dawdling what is your problem I'm in a hurry let's not loiter around any more come on get the arthritis out of your butt and get a move on you old man."
Then, we came to...the statue. This building wasn't all that scary, but there was a figure sitting in a chair with a big old wig on it and I couldn't really figure out if it was a mannequin or if it was a person or what. And we debated it...what was it? William thought it was a woman. Angela thought it was a woman. I thought it was a mannequin.
Victoria thought it was death incarnate. And when, just as we were about to step out of the room and it let out a 462-decibel shriek and I had to check my pants for pee, I was pretty much agreed. Because nobody who can scream that loud should be that small and sit that still in a haunted house. I mean, what is this person in real life? An air-raid siren?
So then we got to the field. And at one end, we go over this little barbed-wire fence to get in, and there's this big, smelly herbivore (cow? bull? llama? sheep? I dunno - go ask a farmer). And it's just sitting there, and I can smell poop everywhere, and I'm worried that I'm getting poop on myself, and that's scarier than anything I saw so far.
Then on the other side, there's this whole group gathered where one of the costumed actors is chasing this woman around, who is giggling and laughing like an idiot. So we cross over, and Little Justin breaks into his patter to yell "hey, dude, we know you need a girlfriend so just ask her for her number!"
Of course, being Little Justin, he continues to yell this. So the spook turns its attention to harassing him. And as we go by, I'm pretty sure that Angela pinched the spook's butt just to get it riled up, because it kept Little Justin back for quite a while.
"Hey, this is a dark corner," Angela says as she picks up a branch. "Let's lay in wait here and murder little Justin. How about it! That's scary, right?"
"No worries, mom," William says as he picks up a rock. "I'll bean the girl."
"Come on, you two," I say. "You're wasting valuable scary time."
"There's not any more scary stuff, is there?" Victoria asks, trembling. "I'm worried that- OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE PLEASE EAT THEM FIRST I HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR IT'S A FRANKENSTEIN AND WE'RE ALL DOOMED! PLEASE GOD HEAR MY PRAYERS!"
And with that, she was out again. Bear in mind that Frankenstein was like twenty feet from us, and facing the other direction, and made of crepe paper.
We carried Victoria for a while, and finally she came to. We went by another animal in a field, and I worried about poop. William continued to accelerate, and steadily we were leaving Angela behind. Who goes through a haunted village at a Sunday Stroll pace, I don't know, but apparently she thought "old man feeding ducks speed" was the appropriate velocity for traveling through "deadly killer dark haunted death village town." In case of zombie invasion, I'm definitely not waiting around for her.
So we get to a chain of buildings; me and the kids, anyways. I'm not sure where Angela was at this point; perhaps she was back at the parking lot. In any case, I had no feeling in left hand and William dangling off of it and insisting that next time we will respect the age limitations of the haunted park. Victoria is rambling crazily and asking how old she has to be in order to buy a shotgun.
I'm laughing. Because I'm, you know, tough. And we travel through the graveyard, with open graves and coffins and everything. And it's totally a missed opportunity. There's a cowboy running around dragging a shovel with sparks flying off of it, which is cool. And I'm making fun of the children as I drag them into the hospital, because they're little weenies. I think the conversation goes like this:
"Come on, you two, you know it's only make-believe. Don't be such a couple of- AAAAAIIIIIEEEERRGGH!"
And I pee my pants.
And maybe, just maybe, fill one pant leg with poop.
Because, in a clear violation of haunted house etiquette and my rights under the Geneva convention, there's a dude in a top hat and straightjacket hiding just around a doorway in an asylum, with another dude in clear view who has distracted me, and as I come through the doorway he goes something like "Hello" or something like that.
And I freak out.
When I got to the other side of the asylum, I had William's right arm and a clump of hair. When Victoria caught up, she had a weird-looking bald spot. William was a little cheesed off, becuase he was never scared at all beacuse he saw the dude, and that's the arm he writes with, but I told him his handwriting sucked anyway so he needed a change.
I have no idea where Angela was, but I heard her mocking laughter all around me.
I don't really remember the next few things, because I was busy changing my underwear and copiously swearing. I do remember that the last room was a spooky lady doing something spookily (librarian?). And we ditched Angela, who at this point was walking so slowly that she was literally going backwards towards the asylum in a violation of the space-time continuum.
Victoria, eager to be done with the whole event, sprinted up ahead and was skipping her way down to the exit. Just near the end, she dropped into "Ninja crouch check for danger" mode because she was sure that one last scare awaited her. She was kind of right, because I sneaked up behind her and poked her in the back and yelled "BOO!" and she jumped twenty feet up.
William just laughed and laughed and laughed.
About ten minutes later, Angela arrived.
"Where have you been?" we asked.
"Oh, I was talking to one of the ghost guys." She said. "They're quite nice."
"What did they say?" I asked.
"Well, you guys kept leaving me behind, and then they'd start messing with me, and I'd say I had to catch up because you were ditching me, and they'd go 'oh man, that sucks.' So then we'd chat a few minutes and I'd go on."
So to recap:
-Victoria has a heart condition now
-William is all out of clean underwear
-I have a nervous disorder and a fear of asylums
-Angela got four phone numbers
And that was our visit to haunted village, Salt Lake.
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