Halfway through November and I’m still writing about haunted houses. Leave me alone. I’m a mess. But here are the last 3 haunts we visited this Halloween season!

FRIGHT FARM

You might know that this is typically one of my favorites but the process of actually getting there and onto the hayride is really starting to be too much for me. To avoid the super outrageous crowds (because this place does get more packed than a Wall Street bro’s nose in the 80s), we try to go on a Sunday or we wait until the last week when they’re open every night and we aim for Wednesday which always SEEMS like it would be safe but Fright Farm still finds a way, you guys.

On this particular Wednesday, we arrived around 6:45pm and got our wristbands. Normally, we’re also given a pretty elaborate ticket that has artwork for that year’s theme. It’s always one of my favorite ones to paste in the ol’ haunted house journal. But this time – JUST A WRISTBAND?!

“I need an actual ticket for my haunted house journal,” I cried to Henry as we waited in the rain for our hayride group # to be called. The way I was actually so stressed out about this, like it was truly on the back of my mind even later while I was getting assaulted by chainsaw guys. “They always have the BEST tickets, too,” I whined at one point, probably cutting off something “important” Henry was saying about his day.

I could NOT let this go.

“I had the perfect spot for it in my haunted house journal, too,” I sighed wistfully. I don’t think Henry was listening anymore.

Afterward as we were leaving, I HAD TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. So I went back to the ticket booth and breathlessly cried, “I HAVE A QUESTION DO U NOT GIVE OUT PRINTED TICKETS ANYMORE.” My patented panicked run-on. The ticket lady explained that they were about to run out so they stopped giving them out. “We still have a couple left, do you want one?” Lol the way I said yes with more emotion than when Henry proposed, my hand has never shot out so fast to receive something (NOT EVEN THE BODY OF CHRIST).

“OMG I feel so much better,” I said to Henry, exhaling deeply in the car as I admired the ticket. He just frowned. I texted all of this to Chooch in real time and I don’t think he cared but I also don’t think he was surprised that I was on the verge of losing sleep over a haunted house ticket. He was actually more fixated on the fact that they used AI on the ticket design.  That is pretty disappointing, Fright Farm. Do better. Have a contest for local high school kids to design next year’s.

Overall, it was fine. The thing that gets me though is that even though it wasn’t crowded, the hayrides were supposed to start at 7PM and didn’t start running until nearly 8. So we had to sit there and listen to some shitty Wedding DJ crank out 15-minute Taylor Swift medleys and firehall reception line-dance hits like Cupid Shuffle. This is not what I want to hear while waiting for a haunted hayride! Look, I already angrily scribbled five pages about this in my haunted house journal but by the SECOND TIME they played the SAME IRRITATING BENSON BOONE SONG and I used CAPSLOCK for that because both times, the VOLUME WAS TURNED UP, I was actually twitching and considering leaving. It had me in the foulest mood – music should not do that! Music should set the MOOD and this was only exacerbating my anxiety of having to wait for so long in the cold rain.

And then, even though it wasn’t crowded, their crowd control during the actual walk-through parts is soooo bad that there were basically 30 of us walking through like a hive. It got a little bit better in the indoor section, but not much. The positive side of this is that everyone was decent, no outliers, no drunks, etc. I didn’t actively hate anyone around us, aren’t you proud of me??

The highlight though was the final, optional walk-thru which is literally just a building full of chainsaw guys. They actually ARE good about only sending in small groups of people at one time for this one. I got so freaked out during the little “show” in the first room where we were locked in, that as soon as the door opened behind me, I took off running so fast that the chainsaw person in that room didn’t even have a chance to get me, and then I just kept running – I think I was actually catching the scare actors off guard – until I realized HOLY SHIT I’M ALONE and then turned around and RAN BACK to get Henry who was like, “WHERE DID YOU GO, PLEASE CALM DOWN” and I was like, “I CAN’T – THAT BUNGEE GIRL IN THAT ONE ROOM MADE ME PEE MY PANTS A LITTLE!” I was legit running like a scared rabbit the whole way through, only now I had Henry to fling around like a shield. My heart was racing by the time we made it out, probably a full 3 minutes before the rest of our group, I can handle so much in haunted houses but those damn chainsaw guys, man. Such a cheap scare but they get me every time.

I was pretty irritated overall after this long-ass evening and had declared that I thought it was time to maybe retire Fright Farm from the annual line-up after this, until I realized that I have one Fright Farm-shaped ticket spot left in the haunted house journal so now I feel obliged to at least go back one more time next year, ugh.

(Please excuse Penelope’s tail in that picture – I pasted the ticket in immediately when we got home and took this to send to Chooch who was like, “Wow. Do you feel better now.” Jerk.

CASTLE BLOOD

You KNOW Castle Blood is bae, my ride or die, my absolute can’t-skip. Even if we hadn’t had time to go to any of the other haunts during this truncated season, we’d have found a way to fit in Castle Blood.

We ended up going here on actual Halloween night after our abysmal trick-or-treating ended and it was such a mood-booster. I knew it would turn the night around!

Boris paired us up with a young couple and yelled at us to get to know each other because he “didn’t feel like talking to us” – rude, but also such a Boris thing to say! It’s not a visit to Castle Blood without a little berating by Boris – I like to think of it as the amuse-bouche before the real haranguing happens inside the Castle.

Anyway, our new friends were from Morgantown, WV and instead of saying introducing ourselves by name, the girl part of the young couple immediately asked for our signs. She’s a Libra and that must be good because we meshed so well from the get-go that it was like the 4 of us had already known each other and made plans to meet up there intentionally.

I don’t know how the Castle does it (yes I do, actually – they’re a gaggle of geniuses up in there) but their haunt is mind-bending every year. I never feel as dumb as I do when I come to Castle Blood and I mean that in the best way – this is way more than jump scares, you gotta pay attention (apparently not my forte) and actually apply teamwork (a little shaky there too if Henry is involved). It’s the best feeling when I finally do something right there.

And they always change it up year to year – a new storyline, new talisman to collect, new OFTENTIMES FRUSTRATING challenges and puzzles to complete.

When we were in the library awaiting our turn in the lab, we all formally introduced ourselves – our WV friends are Brooke and John! Brooke asked how Henry and I know each other, and in a put-out monotone that could only be described as “ugh vocalized,” I said, “We’re married.”

“REALLY?” she said, and it made me crack up because maybe I look even younger in the very forgiving black lights of the Castle??

And then I told them about how long Henry waited to propose and how we only JUST got married a year ago. She was HORRIFIED and goes to John, “You better not do that to me!!” I found out later that they have just been dating for a few mths and they seem so sweet and cute together so all the best to them!

She also took in a sharp intake of breath when I told her Henry is a Gemini. “That’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked her and she was like, “I mean….” LOL.

We hung around for some time afterward, catching up with some of our Castle friends (except for Dawn who was still inside Hexibart’ing it up!). I am not just saying this because I have developed friendships with the Castle Blood crew over the years, but I am always so impressed and completely in awe of the magic they create within those walls, that I usually tear up when writing about it in my haunted house journal afterward. Between conquering the missions with a cool couple to the entertaining and perfectly condescending cast, the immaculate gothic vibes and brilliant storylines, this was one of the best and most memorable Castle visits ever. I scream about it every year but if you live in this area and still have not gone then PLEASE hit me up next season and I will go with you.

ANYWAY GUESS WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THIS. I posted about it on Instagram and true to my cringey form, I said “Brooke, if you’re out there, hi, it’s me – Erin the Leo. #Missedconnections #hauntedhouseedition

Because my friends at Castle Blood love to troll my dorky ass, they reposted that to their story and within a few hours, I had a new friend notification and a comment on that post from Brooke! I can now add “friendship matchmakers” to my list of reasons why this is my forever #1.

(This was another thing that I got to disappoint Chooch with via text!)

IGOR’S FRIGHT SHACK – whhaaaaat???

Oh my sweetly syruped jonnycakes, where do I even begin with this one.

Let’s take a trip back to 2003, I’ll hold your hand. I know it was a scary time with all the Uggs and severe side parts, but we won’t be there for long.

There was this small haunted yard type thing called Igor’s Fright Shack that I went to with Henry, my brother Corey, my friend Keri and her husband who hated me, Dean. (I haven’t talked to Keri and Dean in approx. 18 years but I imagine Dean would probably still hate me as I am just as annoying as a 46-year-old as I was back then.)

I can’t remember how we found this place, probably one of the haunted house review sites? But it was in a place called Ralph, PA, near Uniontown. And for some reason, I latched on HARD to it. Don’t get me wrong – it was really fun and legit scary for being on the low-tech side – but you know me, I was so consumed by extreme giddiness that I had created some blown-out love story between me and one of the monsters – Vladimir. I just remember this place being an outside walk-through, sort of on a hillside? And Vlad RUNNING down the hill toward us at one point, me screaming, “VLAD! YOU CAME BACK FOR ME!” and my brother being like, “YOU ARE SO EMBARRASING” while Henry was mostly likely ignoring all of this.

I wrote about this AT LENGTH in my haunted house journal back then, and even recorded myself dramatically reading it out loud for LiveJournal at the insistence of my friend Alisha, who would always encourage me to do really embarrassing things under the guise of “No, it will be cool, people will totally think you are so awesome and funny and not WEIRD at all. Nope. Not weird. AT ALL.”

Thank god I don’t have that voice recording anymore.

But after years of referencing Vlad in my blog – he had become the benchmark of scare actors for me, I compare everyone to him ever since then and say things like, “That guy with the ax in his head was pretty hot, but he’s no Vlad.” – I was finally transcribed that old 2003 review on here so people (a/k/a my three readers) would understand who Vlad was.

Because of this and also the fact that I remember the night being hilariously chaotic, full of over-the-top screaming and that good-good haunted house-induced adrenaline that I am always on the hunt for like a junkie looking for a fog machine fume fix, I have NEVER FORGOTTEN ABOUT IGOR’S FIGHT SHACK.

Sadly, that was apparently the last year because I searched the internet for years after that, looking for it on haunted house listing websites. I think once we even drove out that way to see if there were any advertisements in the area. But nothing. Igor’s was gone, destined to live on only in my heart.

Until about two weeks ago when Henry said that he had seen something online for Igor’s Fright Shack. I was in the middle of typing a work email when he casually eased THE BIGGEST NEWS OF 2025 onto my plate.

“Excuse me sir what now??” I cried, frantically Googling for myself.

“It can’t possibly be the same place, though,” Henry said. “It’s out near Murrysville.”

“OK seriously, how many other people would name their haunted house something as specific as IGOR’S FRIGHT SHACK?” I cried, cracking my knuckles and putting on my investigative haunted house hat and trench coat. I dismissed Henry; the Haunted House Expert was now on the case and it took me all of 30 seconds to deduce that it is in fact the same place, resurrecting all these years later by Igor himself and his wife and kids are all involved in the reincarnation!

And luckily for us, they were open on Friday and Saturday last week, and there were a few spots left. I reserved two for last Saturday with a quickness and was so freaking stoked about this, actually ran around the house squealing a little.

Finally, last Saturday arrived and I had regressed into a ball of schoolyard giddiness in the car as we drove to reunite with our old friend Igor. The new location is at the family’s house in a residential area so I was intrigued by how they were going to pull this off. Home haunts always amaze me – the things people do with small spaces feels like magic.

We were paired up with another couple and had a fun little chat with the guys at the entrance and then also the women at a table in front of the house where we waited for our turn. They asked if we had ever been there before (I can’t believe they were back last year and I DIDN’T KNOW) and I said that we didn’t know about last year but that we had visited once in 2003. They said we were the first ones that had been to the OG haunt and that they needed to tell Michael (a/k/a Igor!!). I didn’t think anything of it, figuring they’d probably wait until the end of the night if at all.

After a few more minutes of chatting (really nice women!), it was our turn to enter the graveyard! Now, I don’t want to give anything away because there were quite a few “Wait—what?? How did they do that??” moments, but they transformed what I assume was their upper driveway and garage area (?) into what felt like a sepia-tinged Victorian nightmarescape. The mind reels.

Igor & Co. have acting chops, their makeup & costume person is a legend, and the set design had me completely forgetting we were at someone’s house in the ‘burbs. It was intense, chaotic, and nostalgic in the way it rejuvenated my love for haunted houses. It brought back that excitement I used to get in the 90s after running out of the old Victory haunt in Elizabeth or the Castle Shannon Haunted School. I walked (OK jogged) out of there with the biggest smile on my face, breathlessly saying, “That was so effing good, Henry! IGOR’S FRIGHT SHACK IS BACK!”

We could have left right then and it would have been such a memorable night, but wait, there’s more!

Igor’s wife approached us at the exit and asked if we were the ones who visited in 2003, and asked us to wait while she got Michael (he will always be Igor to me). Since they only send in one group at a time, he was able to come out quickly and I figured we’d just say hello, we love Igor’s, thank him for bringing it back. You know, the standard fare.

But as he was shaking Henry’s hand, he said, “You look familiar” and in my head I thought he was just being polite because there is no way he could have recognized us from 2003. But then when he turned to me, he goes, “You’re Oh Honestly Erin” and I was like, “OMG how does he know that, what did I do, what did I write” because you know, my track record with this dumb blog isn’t the most savory. How many stories start with, “Welp, my blog got me in trouble again.”

He explained that he had spent some time reading my blog a few years ago and then he laughed and added that he “still wonders what you would have given Vladimir—you don’t have to say it in front of my daughter!” because his kids were also standing there for this!

I could feel the blood rushing to my face. And I could see feel Henry side-eying me and psychically hissing, “What did you write Erin?? WHAT. DID. YOU. WRITE.”

As soon as we got in the car, I frantically searched for it on my blog and quickly skimmed what I had transcribed from my paper journal in a post from 2021.

“Oh, it’s not THAT bad,” I relayed to Henry. “I said that I gave Igor’s Fright Shack ‘5 gigantical thumbs up and a bunch of things to Vladimir that will remain undisclosed.’ OK so only slightly unhinged.”

In the meantime, I had texted all of this to Corey since he was at the OG haunt with us in 2003. I sent him the link to the blog post and he immediately started texting back snippets and his only commentary was “OMFG.”

One snippet was “or perhaps take him back to the shack where he could impregnant me with our tawdry love child.” I read this out loud to Henry in a high-pitched wail. “Now he probably thinks I’m some freaking weirdo with a niche Kmart zombie mask kink who writes haunted house scare actor fanfic! Who goes to a haunted house and imprints on a scare actor? ME, OVER AND OVER AGAIN!”

(Literally, there was this one time in high school that me and Keri fought over Jason Voorhees at some haunted attraction that was at Civic Arena and HE CHOSE HER. No really, we hung out with him in the parking lot afterward. He took his mask off and I knew as soon as Kert shotgunned a cigarette with him that I was the official third wheel. I feel like they talked on the phone for a little bit after that but then it fizzled.)

(He wasn’t even that great of a Jason Voorhees anyway. Michael Myers over Jason any day.)

Henry, actually laughing out loud over this, said, “Good one, Erin. Good one.”

Chooch, meanwhile, was so ashamed of me, his immature mother. I was texting him this whole scene in the car on the way home and he said, “Good job. I’m glad I wasn’t there. Wow.”

I could say that this was written in 2003 and I am so different now! Very mature, much more stable! But the fact is that I am still an idiot as soon as a keyboard is placed before me, or, even worse, pen and paper.

But never mind my self-induced humiliation! The most important thing here is that Igor’s Fright Shack: The Reboot received a major glow-up while still retaining the purest spirit and heart of Halloween! And I love that it’s a multi-generational family affair. I am still so stoked that we got the chance to visit and if they are back again next year, you better believe I will be there! (Unless there is a restraining order on me.)

From the haunted house journal:

I was expecting the haunted house round-up to be a little on the low end this year since we were away for two of the weekends and didn’t get started until the end of the month – I told Henry, “We’ll just go to like, 2. I swear.” Yet somehow, we ended up doing 6 for the 2025 season, including ONE IN ROMANIA!

This haunt sits at the bottom of the legendary Bran Castle (a/k/a Dracula’s Castle) in Bran, Romania. I won’t like – the area surrounding the entrance to the Castle is lined with lots of souvenir stands that MAY OR MAY NOT be ripping off tourists. I mean, if you want to tour Bran Castle and then buy a deformed Labubu, you can do this here! I bought a magnet and postcards, who cares. Take my money.

But also in this area is the haunted house that everyone online warns is a tourist trap. But as a haunted house enthusiast, can you imagine me going to DRACULA’S CASTLE (it’s not really but you know what I mean!) and then just strolling past the haunted house on the way back to the car without going in?! ME, the dork who still writes haunted house reviews in a paper journal?!

Thank god this was open because it wasn’t even 11am yet by the time we exited the Castle after our tour. As expected, no one else was there, no line to stand in, no wait. We paid the equivalent of $9 USD to the ambivalent young man in the ticket booth and then entered!

Ok my memory of this is wrecked because shortly after we left Bran, the curse of Vlad Tepes hit me by way of a violent stomach virus. But I do remember thoroughly enjoying it even though there was only one scare actor inside, creepily trailing Henry through several rooms.

But it was actually more aesthetic than I was expecting. I guess I was thinking it was going to be super low-tech and no frills, like the old YMCA haunts of the 80a where the walls were lined with garbage bags, but the scenes were kind of popping off, not going lie! There was one room in particular with a slight balcony, and you could look all the way up to the ceiling of the room above, and all the way down to the floor below. I don’t know how to explain it better but while I was distracted taking in all the decorations and scenery, there was a slight trick-floor action where it made you feel like you were tipping over the balcony. I screamed for real, lol.

Overall, it was pretty short and maybe they have more actors inside at night, but as a haunted house girlie, this was a must-do and with admission that cheap, WHY NOT?

I was so stoked that we got to do this!

The first haunt we went to back home was late in the season for us – 10/24! Usually we would have at least 4 or 5 under our belts by then but I was on a mission to make the best of it. We left right after work for Crawford School of Terror(I don’t even think I said goodbye to anyone, I was in such a rush to get there!).

This is usually one of my favorites. They got rid of the digital group # thing so we had to stand in an actual line which was whatever. We had gotten there pretty soon after they opened so the wait wasn’t too bad.

I usually have either a REALLY AWESOME EXPERIENCE HERE or just a so-so one. This was a so-so year but to no fault of the haunt. I still loved the theming and the actors (maybe the upper school-themed floor is kind of getting stale, I’ll admit), but it didn’t hit as hard this year and here’s why:

They just aren’t great at keeping groups from converging. I get that some people run through, others go slow, but if they could have some “check-points” where scare actors step in for crowd control, that would be really awesome because then we wouldn’t have caught up with the parents who brought two girls under the age of 5 in with them, one was so young that the dad was carrying her through, and the scare actors really toned it down around them which was sad for us.

However, it did allow me to have a super cringey and creepy moment with one of the actors after she told the little girls that they were cute and I said WHAT ABOUT ME AM I CUTE TOO with my hands spread out like a serving platter under my chin.

She hesitated but did ultimately say yes! I asked Henry later if he was so proud of me but he just scowled.

Not that I am normal in general but haunted houses really exacerbate whatever is broken in my brain and I can get real dumb and filterless.

This was us afterward when I was being sad that my favorite crowd-pleasing scare actor didn’t seem to be there that night (unless he was a new character that I didn’t recognize?). I do want to also add that I got a pumpkin spice latte from ten Crawford Cafe and it was excelsior. Also, the DJ was asking for requests and I kept saying DO YOU DARE ME TO REQUEST G-DRAGON but Henry wouldn’t bite. So I did not request anything but that DJ was admittedly playing some decent stuff unlike another haunt which I will get to in part 2!! (I’m still angry about it!!)

The following Sunday, we went to the Tour-Ed Haunted Mine. We’ve been here a few times over the years but this was one of the best visits! The people who run it are so friendly and you can tell the volunteers put their whole heart into their parts. I screamed and scrammed my face off, you guys.

There’s a good bit of indoor and outdoor walk-throughs until you get to the entrance of the mine which is the best part, obvi. We got into the mine cart thingie with two other groups, but our car was the last one to be unlocked by a clown so we were at the end of the group while waiting to go into the actual mine portion of the haunt. The clown ripped their mask off and tossed it to the side, revealing an older lady underneath who looked at me and said, “I can’t lock these doors when I’m wearing the mask!” We both chuckled and it felt like a really special moment (or just me needing to get extra therapy because I am always on the hunt for older women maternal figures to latch on to).

“You guys can hang back and go in after the rest of them,” she said, like she knows I’m always antsy about having to go thru haunts with large groups! Then she said I looked familiar and asked me my name and then was like “eh guess not” but then continued to make small talk with us for another minute or two before saying, “ok yinz can go in now. ERIN’S COMING!!!!! WE GOT ERIN HERE!!!”

Goddammit I can’t believe I fell for that!! lol.

Long story short, this was incredibly fun with a plethora of excellent jump scares waiting around every corner. The actors were relentless and effed with us so hard (Henry said of them kept pushing past him to get to me – I think he actually gets sad when he gets passed over because I’m the ultimate target. Poor Henry.)

They got me GOOD at the end, and I ran out screaming bloody murder not realizing that the exit spilled out right by the line of people waiting to get in so, super embarrassing for me but great publicity for the mine!

I was in such a good mood when we left. I love it when haunts make me feel like I’m in high school again!

I’m just trying to not think about this shit right now so here is some stuff that I have done during the last week. I mean, aside from screaming into a pillow.

We went to two more haunted houses last week to close out the season, so that was nice.

Fright Farm was open every night during Halloween week so we went on Tuesday. It was OK as far as crowds went but it’s annoying because they make you wait FOREVER before they start calling groups #s for the hayride. The one nice thing though is that there are games and food, fires to sit by, and – well, this is actually a bad thing – a stage where bands play on weekends but on offnights, they just play REALLY BAD POP MUSIC. At some point, an actual DJ took over and it turned into a montage of really tacky wedding reception songs like Cupid Shuffle (FUCKING HATE THAT SONG) and whatever that idiotic “Slide to the left, now slide to the right” song is that I also hate (several hick women got to aggressively perform these moves and I had secondhand embarrassment so bad). In case you were unaware, Chappell Roan’s “Hot To Go” is now in the “cringey old person firehall line dance” category. There were middle-aged women doing TIKTOKS of themselves dancing to this at Fright Farm and I truly wanted to die.

I liked Chappell Roan for a minute but she in on my last nerve since summer, but honestly, what and who isn’t.

Meanwhile, Henry went and bought me a slice of pizza since I had missed a feeding to be there. This slice was bigger than two of my faces and if you have seen my bloated face in person lately, then you know that’s a huge hunka pizza. Anyway, I probably could have finished the whole thing but I KNOW if I did, I would have been sick. So I was trying really hard to stop while I was ahead. Around the time I started to push the plate away, one of the chainsaw guys came over and stopped next to where we were sitting and, in this creepy, screechy voice, started asking us what were eating (Henry had pepperoni rolls in case you care). Chainsaw Guy was concerned because I had so much pizza left and wanted to know why.

When I told him it was too big and I couldn’t finish it, he was like, “I’ll take it off your hands if you don’t want it” and I was like, ‘Uh, lol, I mean….” and HE TOOK IT AND WALKED AWAY WITH IT, AND THEN HE AND ANOTHER MONSTER GUY ATE IT! I was fucking dying. It was the most wholesome chainsaw interaction I’ve ever had?!!?

Post-pizza ^^

The germ-phobe in me was wildin’ out though because I had eaten that pizza in the most random way since it was so big – I was eating it from the sides and then started pulling pieces off the crust, and at one point I 100% gleeked on it, ugh.

But I guess dude was just really hungry because he came back later and PULLED A CHAIR OVER TO THE TABLE BEHIND US where two guys were sitting eating fries. He was like, “Hi guys, what’s up” and than started casually eating their fries while trying to get passers-by to join them. Then he got one of the guys to go to a food stand and buy him a bottle of water! So much moxie. I want to be this chainsaw guy when I grow up.

Anyway, Fright Farm was fun but the lady who is in charge of sending groups into the walking park, post-hayride, is soooo shitty. I mean, shitty attitude, yes, but also she sucks at gauging the crowd and sends new groups in way too fast. It was such a slow night but she practically sent in our whole wagon at once when it should really only be groups of 6. Her timing SUCKS. She was there last year too and I fucking hated her then too.

What else….I already wrote about Halloween….

I was off last Friday and then I texted Janna and said, “I’m off tomorrow, you should call off too haha” and she didn’t call off BUT SHE DID TAKE A HALF DAY! So, we met at Chimera Brewing for lunch. It used to be some other brewery and then it closed and everyone cried about it. I did not care either way. But this new place seemed to have lots of good veg/vegan options and that’s what my sold me.

Breweries are so weird to me. Like, I get why people like them I guess but they all seem the same to me!! Same ambiance, same menus (I do prefer the ones that have an actual kitchen too and don’t just rely on a rotating food truck schedule), same-tasting beers. I guess what I’m saying is that I still prefer to go to bottle shops and just split two beers with Henry in the comfort of my own home while watching chaotic Kpop content on YouTube.

HOWEVER. I hadn’t seen Janna in person in a while (since the grad party, actually!) since I have had little will to live this past year. But I’m glad that I forced myself to get out of the house and that Janna was able to meet me there. Sorry for publicly tearing up while talking about Bambi, Janna!

(I will have you know that I was able to drink all the beers in my flight but none of them have me running back for more. I AM STILL PICKY.)

As usual Wells Township’s Haunted House had the honor of being our last haunt of the season Saturday night. We like to go on their Lights Out Night because it’s so000 hysterical and they totally fuck with you.

This year wasn’t as great as past years, but whoever was following me up a set of stairs while tickling my sides HARD, you were the MVP of the night. I was laughing so hard that I am proud of myself for not peeing. There was also a room where Air Supply’s Making Love Out of Nothing at All was playing while a werewolf lounged in bed. Nothing about this place makes sense and I love them for it.

The only bummer was that it was shorter this year (no maze at the end) and the two chainsaw guys on duty didn’t even try to chase me. That part I didn’t mind so much since it was a Wells Township chainsaw guy that nearly lopped my foot off two years IF YOU RECALL.

Actually, one of the scariest things was wondering how many Trump supporters we were surrounded by, being in small town Ohio.

Other than that, it’s been a lot of ignoring everything on social media but Seventeen content and planning Chingumas because when this happened in 2016, having a Xmas party was like a big fucking group therapy session.

I am so behind as usual. But for once, I am all caught up in my paper haunted house journal! When will I ever grow out of this phase, sigh. I feel like I’m even more dumb about it these days because I am in my “washi tape and sticker” era.

Last weekend, we went to Castle Blood with Amy and Dick – it was their first time there! Fresh blood! I told them while waiting outside that I never feel more dumb than I do inside the walls of Castle Blood. I love being made fun of by the undead denizens! For anyone who has somehow missed me jawing off about this haunt for the last 25 years, it is NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS HAUNTS, OK? You want to see animatronics barfing into a toilet and get chased through a maze by a chainsaw, then go somewhere else and prepare to not get your money’s worth. But Castle Blood is all about making it a personal, intimate experience. You go through in small groups (usually just who you arrive with) and get to interact with the denizens in every room by engaging in challenges for talismans or tokens of protection.

Every year, the theme and story line changes so it’s a brand new experience, making it a mainstay on the annual lists of any haunt thoosie.

When we were waiting outside, Boris started to float by and I said to Amy and Dick, “He’s my favorite but he never remembers me!”

That got Boris’s attention so he stopped and, in his patented snide and bored Easten Euro-accented tone, said, “And why should I?”

YES. BEAT ME UP WITH YOUR WORDS! You will also get a healthy dose of verbal bullying at Castle Blood. I live for this. PUT ME IN MY PLACE!

KNOCK ME DOWN A PEG!

And so on and so forth, etc. etc. etc.

Amy and Dick loved it! It is not often that I get to bring newbies to the Castle–most of my friends are not into haunted houses at all, sadly, so I stopped asking!–and it was a lot of fun experiencing it through them, you know?

My favorite was in Gravely’s office, where we had to take turns giving the denizen a “magic word” to use to get the beads of protection to appear under a box. When it was my turn, I confidently shouted, “갑자기!” and then I stage-whispered to Dick and Amy, “That means suddenly in Korean.”

“Well, unfortunately, the spirits in the Castle don’t speak Korean, so that didn’t work,” the office denizen (why am I so bad at remembering names) said in a total “eye roll” tone and I loved it.

The next night, Henry and I went to Sewickley Haunted Church. It had been a few years since we last came to this one but it’s always a good, chaotic time. Here are some pictures because I’m sure you care.

I just love that this is actually put on by the church’s youth group –  do not expect anything to be “toned down” because of it being done by church people, that’s for sure!

I really missed Chooch on this night. We have never gone to this one without him! :(

And then last night we went to a new one in Mercer, PA wherever that it – it took a little over an hour to get there. We actually had originally tried to go on Friday and got ALL THE WAY THERE just to see that it was closed. We don’t use Facebook but they had apparently posted there earlier that day saying that they weren’t going to be open that night.

MOTHERFUCKER.

That really pissed me off, but what can you do? If you’re me, you sulk and stare out the window with a pout the whole way home.

Anyway, they were open last night and it was “only” $10 because of “economical hardships” but I would have been pissed if we had to pay the usual $20 ticket price because it only took us 10 minutes to go through, and the first part only had two children scare actors in there. It was very rudimentary and old school which I am normally a fan of, but there was literally nothing happening in there.

The second part was in an outdoor livestock pen thingie and there were 3 guys in there being totally creepy and psychotic and honestly – that part alone made me not regret driving out here. They understood the assignment and it ended with me freaking out and fucking sprinting out of there like I was possessed by the ghost of a 1950s track star before the chainsaw guy even had a chance to fire up his saw.

I made it halfway back to the parking lot before turning around and watching Henry calmly strolling out with my three tormentors flanking him, laughing.

Then we listened to Seventeen the whole way home and talked about the concert which I still have to process my thoughts on before recapping it here, and that was just really nice.

The haunt season is almost over which means the fear of winter will hit me and my depression will probably come back before it even had a chance to leave, so I can’t wait for that. Ugh.

I think we have 1 or 2 or more haunted houses to squeeze in. If they weren’t so fucking $$ we would do more, but the days of legit haunted house hopping are long gone, yo. We are lucky if we can afford to do 2 in a weekend. God, I miss the $5-$10 little fire station or YMCA haunts that used to be everywhere in the 90s, piling into Lisa’s minivan and hitting 2 or 3 in one night. Granted, those outings were also funded by my mom back when the value of a dollar was lost on me (it still is in most cases, ngl).

OK, I have to go. Seventeen videos are calling me. And remember – if you’re going out to a pumpkin patch anytime soon, don’t fall on a pumpkin stem. That happened to me once at Trax Farms when I was a youngin! IT WAS NOT COMFY.

We had a good weekend. Every time I can say that these days, it feels like an accomplishment. The day before was a bad day. I kind of slipped and fell back into the really bad sadness and it was scary, but I woke up on Friday and felt OK. I felt happy that we had plans for a haunted house that night. It doesn’t really seem that big, but these dumb things have been such a mammoth part of my life since the 90s and even though it’s few and far between these days when one sincerely scares me, I still have fun at most of them. I still enjoy writing in my haunted house journal (I bought Halloween washi tape from Amazon a few weeks ago, and Halloween stickers from Target last weekend! I’m like a little kid sitting here with my tongue peeking out from the side of my mouth as I carefully place scary accoutrements on the pages of my idiot journal, lol).

(ONE DAY, THESE WILL ALLLLL BE CHOOCH’S TO CHERISH!!! What a fun and worthless Will I am going to have.)

We only went to one haunt this weekend but it was a good one! And somehow, it was also a “new-to-us” one – Eerie Acres in the Butler County area (aka Trump’s Paradise, ugh). I have seen this one advertised for years but it never makes the list for some reason!? This year though, there was a Groupon for it and Henry and I are suckers a deal (haunted houses are expensive, people).

I already briefly mentioned this, but Helltown Brewing was there and we shared a can of their Oktoberfest while sitting near a bonfire waiting for our group number to be called and it was….really nice.  The epitome of an October evening, you know? Good weather, autumnal vibes, not-too-annoying people, excellent Halloween party pop music playing. Even though I was there with Henry (LOL), it was a good time! And the haunt itself was old school and had lots of opportunities for me to interact with the monsters and develop crushes (there was this alien….).

I kept taking pictures of us to send to Chooch who was not giving a shit because he’s living his best life in Philly right now and completely not missing his totally cool mom and embarrassing dad.

Ew, lol.

I dunno, empty nest life is OK so far. I feel like this was what we were doing the last few years anyway, with Chooch working and not really going to haunted houses with us anymore. UGH, it is still tough to reconcile though!

Later that night, I sent this picture of Penelope watching NCT Dream content to Chooch :) Note Henry’s bottle of FAYGO ROOTBEER in the background, such a dad bev.

Saturday started out dumbly. Well, no scratch that – it started out good because we swung by Megan’s to check on her cat, Penny, and Megan had left us a container of freshly-baked cookies with white chocolate chips and they were HEAVENLY. So that was a nice start to the day, also when Henry spilled my piping hot Dunkin’ coffee on his forearm in the car – that was also part of the “nice start to the day.”

(For me, anyway!)

Then we drove to HOUSTON, PA which is in WASHINGTON COUNTRY (see also: Trumpville, similar to the aforementioned Butler County) for a pumpkin festival. Just for something to do, it’s October, get off my basic back. Anyway, it was supposed to start at 10am, and there was also a parade starting at 10am but what wasn’t posted anywhere was the fact that the parking lot was literally blocked off to all access because of the parade – cop cars were blocking off every street that we would have needed to take to get there. AND HENRY THOUGHT HE WAS SO SLICK KNOWING ALL THE ALTERNATE ROUTES. Well, the parade gods were like, “LOL you thought. Not on our watch, sonny boy.”

This took about an hour out of our day and I was so pouty about it too, especially when Henry was like, “OH WELL WE TRIED” and just…started driving home?? Without a discussion? Without a sidebar at a local cafe over a seasonal latte and baked good?! Ooh, I was simmering. I glared out the passenger side window the whole way home. Actually, I even put on my headphones and listened to an audio book (I was near the end of A REALLY GOOD HORROR BOOK) like a moody teenager.

But then we got home, and it started raining so I guess it was good that we didn’t stay. Henry knew he was in trouble though so he started working on refurbing our doorbell to play the Kraftwerk song that I have been hounding him about for years, probably since we adopted Trudy. This appeased me greatly.

That night, we watched THANKSGIVING and I was so pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it! It was the perfect blend of tongue-in-cheek and actual terror. That Addison Rae broad is in it and I had never heard of her until a few weeks ago and so I decided to watch one of her music videos and OK, but no.

Sunday. Sunday Sunday Sunday. Oh yeah, I met Pam at 802 Coffee on the Blvd and that was nice. I had cat-sat for her recently (apparently that’s what I do now, while I am still deep in mourning but that’s fine) and it was nice to just chat, I guess, except that she doesn’t care that I don’t like football and always wants to talk about that still.

Maybe I should just counter with kpop news every time she does that.

I got pumpkin chai at 802 because I am disappointed with their coffee and it was actually ok.

(Wow, I have been trying to write this throughout the day and I am in such an absolute shitty mood, I feel like I need to break several (pallets of) glasses. I am really so sick of everything tbh lol ugh fuck everyone.)

Ok slapped myself in the face and now I’m back. Nothing else to really report from the weekend. We went to Target. That was boring. We walked to Potomac Station because they have a sweet potato casserole latte for Pgh Coffee Week. I was disappointed. I had amazing sweet potato lattes in Korea and have yet to find any place here that makes comparable versions. So that was a waste of money but at least I got some steps in.

I guess.

But ugh I almost forgot I wanted to die because when the Potomac guy asked Henry if he wanted any flavor in his iced coffee, Henry was looking at the menu and goes, “Mmmmmm….horchata.”

The guy – and it’s this old man who is usually there when we go on weekends so he has to recognize us which means I can never go back – goes, “That’s….a drink.”

So Henry tried to play it off, like he meant to ask for brown sugar cinnamon instead.

Now, as this was playing out, I was only half-paying attention l because I was looking at the baked goods. So afterward, I whispered, “Did you just try to get horchata in your coffee as a flavor?”

“Uh huh!” Henry said loudly and confidently.

“You are so embarrassing!” I cried, and then texted Chooch about it later whose response was, “ugh he is so embarrassing.”

Mm, then we ended the night with another episode of the Menendez season of Monsters and I am just so disturbed. I remember the trial from when I was a kid but literally knew nothing other than two rich kids shot and killed their parents. Never knew the full story and now I wish I didn’t.

Well, now we’re going to Dunkin to see how bad they botched their version of an ube-flavored coffee drink.

Maybe I need therapy twice a week instead of just once.

UPDATE: Now I’m standing outside of Dunkin because I accidentally ordered an iced version of what I wanted and I almost started crying in the middle of the store so Henry went back in to get me a hot one god I just hate myself and everything around me. I ruin everything.

Damn, this haunt season has been off to a really wacky start so far. Just all kinds of weirdness, not necessarily BAD, but like…well, WEIRDNESS, as previously stated. I just wanted to dump some photos here from the first week (minus Crawford Haunted School which already got its own post!).

So, the last Sunday of September, Henry and I went to Freddy’s Haunts in Aliquippa. This is one I’ve been going to sporadically since probably like 2002 or 2003? Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s not. The usual.

We had to wait for a solid 45 minutes before they were ready to start sending  people through but I appreciate that this is one of the smart places that give you a group number so you’re not relegated to standing in an annoying line. There’s a HUGE ring of benches for a bonfire, but the bonfire wasn’t lit because it had been raining all day and the benches were wet so Henry and I just stood in like we were in a line anyway so what did it even matter at that point?? But they do have some entertaining scare actors milling about at least, like this clown who desperately wanted us to sign his hammer.

Then he made us take a selfie.

I took a picture of just him to send to Wendy because if you tell me you hate clowns, you asked for it.

Anyway, as usual, all of the pertinents are in the haunted house journal, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you two things:

1. The ticket lady 100% was so annoyed that I asked to keep my ticket stub (her concession was to just rip off where it said Freddy’s Haunts and had me the little sliver of a stub back and then as I was trying to tell her that I have been keeping haunted house journals since 1996, she fully swiveled in her chair so her back was toward me, she cared THAT little. WOW. WOWOWOWOWOWOOWOWW. Usually, these people eat this shit up.
2. We were in group #1 with a trio of teenage girls – I feel like they said they were in 9th grade. These girls were TERRIFIED, even before going in when the chainsaw guy was out and about, he chased them all of the way back to the parking lot. We actually didn’t think they were coming back. But they did and they begged us to let them come through with us even though….we were already assigned to he same group # but sure, I’ll sound like a martyr by saying yes! One of them had a death grip on my hand from the beginning, and another one started crying legit tears as soon as we entered the house, so I was actually thinking that they were going to ask to leave. But the crying girl asked Henry if she could hold onto him and he was like, “Um, OK but can I get you sign this contract first stating your consent?” Anyway, IN A NUTSHELL, these girls made this haunt incredibly hilarious and memorable. I LOVED THEM. The one who was hanging off Henry’s arm cried out at one point, “Wow, Mr. Henry, look at your wife up there in the lead – she isn’t afraid of anything! She’s a real one!” and then, “…she is your wife, right?” Henry laughed and said, “Yes” and I was like, “Ew,” minus the David. It just sounded weird hearing it out loud! Gag.

FUCKING ADORABLE. My girl was the one on the left, and Henry’s was next to him. The one on the right was in the middle most of the time but every once in a while she tried to squeeze next to me so that we were three across and the other girl would yell, “YOU’RE SMOTHERING MISS ERIN!!!!”

God, this was so much fun.

Then on Friday, we went to Fear Forest, which is about 75-90 minutes away in Ohio. It was new-to-us although I have seen the listing for it for years.

75% of it was really fun. Like I always say, these things really depend on so many different factors but a big one is: how many people do you get sent through with?? The hayride only allows for maybe 20-25ish people? But then after the hayride, there are three walk-thrus, 2 of which the ticket punchers were only sending in people with their own group so it was awesome because Henry and I were being sent through just the two of us until we did the walking trail (the PyschoPath – brill) and the jerk ticket guy sent us through with the group of 4 ahead of us even after I complimented him on his nails WELL GUESS WHAT, YOUR DUMB LEE PRESS ONS WEREN’T REALLY THAT GREAT. He was so rude!

Anyway, the scare actors only focused on the group of 4 while Henry and I trailed behind them like the Service Service, make it licensed by Spirit Halloween. At one point, I loudly scoffed, “I GUESS WE ARE INVISIBLE.” But that didn’t change anything.

The last walk-thru was a cornfield and it was just me and Henry – WOW SO ROMANTIC – and it featured a fucking 7 foot tall Michael Myers. I was screaming.

“Why is he so tall!?!?” and Henry was like, “I don’t know, keep walking!” and then Tall Mike cut through the corn and reappeared in front of me again!! He was terrifying!

Anyway, we had fun. It was like old times and actually made me think about the time when we were SECRET DATING in 2001 and en route to a haunted house. We were on the West End Bridge when I looked over to the right and saw JIMMY LANDIS, this smarmy weasel motherfucker we worked with, smiling and waving. Then he leaned forward and saw HENRY and looked back at me, then looked at Henry, and then SMILED SO SHITTILY.

Yeah, by Monday, everyone knew. Sigh.

Anyway, driving home from this haunt, hands wrapped around a cup of hot gas station coffee, listening to NCT…it felt cozy and almost like old times. Well, with the addition of kpop, definitely was not listening to that with Henry in the early 00s!

And this brings us to last night, when we went to INFERNUM IN TERRA, one of our faves in West Virginia. So far, it’s my favorite of the season, big scares, lots of psychological fuckery. But I want to specifically talk about how, as soon as we arrived, Henry CUT IN FRONT OF A YOUNG COUPLE waiting in the ticket line?! I was so embarrassed so I hung back and wouldn’t get into the line with him. I watched the couple look at each other and raise their eyebrows and make a “What a d-bag” smirk.

Um, agreed!!!

So, Henry came back over to where I was standing afterward and I whispered, “You totally cut in front of that couple!” and he goes, “No, I didn’t. Did I?” And then tried to defend himself by saying THEY WEREN’T STANDING IN THE PROPER PLACE and you know what I say to that? THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING TRUMP WOULD SAY IF HE FOUND HIMSELF IN THE SAME SITCH.

AND YOU KNOW TRUMP HAS BEEN CUTTING LINES HIS WHOLE LIFE.

Ugh, so I kept saying, “You need to apologize to them!” because I didn’t want to have to it since I wasn’t the rude-ass in this situation!! Eventually, Henry had to walk past them to use the porta-potty so on his way there, he stopped and asked, “Hey did I cut in front of you over there?” and of course they were both like, “Naw!” like good ol’ West Virginian kids but Henry still apologized, and I was like, “OK, we can move on with our lives now, I can reenter society” because, mind you, what I didn’t say is that I had spent a solid 10 minutes dwelling on this because if there is one thing I hate, it’s looking like an asshole when I truly don’t deserve it! And I looked like an asshole by association!!

Ugh, but you guys, get this – on his way back from the porta-potty, he APOLOGIZED TO THEM AGAIN and come on, man. Now it’s just over kill. You went and did too much. Why not just hand them the cat o’nine tails at this point.

Then we went through the haunt, had a fucking amazing time, and everything got weird after that, but I guess I will save that story for another post because it is not haunted house-related, although it was scarier.

Kicked off haunted house season tonight with a jaunt through Crawford Haunted School! Some of these places opened two weekends ago but we were away both weekends so, “late” start for us I guess.

Weird not having Chooch with us but in reality, he hadn’t really been going to these with us that much the last few years so I guess he was helping us pre-cope lol.

As usual, all the deets go in my haunted house journal but I will say that this was kind of meh this yeah ONLY because they sent us through with two annoying women, but then the second half was better because I finagled my way ahead of them.

I love my haunted house journal so much, haha. I’m hoping this season pumps some life back into me.

So much has been going on but according to my blog, it’s all haunted houses and August vacation recaps. Blogging is a struggle in my old age.

Anyway, today is Halloween and I’m off but it feels like the day is slipping by so fast and I’m mildly panicked about not having time to get all of my pointless, absolutely useless tasks complete:

1. finish a book (done!!)
2. write in a blog that’s basically the equivalent of scribbling misspelled thoughts inside my closet wall that no one will see
3. exercise
4. hand out candy to maybe 3 kids
5. go for a walk
6. have 7 cups of coffee
7. feed the squirrels x9

All of this while narrating each activity to my cats aka best friends.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the haunted houses we went to over the last two weekends. This season felt, weird. This October has been, weird. I feel out of place and, weird.

1. Castle Blood!

Annual jaunt to Castle Blood! Tried to get people to go. Failed as usual. It was such a fun time as always, and great to chat with Gravely and Hexibart, but sad to not get much face time with my Castle crush Boris, and there were a bunch of familiar faces that we were missing that night. Nevertheless, the experience was still on point, the denizens (ever since I got into Kpop, I want so  badly to call them Netizens) were perfectly scathing, and the challenges were as fun as ever. I think my favorite part though was when I was tasked with giving a grumpy old vampire a new-fangled (OH SHIT I DIDN’T EVEN MEAN TO DO THAT, NEWFANGLED LOLOL) food alternative called a BLOOD DISK to prevent him from feeding on us. I thought I was doing a really great job selling it, calling back to my years as an Olan Mills telemarketer obviously, but then I added, “I heard you can even get a subscription box…” to which Henry started full-throttle laughing behind me and bro NEVER laughs at my jokes so I was on high alert, thinking he was laughing at something else and I missed it, was I suddenly the butt of the joke? And then the vampire was all, “OK, I don’t know what that is, you’re taking this too far.”

2. INFERNUM IN TERRA

AKA the night Henry took the most unflattering photo of me in his entire career of taking unflattering photos of me. Anyway, we met my sister Amy and bro-in-law Dick here, and I made friends with this monster guy in line when he was going around asking children for string to add to his collection. It seemed like he was prepared to exchanged candy for said string and I was DESPERATE to be a part of this. I worked diligently on pulling a tiny thread from the sleeve of my denim jacket and then practically tackled him when he walked by and panted, “HERE! I HAVE A STRING FOR YOU!”

He straight squinted at my string and exclaimed, “WHERE IS IT?”

I was like, “HERE!” and aggressively dangled it closer to his face.

“That’s not a string! I can barely see it, I can’t use that!” And then out of sheer exasperation, he goes, “Here, just take a Tootsie Roll, NO YOU CAN KEEP THAT!” when I tried to force my denim thread on him.

Then he came back a few moments later and said, “Do you want to see what I do with the strings??” and lead Amy and me over to a staircase and pointed up. I honestly had no idea what I was looking at initially and then I saw the strings, like actual ROPE in some cases, tied from a railing.

“Do you like, hang people from those?” I asked, and he was HORRIFIED?? I was like, “Sorry, I just thought there was some nefarious use for them since you’re a monster or whatever!”

God.

Apparently some broad gave him a bra. One of the other line monsters told us it only took her three seconds to take it off. Wow.

Anyway, the haunt itself was fine but not as good as past years because groups started catching up with each other and entire scenes were being bypassed to keep the traffic flowing. That was annoying because of the best scenes was done for the group in front of us but when it was our turn they had us just walk through and I wanted Amy and Dick to experience it :(

But for me, the highlight was AFTERWARD when we followed Dick and Amy to Hightower Brewing Co nearby in Ohio. I fell in love (you know me and my emotions!!) with their butter beer and also their orange hard seltzer! I also had a pumpkin cheesecake sour which I think I would have liked a lot better if I hadn’t also been drinking the incredibly sweet butter beer. And I had a peanut butter porter which my whole party advised against me ordering but I did it anyway like the girl with braces who went and ate the popcorn anyway, and boy I had regertz. Henry couldn’t even finish it for me.

But what a great night, two unflattering pictures of me aside! I’m happy that we hung out with Amy and Dick twice in a year, actually ALMOST three times if you count the pie party from 2022! I really gotta be better at hanging out with friends, especially actual family, but NOT relative strangers who send me unhinged and accusatory texts at inappropriate hours of the day.

3. DARK VIEW

This past Friday, Janna and I went to DARK VIEW in Toronto, Ohio!

But first, JANNA HAD TO PEE.

We had a nice chat with the ticket guy who I think I recognized from past Dark View visits. This was their first year at a new location, and he told us it was because their old location on the hill got completely trashed by “you know that storm from last year” and I nodded like I knew when in fact I do not know.

Then when I told him we were from Pgh, he immediately slammed Beto’s Pizza and I fully agreed because that pizza is SHIT and he said we should go to the nearby IGGY’S for good square pizza and he was really selling us on this pizza bro, like I was ready to ask Janna if she wanted to just leave right then and there and go get this critically acclaimed pizza instead. But then he offered a piece of FATAL INFORMATION:

“And they even grind up pepperoni and put it in the sauce to make it extra spice,” he said.

“Oh wow,” I monotoned. “Mm.”

“Well, there goes that,” Janna said later, and then I fell headfirst into a neurotic tailspin re: WHAT IF OTHER PIZZA PLACES DO THIS TOO AND I HAVE BEEN UNWITTINGLY EATING MEAT-SAUCE ALL THESE YEARS??

Ugh.

Anyway, Dark View is still doing these souvenir pictures which I love and also, they know what a good angle is, maybe learn from them, Henry. Find a way to pull a ladder out of your ass, don’t all you men come with one lodged up in there??

Anyway, there was a guy in there who reminded me lots of Bradley Walden from Emarosa because he was a “scare actor” but was “scared,” you know what I mean? So he was like, “Oh thank god, you guys are alive! It’s really scary here!” I feel like he was dressed like he was on safari.

Um, I dunno! This was not as great as previous years but knowing that they were forced to basically start from scratch, I gotta give them credit. And the kids they had in there generating the screams were a real delight. Super effective and they took their roles seriously.

Afterward, we went to SHEETZ where I got an iced nitro cold brew with hopefully NO HIDDEN MEATS and the cashier was SO CHATTY that I felt for a second like I was a real person again, like Erin pre-2004 even, and I was JUST ABOUT to say, “Don’t be nice to her” while jutting a thumbing over my shoulder but luckily I had half-turned around before the words came out so I noticed that JANNA WASN’T BEHIND ME but some burly trucker guy so whew, good thing my periphery vision isn’t as bad as my…frontal vision.

But yeah wow, substantive small talk with two strangers in one night (plus all that talking with JANNA ugh!!) – back to reclusiveness for me. Oh ho, just kidding, my new neighbors do not allow for any reclusiveness to be had. But that is a story for another day!

4. FRIGHT FARM

I think the most memorable thing about this night, and not in a good way, is THE FUCKING RAIN. It was miserable. Also (and um, sorry Janna if you’re reading this) but I realized at some point after we already bought our tickets that I had been looking at the weather for SMITHTON PA all day, and not SMITHFIELD which is actually where Rich’s Fright Farm is located. SMITHTON, wherever that is, said that there was absolutely NO RAIN past 5PM. So I was like, “OK great, we can still go tonight! This will be PERFECT!”

Um, SMITHFIELD’S weather said “UNRELENTING RAIN ALL NIGHT BITCHES.”

Then we had to wait for like 90 minutes. Chooch ditched us very quickly after we arrived. I think he only sat with us for approx. 10 minutes and then wandered off to act like an orphan, which is his most Oscar-worthy role. He’s basically type-cast at this point.

I didn’t really get the theme, except for the one part where I guess it was meant to feel like we were walking through a fumigated room? It was actually the best part of the whole fucking thing.

DURRRR.

Overall, it was fine! No one was annoying which was good because they ended up sending so many people through at the same time that we were coming to complete standstills in certain areas because of bottlenecks. The one positive thing about that is that it gave us an opportunity to actually look at the props and stuff, since we’re usually flying through. Chooch and I were pushing every button we came across too. I started it.

I *think* Henry and I are going on our traditional date to the Wells Township lights out night this weekend but I’ll be wearing boots so as to not get my foot cut off by the chainsaw guy. 

BUH-BYE.

Henry and I went to Kennywood last Thursday after work. It was a pretty good time, minimal crowds, some terrific night rides on Phantom which is honestly the only reason we even went.

Not too much to report, but I did take some pictures on Lapse and just finally figured out how to save them to my camera roll rather than screenshotting them which was turning them into tiny-tots.

IN LINE FOR JACK RABBIT. Fun fact: I have been riding this literally since I was like 5 probably and I still to this day can’t keep both my hands up on the double dip. I always scream, “HAHAHA I CAN’T! I CAN’T DO IT!! HAHAHAHA!” and then, you know, I don’t do it.

This haunt was called Dark Shadows. It was fine. However, when we were in line for the haunt next to it, some hospital thing that was actually REALLY FUN and I was SHOCKED because KENNYWOOD, there was this totally annoying middle aged broad (I know, I described myself) in front of us, and I knew she was a Karen before she even revealed herself to be a Karen a few minutes later by telling the TOTALLY DISINTERESTED guy she was about how LAST YEAR she went into the Dark Shadows haunt and it was SO DARK SHE COULDN’T SEE so she USED HER PHONE TO SEE and one of the scare actors told her TO PUT HER PHONE AWAY. She COULDN’T BELIEVE THE AUDACITY! How was she was SUPPOSED TO SEE in the HAUNTED HOUSE that is literally made so that ONE CANNOT SEE??

The guy she was with barely grunted in response, in fact, it might have been him swallowing a burp and not actually reacting to her KAREN KARENOWOLSKI complaint because I have a feeling Guy wasn’t even listening to her bitch fest. Fuck off.

The only reason we came!! The ride crew was ON FIRE. They were so efficient and had a goal to NOT STACK THE TRAINS which was nuts considering that it was a walk-on all night. When Phantom has the elite crew working, BRACE YOURSELF. Because they’re gon’ send you before you even have time to miss the phone you left behind.

NO TRIMS!!

I think I spent the entire night talking and worrying about our new neighbors. I might be obsessed. I can’t tell if Henry is annoyed with me yet or if he truly is just immune to my emotional chaos anymore.

Well guys, that’s about all I have to say about that. A fun evening but not very eventful unless you want me to write an essay on my love for Phantom and how it gets stronger at night. Because I will do that. We left around 8:30 and went to Sheetz for snacks because there was nothing at Kennywood that seemed appealing.

But first! When Henry was googling to see if the unit next to us was listed anywhere yet, he noticed that Google street view was updated, so now if you look at our street, you can see me coming up from the backyard with my Halloween pail of peanuts, post-squirrel feeding. I’m marginally embarrassed but also kind of like, “Aw, it’s me in my purest form.” Please also note HNC’s two molester vans in the back. Those are just 2 of the SIX vehicles that he and his wife own between themselves. Two of them don’t even run. We’re so blessed to live next to them.

Let’s start last weekend with Thursday night. I had dinner at Fig & Ash with Megan, Marlene, Debby and Jill. Overall, I really liked the vibe of the place but the menu was deceiving. They had two meatfree items in the “shareables” section, which to me made it sound like it was going to be served family style, large portions? So instead of getting the mushroom risotto like I had wanted, I got two things from the Starter section: the famous heirloom carrots and butternut squash soup.

Both were delicious, but the soup was basically like someone took a ladle and quickly left a soup-streak at the bottom of a shallow bowl. I mean, I’d be hard-pressed to actually consider it “soup” and charge, I can’t remember – maybe $15 – for it? REALLY GOOD, don’t get me wrong, but unbelievably unsatisfying. Everyone else was still only about halfway done with their meals and I was just sitting there twiddling my thumbs and drinking water. Megan ordered something from the SHAREABLE section and it was a normal American serving! I was DUPED.

I was still feeling hungry, which is the worst because I KNEW I was going to cave and get dessert.

I got the pumpkin panna cotta. It too was unsatisfying and also, unlike my other food, just not good.

I would go back and 100% get the CARROTS TO SHARE and maybe the BEETS and also something from THE SHAREABLE section to NOT share (there were NO veg options in the entree section, just a heads up to my meatless brethren).

Seriously, someone please help this restaurant with their menu. At least change the wording.

But at least the company was top notch. No complaints there.

The next day, I was off work and that was boring but fine. But that night things got better because I went with Janna and Chooch to a new-to-us haunt in West Alexander called Scaregrounds or something. Janna drove us there and that was like the amuse bouche, if you will, to a night of terror. :)

Anyway, here are some pictures from it:

I’ve been using this photo app called Lapse after strong-arming Chooch into sending me an invite link. Here’s my…lapse?….of me waiting for Janna to pick us up. I love that shirt and forgot that I owned it!

I just want to note that kids 18 & under are only $12? In what land?? West Alexander land I guess!

Ew my teeth look so wet here for some reason!?

EW EW EW I was staring at whatever that is in Chooch’s hand for a solid minute trying to figure out, in horror, what it was, but it’s just his Kirby airpod case.

Saturday was a bust. The weather was AWFUL. Non-stop rain pretty much all day along. I had no desire to go out that night so we stayed in and started The Fall of the House of Usher.

Sunday was interesting. There was activity next door and I saw an older woman moving in some small items so I ballet-leapt out of the front door and, huffing from the exertion and anxiety of NEW NEIGHBOR ALERT, I wheezed, “Hiareyoumynewneighbor??”

She said that NO she is NOT but that she is from the AGENCY that is moving my neighbor in?! My mind started spinning. WTF could this mean?? An agency?? This has never happened before. Usually our asshole landlord just rents it to the most untrustworthy person off the street. So now he was working with an AGENCY?

“Your new neighbor is a girl from Afghanistan, and she doesn’t speak English. I’m glad you came out to meet me and you are so friendly, because she is going to need your help!”

That was all it took. A mission! An assignment! For me! I had tunnel-vision for the rest of Sunday and Monday until they (it’s a single-mom family!!!) moved in on Tuesday. I will write separately about this, as much as I can share within reason, but just know that I am obsessed with this family and making them feel at home and can literally not focus on anything else right now. Just obsessed. I have already spent more time with them in just a handful of days that I have spent with ANY SINGLE NEIGHBOR on this street since 1999. OK, more on that later. Woo boy.

Another Lapse-thing from our drive to SCARY HARRY’S on Sunday. It’s out in Homer City, whatever that means.

Scary Harry’s has different lines that you can get into based on the # of your group. So there’s 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6. The ticket person told us to get into the smallest line, which would have been the 5-6, even though there was no one in that line, and we only had 3 people!? But of course, the 3-4 line was the longest. So Chooch was like, “We are never getting out of here” and was being so whiny. I was panicking because I knew any minute now the ticket person was going to let the next chunk of people through (we were the last ones in the other group he let through) so my mind was spinning.

I didn’t want to go into the 5-6 line because it was obvious we didn’t have that many people and it would look like we were cutting!?! So I got SAVVY and said to the trio in front of us, “Hey, you guys wanna pretend like we’re together and go to that line over there?”

The one lady was like, “We….could do that.” SO WE DID. LIKE TOTAL HAUNTED TRAIL GANGSTAS. But then it was so obvious that we weren’t together and the lady at the front of us who is in charge of putting together groups from the three lines was side-eying us so I quickly turned around and covertly whispered, “I’m Erin BTW” and introductions were made lol. I think it was a mom, her teenage son, and his gf?

But yeah, you’re welcome guys. We got to in as a group after about 10 more minutes of waiting, as opposed to probably 30 minutes if we had stayed where we were. AND REALLY, TAHT TICKET PERSON TOLD US TO DO THIS, SO WERE WE REALLY BEING DECEPTIVE?!?! You know I don’t condone line-jumping, and if that guy hadn’t said to do that, I would have just continued to stand in the middle, longest line and deal with it.

Apparently, this was originally Chooch’s idea and he was mad that he didn’t get credit? I barely remember him suggesting this but also, those two NEVER TALK TO PEOPLE IN LINE and if I hadn’t opened my mouth as our group’s spokesperson, we’d probably still be standing in that line, so STFU.

Well, I think that is all I want to say, bye!

I took today off because I have some PTO I need to USE OR LOSE and I swear every time I do this, I’m bored immediately. I’ve already fed the squirrels, played with the cats, made my breakfast smoothie, read a few chapters from a physical book and audio book, edited more vacation photos, chatted on the phone with Christina (they love to hear about all the weird ass “friend” drama in my life that doesn’t involve them for once lol), and tried to wake Chooch up so we can play tennis because he doesn’t have school today.

But now it’s 10AM and I’m just sitting here like, “………….” with NCT live stages playing on TV.

So, let’s look at some pictures from last week’s life.

UberHenry drove Jann and me to Crawford School of Terror on Friday after work. It was Janna’s first time there!

The haunt itself was still as good as ever BUT I was really annoyed because typically you only get sent in with your own group. It seemed like it was true this year too, as the couple in front of us got sent in alone. I was really getting pumped, knowing that Janna and I were going to be sent in a pair of guileless, frightened broads and would get the utmost attention, right? NOT QUITE. The person in charge of the line told us to go on up the steps, but as we started to leave the line, she said to the two LITTLE GIRLS behind us, “You can go with them if you’re scared.”

AND THEY DID.

I was so annoyed because they were like 11 or 12 probably, knew everyone inside and tried to get them to break character, and screamed, “SLAY” at everything. So fucking annoying, especially when Janna and I were basically treated like we were their moms and nothing good happened to us. We finally had a chance in the pitch-black maze to ditch them SO WE DID. I practically pulled Janna through it and we could hear them screaming, “WHERE DID THEY GO?? WE’RE LOST!!! HELP!!!” LOL, slay all day, bitches.

The next day, Chooch had his sailing thing and then I went to Sergio’s to get my hair fixed finally. I feel really bad because I did genuinely like the other salon and the stylist I had, but the last two times I went, my hair was just…eh. The last time especially it turned out two-toned, bleached in some areas and brassy in others. I looked like hot trash on vacation because of it but what can you do. It’s just hair at the end of the day LOLOLOL SAID NO WOMAN EVER. So, I went back to Sergio’s but chose a different stylist from when I went in 2022, thinking it would be fine, who the hell is going to recognize me after only going there once, etc. But then as soon as I walked in, the receptionist was all, “OH HEY ERIN LONG TIME NO SEE” and then started fawning over me and said, “You were wearing fun stuff the last time you were here too” and then she made the one shampoo guy (I’m sorry, it’s 2023 not 1952 but I have no idea what the official title is for these types of salon staff and I know it’s basically like calling a flight attendant a stewardess at this point, so I probably sound like a rude asshole) come over and look at my shoes (my velcro Vans) and then he asked me if I made my sweater (??).

(I did not, in fact, make my sweater.)

Anyway, I got my hair fixed by a lovely lady who shares my name so obviously she’s gonna be great. We had really good chats too. My cut was way uneven from the last time so she was like, “Serious question, is this side purposely longer than the other?”

That would be a big nope, friend. I don’t know what was happening there but the last several visits to the old salon, I was leaving with an uneven cut that I didn’t notice until I got home.

Also, my hair is blended and toned down a lot now too. It feels more “autumnal.”

Sunday night, Henry took me, Chooch and his friend Zakk to Dungeon of Horrors at the old Moundsville state pen. We hadn’t been here since 2015 so I was excited to give it a whirl again!

Tightwad Henry sat in the car and watched IG reels probably because he can’t justify paying $20 for a haunted house (unless it’s Castle Blood, natch). But it ended up being fine because we got put in a group with another trio who ended up being amazing (I actually had a feeling they would be and tried to make it so we would be paired up because the one person reminded me a lot of the aforementioned Christina and I got good vibes. My vibes didn’t fail me for once!).

As per the ujjjje, all the details go into my haunted house journal but I just need to say that this was ACTUALLY TRAUMATIC – there was a very sick stunt they pulled right in the beginning that plays on claustrophobia bigly and I would have been screaming if I hadn’t been buried up past my head in a tight chamber of rubber balls. Let’s just say we were bonded with the other trio in our group – Brenda, Selena, and Michael, I WILL NEVER FORGET YOU! Well, maybe you Michael, because you didn’t say two words the entire time, but Selena and I were locked in a jail cell together and Brenda had those strong Christina vibes and was just genuinely concerned for our safety the whole time and part of me wanted to be like LET’S EXCHANGE SOCIALS OR SOMETHING SO WE CAN DO THIS AGAIN SOMETIME?? But alas, I didn’t, because Chooch is my social kryptonite and always makes me feel like an extroverted freak when I try to engage strangers and bring them into the fold. Sigh.

I wonder if the Old Erin will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon after he goes off to college??

2015 v 2023 :(

Then Henry had to soak my jean jacket in some special housewife concoction when we got home because in one of the rooms, I leaned against an industrial sink coated with fake blood and got it all over my back. I just like to get really immersed in these things, ok?

But yeah, with the exception of Saturday night which found me suffering from a headache and weird body-feels after skipping lunch, sitting in a salon for hours, and not drinking enough water, it was another really good weekend. I just genuinely like October so much.

You’ll never believe this, but in between furiously recapping my vacation that is now from over 2 months ago, I have actually been living a modest social life as well.

FIRST, Kara invited me to Moulin Rouge with her last Thursday night. Now, I’m not a musical bitch by any stretch of the imagination which is silly when you think about it because I, like most people with pets who double as their best friends/co-workers/children/spiritual guides/therapists, turn every last basic statement into a jingle all the livelong day. Can I sing along to songs on the radio? Give me a FUCK NO, Mindy. Do I sing Happy Birthday to anyone other than my son? Not without LipSynch Mode activated. But will I take a sentence and blow so much operatic gusto up its proverbial asshole that a Tony Award starts simping in my Instagram comments? YOU BETCHER BOTTOM DOLLAR, MOTHERFUCKA.

This is my way of saying that I don’t go out of the way to attend real life musicals, but once you get me there, I am usually moderately to sufficiently entertained.

First, Kara and I met at The Warren for a small pre-show dinner and MULES OF THE DAY (blackberry). It was nice. The vibe was a bit too Late Friday Night for me (maybe I’m just officially an Elder, but the music was SO LOUD for 6pm on a Thursday when all I wanted to do was talk to my friend), but the aesthetic was so my style. The blue walls kept my inner-Karen (CAN YOU TURN THIS RACKET DOWN??) at bay.

Kara wanted to take my picture in front of this but I got stage fright and said NO.

Then I had to ask her if I would die if I drank wine after a Moscow mule. She said NO.

So I got a sippy cup of pinot grigio and did not expire. Meanwhile, Kara was very close to ditching me for the super chatty old man in line behind her for refreshments and honestly, it would have been an upgrade. I’m not too proud to admit that openly to the Internet.

Immediately I was like, “OK. Sold. Here for it.” when we first saw the stage (after Kara was schooled on the subject of “This is your left. THAT is your right” by one of the no-nonsense ushers. She was here to help you find your seat, not provide any extra coddling.).

Kara and I don’t have very many selfies together, I feel like!! She was boxed in by this point so she had no choice.

Anyway, wow – Moulin Rouge was magical! I know OF the movie, I know the Lady Marmalade remake, but that was the extent. I didn’t know the actual plot, really. I didn’t know the characters, just that Nicole Kidman was in the movie. So this was almost like going into it blind. I think the reason why I never bothered to watch the movie was because, 1) well, it’s a musical; 2) not a big fan of Nicole Kidman honestly; 3) I really didn’t like that Lady Marmalade remake primarily because I never liked Christina Aguilera and that song was EVERYWHERE back then.

But now, after watching this…I might give the movie a try!

Then Henry went into Uber mode and drove Kara home even though she’s always finding random and weird things that she knows we need to have around the house and Henry always mumbles, “Thanks, Kara” like when she sent me an auction link for a bumper car when she knew I was looking for one to use as a couch.

(We did not get it, sadly/obviously. SOME DAY. YOU WAIT.)

The next night, Janna and I went to the first haunt of the season! It was Valley of Terror haunted hayride and it’s crazy because I have been seeing ads for this one probably since high school and occasionally even put it on my list, but never made it  to this one until this year!

First off, we had a very uncomfortable experience at the ticket booth, which wasn’t open yet even though it was 7pm, nor was there a sign on the window with any information. So we walked around to the other side where some lady YELLED IN A HOSTILE MANNER, “Can I help you!?!?” like we were fucking Jehovahs Witnesses tossing around pamphlets willy nilly. I was like, “We’re here for the hayride” like le duh, do you not know who we are? And she was like THE TICKET WINDOW IS BACK THERE IT WILL BE OPEN SOON!! And we did the walk of shame back to the window, where she opened the screen 3 minutes later and said, cheerfully, “HELLO AGAIN!” and was suddenly so fucking nice to us like she hadn’t just hollered at us (we were in a rural area where you get hollered at, which is different from regular yelling which is generally what takes place in the city).

So we bought our overpriced tickets and then walked around to the area where we were previously hollered at, only for some lady at the snack bar to holler at us this time?!?

“Can I help you??” she cried, and I was like, “What? Oh! No, no. We’re just looking.” Because we were considering our options even though it was CASH ONLY and I didn’t have any left because Henry only gave me the exact amount because he didn’t want me to have any spendin’ money left over, god forbid, I might run away with it.

And then she yelled at again, more accusatorily this time!? Now I was truly taken aback, feeling fully affronted. Again, I said, “No, we’re just waiting—”

“THE TICKET BOOTH IS OVER THERE!” she interrupted, pointing back to the way we came.

I waved my ticket in the air and yelled back, “We already have our tickets.”

Please keep in mind that we weren’t even standing close to the snack bar while this scene was going down all disjointed and awkward like a shitty middle school play rehearsal. So we were both legit shouting to each other across several picnic tables.

“Oh! I didn’t realize they were already selling tickets, I’m sorry!” she laughed, and that’s when I realized that she was LITERALLY asking us “CAN I HELP YOU” as a passive way of saying, “You aren’t meant to be here. Trespassers!” Here I thought she was just aggressively trying to get us to buy hot chocolate and a pretzel. I didn’t fucking know what was going on.

So that’s how the night started –  a right hillbilly hollerin’, and two of ’em to boot!

It was the HARVEST MOON night which I never would have known if not for Wendi telling us in group chat at work. Group chat is where I learn a lot of important life stuff.  She was like DON’T MISS THE HARVEST MOON TONIGHT which is how I knew to look for it.

I gotta save the deets for the HAUNTED HOUSE JOURNAL but the hayride was just “meh,” while the actual haunted walk-thru was YEAH BOY. Janna will tell you. I screamed lots. There were two chainsaw guys that attacked me bigly.

However, as I’m sitting here writing this now, the thing that stands out the most is sitting at a picnic table near the bonfire and talking about the time Janna and I both worked at St Clair Hospital doing FILING and the only thing I vividly remember is wearing WHITE PANTS one day and of course my period started, so I spent my whole shift trotting to the bathroom to check for leaks.

But while I was recalling this to Janna, I realized immediately afterward that I was talking VERY LOUDLY and as I tossed a casual glance over my shoulder, I made hard eye contact with the couple sitting behind us, listening intently to my rejected IT HAPPENED TO ME story for Jane Magazine.

Actually, the scariest part of the night was tied between when the ticket taker for the haunted house just could NOT figure out how to punch the hole in the ticket and then bragged about how the haunt has been running for over 30 years and I was like, “OK, but is this the first year they implemented a hole puncher then?” and when we got lost on the way home almost immediately after and had to turn around on a really scary backwoods-yet-residential road while a very old and skinny man in an undershirt, boxers, and knee socks shambled across the street to his house and did the super quick jump-scare head turn at the last minute to look DIRECTLY INTO OUR SOULS.

“He looks like if John Waters hadn’t become John Waters,” I cried, white-knuckling the steering wheel and grandma-driving the fuck out of there.

“Somehow, I understand what you mean,” Janna said.

Then on Sunday, I met Amber, Lauren, Sandy and Nate at the Abbey for brunch!! Lauren and Sandy are ex-Law Firmers, so I was very happy to get the chance to see them while eating good foods in one of my favorite places that I sincerely do not eat at often enough.

It’s us! Fun fact: Sandy, Nate and I (+ Mitch) were all hired the same year, but now Nate and I are the only ’10-liners left. :(

It was my idea to have the waiter take our picture but I told Amber, “You do it. You ask him” because not only am I great idea person, I’m a highly adept delegator.

Well guys, that was pretty much the whole ass recap of last week’s “I Saw Friends” happenings. I have more haunted houses on tap, and a dinner with some current and past work friends next week so maybe another recap will be forthcoming!? It can’t all be amusement park posts, right?!

I love October so effing much but – oof – it is so bittersweet. I always have that “I’m running out of time!!” sensation so I’m not always living in the moment because I’m internally panicking about not being able to do everything, but no, I don’t want haunted houses to be a year-round thing because that kills the novelty and anticipation. I think it all boils down to exactly what the doves have been crying about: I’m just never satisfied.

Anyway, here is a round-up of the last haunts we squeezed in during the final days of October.

FRIGHT FARM! WOO! This was Henry and Zakk’s first time here, but Chooch and I are seasoned pros by now. I was so excited for Henry and Zakk to experience what is essentially the granddaddy of farm haunts. First of all, this photo is blurry because I WAS SO FUCKING COLD. Literally shivering and wishing I had brought gloves in addition to the knit beanie and boots I was already wearing.

Henry was a big fan of the snack options. It gave him something to do while we were watching for an hour-ish for our group # to be called. At least we didn’t have to stand in line!

Zakk’s new girlfriend. Chooch was jel.

Anyway, some quick thoughts:

• An actual line-dance happened when Flo-Rida and Kesha’s “Timber” came on, and I was extremely uncomfortable about that.
• An older man behind me on the hayride kept announcing everything that was about to happen to his companion, Ruthie. I kept looking behind me and Ruthie was legit recording the whole thing with her phone so I think she was aware of it.
  • Literally, the whole damn thing!!
• Hayride portion was sick as usual, possibly the best hayride around.
• Once we got to the haunted house part, we had to stand in line with like, and I’m not exaggerating here, 12 different large groups of extremely loud and inebriated people?! All the guys looked like people Blake would be friends with. It was so annoying, yet somehow the line moved extremely fast because most people were standing in clumps waiting for their friends to use the porta potties so everyone was just cutting past them. But then the kid manning the entrance to the walk-thru was letting huge groups go through at once so that was a major haunted house foul, come on kid.
• We were the last people in the group that got sent in, but somehow a group of 5 TOTALLY HIGH/DRUNK ASSHOLES caught up to us. They were insufferable. I don’t like making a scene (LOL ok) but all I kept thinking was that we drove an hour to get to this place and then paid $100 for admission, so I was not about to let these assholes fuck with my night. “Look, I’m going to pretend like I have to tie my shoe so that they’ll go past us,” I whispered to Henry who probably didn’t hear me because he can’t hear anything anymore. I dropped into a squat to fake-tie my shoe while dramatically saying, “UH OH I HAVE TO TIE MY SHOE, YOU GUYS CAN GO ON AHEAD” but then they were going to STOP so I hurriedly waved them past while I did the worst shoe-typing pantomime which involved me fluffing my laces and then IMMEDIATELY standing back up once they passed us – it was so obvious but….they were so stoned, so it probably seemed normal to them. We caught up to them at the checkpoint for the actual haunted house (the first part is mostly outdoors) but I flat out said to the girl manning the door, “I don’t want to go in with those people” and she said, “Oh yeah, no problem,” letting the door close behind them. “I could tell by your face that they were annoying you.” Other groups had caught up to us by then, but she was a fucking sweetheart and let just the four of us go inside alone and NO ONE BOTHERED US (well, aside from the monsters, but we want to be bothered by them) so YOU’RE WELCOME FOR SAVING THE NIGHT WITH MY FAKE SHOE ISSUES, GUYS.
• Look, I’m not straight-edge or a NARC or anything, but there is nothing worse than being sober in public while a bunch of jackasses parade around you in a state of extreme intoxication. TIME AND A PLACE. TIME. AND. A. PLACE.

It was like 40 degrees but go on with your shorts and t-shirts.

I’ve seen this one in the haunted listings for years and years but for some reason, we have never gone. I was tired of spending lots of money on these haunted nights so when I saw that this one was only (“only”) $15, I penciled it in. Plus, the entire proceeds go to ANIMALS!!! We love that.

Also, that’s Henry’s “Leave My Woman Alone, Chainsaw Guy!“ face. Lol j/k, he moves out of the way for them.

Anyway, this was fantastic – so reminiscent of the ones I used to go to in the 90s with Christy and/or the LAME crew. I was laughing so much and one of the guys was wearing a Sloth mask and he followed me for a LONG WHILE and then growled, “SEE YOU LATER TONIGHT” and it was sinister yet HOT?!

There was a middle school-ish aged girl dressed as a dead cheerleader and she stole the show. I made sure to tell her that when I saw her outside of the trail as we were leaving (wait – she WAS supposed to be part of the trail, right? WAS SHE AN ACTUAL DEAD CHEERLEADER???) and she giggled and then skipped off. It was adorable.

The last haunt of the season was last Friday night – Wells Township Haunted House, and oh you guys know EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED THERE, LOL.

Honestly, though – aside from my WOUND – this was still one of the best haunts I went to all season, if not ever. I just love how balls to the wall it is, I don’t mind being touched at all; in fact, in one of the first rooms, someone was VICIOUSLY tickling my sides, like they were relentless about it. I was SCREAM-LAUGHING so hard into Henry’s back, literally almost peed my pants which is how you know it’s a good haunt!

I would not recommend this one to anyone with depth perception (lol, it me) or mobility issues because one of the scariest parts is not knowing where you’re going, if there are steps coming up (usually the have someone guiding you but there was one part where I had to toe the area in front of me and holler, “THERE’S A STEP!” to Henry who at some point got behind me and I don’t know what’s scarier: being in the lead or in the back!

Well, that completes the 2022 Haunted House Circuit. It was a good one, for sure, but you know…the older I get, the less people I can find to go to these with me – especially now that I almost lost a foot to a chainsaw guy. I’m sure that’s a sign from the universe saying: FIND GROWN-UP HOBBIES. Pfft, yeah no thanks!

Friends. This happened tonight. I am home now and I think I’m going to survive but it was…touch and go for a while there.

Running into an acquaintance 15 years from now, probably not at a grocery store: “Whoa, you and Henry broke up? What happened?”

Me: “Well, a chainsaw guy at a haunted house….”

a

Additional thoughts: this happened at the very end of the haunted house (which was 100% SO GOOD and I’m not mad about this, it was an accident plus we signed waivers so can’t go Full Karen on the place) and I knew it happened, could feel the pain immediately, and usually I would run like a scared deer from the damn chainsaw guy but I was legit frozen in place, hugging Henry, and then I just like, quietly limped away because I wasn’t sure at that point how bad it was and if my ankle would just like, split in half if I started to aggressively run. So I casually limped back to the car and then whispered, “I think the chainsaw guy cut my ankle and I’m afraid to look” to Henry who had no reaction because he was probably daydreaming about the gas station snacks he was going to buy on the way home (“Mmm Slim Jims”). I risked a quick peek when I got in the car and IMMEDIATELY started screaming and panicking, trying to slather on bandaids with shaking hands while holding back bile-burps.

But now I’m home, wound is clean and bandaged. I still won’t put any weight on it when I walk. I’m walking on the toes of the injured foot, but with the knee bent and then my other leg is like “let me bend a little too” so I look like a gimp leprechaun, I dunno, OR SOMETHING.

I’m about to pass out. Chooch is disgusted and said there is no reason for this much drama and then he retreated to his room and Henry just like, left the house. I mean, ok leave me alone with an injury of this magnitude, sure. At least I have 4 wheelchairs at my disposal.

I just realized that there is only one weekend of left for haunted housing and I am gutted. It never fails – October slips through my fingers faster than any other stupid month, I swear. I dunno why this shocks me every year?!

Here is a brief rundown of the last two weekends of haunts we did, plus a bonus shot of the new haunted house journals I stocked up on from Spirit! They had so many to choose from – I went in for just one because I only have a few pages left of my current inky tome (that was so stupid that autocorrect desperately wanted to change it to anything but that) but ended up leaving with these 4:

Is it weird that I am 43 and still carrying the torch I lit in 1996 with these godforsaken journals? Maybe. OK probably. But it’s a compulsion now. I literally have to jot down my thoughts on every haunt no matter what. Of course all the gory (LOL I AM SO HILAR TONIGHT) details are up inside those pages, but I always like to memorialize them a bit on here too mostly for ease of searching, like when Chooch and I are fighting over one that I say we’ve been to and he says no. My blog allows me to have victory much faster than dusting off old journals and leafing through the brittle pages.

(Suddenly they’re from the rare book section of the Smithsonian and not Henry’s old SERVICE trunk in my bedroom.)

Two Saturdays ago, Chooch and I went to Scare Manor. I went to this last year with Henry and LOVED it. But this year it was….the same but we went with three older broads that knew people there so everything happened to them and only like one part was fun for the rest of us. I try not to be whiny about that shit, but this was like $20 and not that long so I felt gypped – the chainsaw guy just let Chooch and me stroll right past and didn’t even bother with us! Also, I fell into a big divot in the parking lot when getting out of the car and back in to leave so that was annoying.

And then we went to what appeared to be one of the first Sheetz ever built because it was so small and everyone in there was weird and I was MAD.

The next night, Henry and I went to Demon House and I know, blog, you’re right – I literally told you a few weeks ago that I was writing that one off! But then I found out that they got new owners and it is better so we got some tickets on Groupon and went out to give it a whirl. Right off the bat, I was disoriented because they changed location of the shuttle bus!! It now picks you up at a different parking lot but we couldn’t find where, so we had to actually drive past Demon House and follow the shuttle bus back to the parking lot. That was weird.

As usual, they had a horror movie playing on the outdoor screen. This is the best part of Demon House, truly. You don’t have to stand in line! You get assigned to a group and you slink around the grounds, sipping apple cider by the bonfire, using the portapotty, grabbing a snack at the concession stand like the mom who was in our group and frantically shoveling it in her face when the bell rang and our number was called.

Then her husband asked the Demon House girl what movie that was playing over there. She didn’t know, so Henry and I said, “Evil Dead” in tandem and everyone just looked at us blankly. So, then she was like, “Let me ask these other clueless Demon House broads” because apparently, we weren’t a credible source.

One of the broads said, “Paranormal Activity” to which Henry and I were like, “HON THAT AIN’T IT” so then she quickly added, “Of if it’s not that, it’s Friday the 13th.”

“It’s Evil Dead,” Henry said to the guy in a tone that screamed, “Look bro, we look like we are of the same ilk, cut from the same blue collared cloth, constantly misplacing tools. You gotta take my word for this” AND I STILL DON’T THINK HE BELIEVED US.

I was screaming inside my face.

Assholes.

Anyway, Demon House was fine. There was one really big scare that I got because I was at the end and turning around to close a door so somehow that simple, everyday action found me with my guard down, and some scare actor was behind the door. Then he chased me down the hall and I legot threw my back out a little, so that happened.

Other than that, it was same-old. It’s a good one of the GP but I just really want more.

This past Friday, Henry and I went to TAVERN OF TERROR! It was my first time at Allen’s Haunted Hayride in 5 or so years and I definitely was fine passing up the hayride portion and just doing the walk-thru. Allen’s is like the OG hayride in the area and it’s OK! It just takes a lot for hayrides to really feel worth it to me. And the last time we were there, it was Allen’s inaugural season for the Tavern, so I was interested to see how it was holding up.

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I was adamant about getting my Haechan penchant in this shot, lol.

Anyway, it was SO CROWDED there, being a Friday night and all, but hardly anyone was in line for the tavern! Probably most people get the combo ticket to do both, and then do the hayride first. We stood in line to buy the ticket almost as long as we waited for the actual haunt!

There were SO MANY young kids in line with us, which was under a canopy, and they were making my head hurt badly with their loud-ass mouths. I kept exclaiming, ‘WHY IS IT NECCESSARY FOR THEM TO SCREAM INSTEAD OF TALKING??” At one point, it got really quiet and Henry pointed out that it was because their group had gone inside. That’s when I realized that my ears were actually ringing in their absence.

We got to go inside just the two of us, and I am here to tell you that this was AWESOME. The scare actors were relentless, hilarious, and super sneaky. I loved that there were like, secret doors and openings, and it was actually amazing to see how they turned such a small space into a bunch of winding hallways and atmospheric rooms.

I was so fucking stoked about this the whole way home. I loved it!

Then on Saturday, all three of us went to Portals of Fear in West Mifflin. It’s done by a local youth group and listen Linda, those usually prove to be the best ones.

And yeah, as expected, this one was FUN, STARTLING, CHAOTIC, OLD-SCHOOL. I think I screamed, “OMG LOL” in every single room. And somehow someone there knew Chooch because at one point, all the kids started yelling, “Riley! Riley’s here!” and as you know, we never call him that so they definitely didn’t hear it from us! He said he has no idea how this could possibly be because he doesn’t know anyone from West Mifflin?!

Meanwhile, as the ticket lady shredded our tickets while giving us the rules before we went inside, my soul died a little and I couldn’t even pay attention to what she was saying, hearing her distant voice being pulled like taffy while I silently watched my ticket perish. I asked if I could have back just a piece of the ticket because I always keep my haunted house ticket stubs and she was like, “Oh no I’m so sorry I ripped them all up” and then she looked all around for someone to fall out of the sky with a solution. The guy sitting next to her said, “Oh, I can just get you a whole one if you want?” and he didn’t even have to plummet from the sky first. I practically screamed OH THANK U ITS FOR MY HAUNTED HOUSE JOURNALS WHICH I HAVE BEEN KEEPING SINCE 1996 and I’m sure that is a moment Chooch is filing away in the MOTHER, EMBARRASSMENTS drawer.

This Thursday, Janna and I (and maybe Chooch if he doesn’t have to work because he finally got a new job – at Dunkin’) will be going on our annual pilgrimage to Rich’s Fright Farm, and I still haven’t ironed out exactly what I want to want to do on Friday and/or Saturday. We’re considering going to Cedar Point on Sunday, and then next Friday is LIGHTS OUT at Wells Township Haunted House! And then….I guess that’s it.  For as many haunts as I’ve gone to this season, I will be honest and say that this October has felt kind of off and I don’t know why?! Other than NCT127 was right smack in the middle of that and it really stressed me and had my emotions on overdrive, so that could have a lot to with it. Oh, and Halloween Ends really was a joykill too

So far, I think Castle Blood and Crawford School of Terror are tied for #1.