Chooch’s Scary Saturday Night: Hayrides and the Green Man

Chooch, totally ‘noiding out in line for the hayride.

Chooch and I went to Haunted Hills Hayride Saturday night with Janna and Laura so that Henry could bake like a good boy in peace and quiet. Janna picked Chooch and me up and then, as rain crashed down in torrents, informed us that her tires are really bad and the last time it rained like that was when she wrecked the passenger side of her car. I’m here to tell you that this was way more frightening than the actual hayride.

But first, we went to dinner at King’s because we wanted to see if we could outlast the rain, and also because Chooch and I knew that Henry wasn’t going to feed us since he practically orphans us every time he’s in Martha Stewart mode. Anyway, Chooch and Janna both had to go to the bathroom at the same time, but then Chooch came running back to our booth, almost crying with laughter.

“I ditched her!” he wheezed. “I ditched Janna in the bathroom!” So of course, Laura and I start cracking up too because it’s fun  to disrespect Janna and oh my god is this kid mine or what?! Chooch was trying to hide behind this wall-thing and even the waitress was laughing about it because giving Janna a hard time is pretty much universally accepted.

So all of this time is passing and we started to imagine Janna sitting outside the mens room, waiting for Chooch, probably panicking and wondering if he was kidnapped by the claw machine or maybe had accidentally climbed into one of the ovens in the kitchen. Maybe she was frantically scrolling through my Facebook photos, looking for one of Chooch to submit to the milk carton printers that didn’t involve an animal mask or ice cream eclipsing his face.

But then I started to consider that SHE had ditched US. The ULTIMATE ditch, too, because not only would we have to pay for her stupid dinner, but we’d have to call Henry to pick us too since she was our taxi driver for the night. Anyway, turns out Janna wasn’t waiting for him after all. SO WHY WAS SHE TAKING SO LONG, OH GOD THE POSSIBILITIES.

When she came back to the table, she was trying to play it off like she didn’t care we were all bent in half with laughter. “I didn’t expect him to wait for me!” she cried defensively. Oh, how I love to laugh at Janna! And so does Chooch, clearly. He also likes ordering food he won’t eat and then stealing food off Janna’s plate.

Chooch took this picture for his Instagram.

The hayride was just OK, and Chooch, for as scared as he was in line, never stopped casually talking the entire time. He even said he’s not scared of chainsaw guys anymore since I told him that the chainsaws don’t have chains on them, which is hilarious because even though I know this is a fact, I am STILL FUCKING TERRIFIED OF CHAINSAW GUYS.

I was angry because the best part of this attraction is the haunted trail, but it was closed for the night because of the stupid rain. (Which has stopped by the time we left King’s, but I wasn’t about to complain that the trail was closed because I stupidly wore white TOMS. What the fuck is wrong with me?)

My favorite part of the hayride was when Janna got yelled at repeatedly by the parking lot attendant for not following his explicit instructions.

After saying goodbye to Laura (no one cried because we knew we would be seeing her again the next day at the pie party), Janna decided it would be fun to go home an alternate route so that she could take Chooch through (fake) Green Man’s Tunnel in Dravosburg. (Everyone knows the real one is in South Park.) I mean, the road is actually pretty scary even if it’s NOT THE REAL GREEN MAN’S TUNNEL, JANNA. It’s all pot-holed and surrounded by creepy forest and then the tunnel is all foreboding and desolate and you just know runaways get raped there constantly. There was a car in front of us for awhile, but then we lost it when Janna decided to STOP THE CAR IN  THE MIDDLE OF THE TUNNEL WHILE TELLING CHOOCH THE WRONG GREEN MAN STORY AND THEN SHE TURNED OFF HER HEADLIGHTS AND CHOOCH AND I WENT BALLISTIC.

I might have been screaming louder than Chooch but so sorry that I didn’t want to die that night OK?! And oh shit, did Janna flip Chooch’s psycho switch. He was all, “What were you thinking?! Why would you do that to us!?” and I was all, “GO FASTER SO WE CAN CATCH UP WITH THAT CAR I DON’T WANT TO BE ON THIS ROAD ALONE ANYMORE OMFG WE’RE GOING TO PERISH.”

Janna dropped us off around 11 and Chooch left her with some vitriolic parting words before stomping into the house and screaming to Henry about the Green Man and how Janna almost had us killed (that last part might have been my own scream, nevermind).  And of course Mr. Watches Asian Horror Like It Ain’t No Thang was conveniently too scared to sleep in his room BECAUSE THE WALLS ARE GREEN OMG, so I let him fall asleep on the couch while I watched TV (sike, I was playing Simpsons: Tapped Out) and Henry pouted upstairs because I yelled at him for not having enough things baked. But first, Chooch used my phone to text Janna:

I guess that’s what he gets for ditching Janna at the King’s bathroom!

Before I went to bed, I took Chooch’s phone out of his hand and saw that the last thing he was doing before falling asleep was Googling “cats.”

I teased him about this in the morning and he said, “Well, I wanted to look at something that wouldn’t give me nightmares!” Then he proceeded to immediately Google “Green Man.” And at the pie party later that day, he interrogated almost everyone on their knowledge of the Green Man and kept acting shocked anytime someone would say, “Yes, I know of the Green Man” and Janna would have to explain the concept of an urban legend all over again.

Now he wants to be the Green Man for Halloween and I had to listen to him ramble on and on and on about this morning on the way to school: WHY DOES HE ONLY HAVE ONE EYE?! WHAT KIND OF CANDY DOES HE LIKE?! WHAT DID HE GET STRUCK BY AGAIN? I’M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE AT SCHOOL ABOUT HIMMMMMM! GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN GREEN MAN!

Thanks, Janna!