For Halloween this year, my family has decided on a vacation to
I am a scaredy cat. I admit it. I don't watch horror movies. I don't go to haunted houses. I don't partake in ghost stories. Halloween, needless to say, is not my favorite time of year. Sure, I enjoy dressing up and carving pumpkins – who doesn’t? But, when it comes to traipsing through a foggy graveyard to watch Carrie on a mausoleum wall, well…let’s just say there’s a bit of hesitation on my part.
Scary things, to me, do not equal fun things. Most people can laugh off the gore of A Nightmare on Elm Street or the shock of being attacked by a vampire in a haunted house because they understand the fictional element involved. Me? I have a ridiculous suspension of disbelief. I honestly think that the ghosts from the Blair Witch Project are going to string up stick-figure crosses in my house if I’m not careful.
It’s been this way since childhood. A contraband viewing of Poltergeist when I was eight scarred me so deeply that for the next three years I believed the tree outside of my bedroom window was going to eat me in the middle of the night. Consequently, I didn’t sleep much in elementary school.
My strategy, now that I am all grown up, is to avoid any possible exposure to nightmarish images that would result in this specific type of insomnia. I have developed an intricate methodology of sidestepping these situations, which includes, but is not limited to: suggesting the romantic comedy instead of the psycho-thriller on a first date, avoiding theme parks during the entire month of October, and jumping off the tram of any Hollywood backlot tour that includes a set where someone has died and is still known to be wandering around.
But this particular Halloween brings a scenario I, unfortunately, will not be able to avoid.
Why, you ask, would I put myself through such torture? The truth is I can’t say no to my mother.
The woman has two passions in life (besides her two daughters, of course): history and theatre. Her favorite thing to do when we go back east is to walk through graveyards and read the inscriptions on the tombstones. (I join her for a few minutes and then go wait in the car.)
As for the scary stuff, none of it seems to plague her. Her dramatic background inspires her to walk through haunted houses giggling and complimenting all of the monsters on their very convincing acting technique as they stand next to her snarling and oozing body parts. Meanwhile, I am running out the emergency exit door.
Obviously, she is going to love it. How could I say no?
Our family friends have spent the last 20 years visiting
This statement alleviated my concerns for a moment, until I glanced at the town’s website (www.hauntedhappenings.com) where the list of haunted places to visit reads like the directory in a Halloween strip mall: houses, streets, villages, cemeteries, woods, museums, dungeons, hotels, trolleys, and…pirate ships?
Quickly closing my web browser, I decided that the best strategy would be to try to focus solely on this so-called “fun.” As of now, there are only two items on my “Salem fun list”: the Hawthorne Hotel’s Carn-evil Creep Show Costume Ball, to which I will be wearing something neither evil nor creepy, and locating as many Starbucks as possible in which I can take refuge with a cup of spiced apple cider, if need be.
But, who knows, maybe this trip is just what I need. I may even surprise myself with ridiculous amount of bravado I show. I mean, how scary can the Spirits of
If it doesn’t work, I can always turn my sights toward the Witch City Haunted Beerfest, a visit to which might be in order by the end of the trip... if I make it that far, of course.
Happy Halloween!!
October 2009
photo credit: thecolumnists.com
