I have very little to complain about regarding this past weekend. Janna made the trek with us to the Conneaut Park haunted house on Saturday evening, but first we made a pit stop at some Italian restaurant in Meadville, which is where Janna went to college.

Meadville, not the Italian restaurant. I’d be pretty fucking pissed if I found out that Janna went to college at an Italian restaurant and hasn’t been spending the last 10 years serving me homemade gnocchi and tiramisu. That WOULD be just like her, though.

I can’t remember the name of the restaurant now, except that Janna kept talking about how amazing their wedgies are, which was funny because wedgies, you guys. Wedgies. Chooch started to feel not so hot during dinner and Henry was not being sympathetic at all because he felt that for sure Chooch was just reacting to the fact that he wasn’t getting his way, but I can’t even remember what exactly was “the way” that he wanted.  I actually wasn’t feeling so great either but I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want Henry to be all, “THAT’S IT, I’M TURNING THIS CAR AROUND” even though we were still at the table eating, because I DIDN’T WANT TO GO HOME! I WANTED TO GO TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE!

Meanwhile, Janna was getting prodded in her boob by the waitress.

Henry was being such a fucking sourpuss during dinner, but what else is new. He was actually fine once we got to GHOST LAKE OMG! I’m surprised he even took us there at all since it’s more than an hour away and Henry hates haunted houses because they “do nothing” for him. Ghost Lake turned out to be one of the best decisions ever. I wasn’t sure which direction it was going to go, considering Conneaut Park is in such a sad state of disrepair and barely any rides are operable. But that ended up only adding to the ambiance and allure of Ghost Lake. There were 13 different haunted houses (well, the last one was technically just a ride on the roller coaster, which I politely declined because it was raining and that wooden bastard is scary enough on a sunny day, and actually, two people got hurt on it that very night so there) scattered around the park’s property. Some of them were in legit abandoned houses, and one was inside the Hotel Conneaut which is purportedly haunted. They weren’t all on point, but each one made me laugh and scream AND THE PEOPLE THERE TOUCHED US! Not anything out of control, but they would grab our ankles and shoulders as we walked by which was creepy and I loved it. I’ll let Chooch cover the rest of the details but I just want to add that I got to push Janna like 87 times and then tried to close her into one of those stupid inflatable birthing passages. And she just continues meandering about her merry way.

I don’t know how she does it. I mean, Henry is really patient but even he loses it constantly and slips into a frown-gown.

Which brings me to Sunday night, when Henry, Chooch and I drove to Vienna, Ohio for our Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiast club leader’s home haunt. First though, we stopped down the street at Yankee Kitchen which was—and I’m going to say something that I would never say because I loved this place so much it makes me stupid—AMAZEBALLS.  Yeah, I just wrote that on  the Internet and I’m not sorry because this place really was like the freshest, manliest, hunkiest balls that God ever created, dunked into a goblet of motherfucking amazement. And then the Yankee Kitchen offered it as a blue plate special. Only things missing were Flo and Alice. The waitresses were too young and non-waitress-y! But there was an entire line of Olds at the counter and short order cooks who looked like they moved to Vienna from a place where the hills have eyes.

Henry was super irritated because Chooch and I were mocking the cook every time he’d put up an order in the window. Especially after he screamed, “FISH DINNNNNNER!” We were almost under the table in fits at that point, and Henry was doing that nose-flare, widened-eye silent warning thing that he mistakenly thinks scares us but actually only makes us lose it even harder. Get a clue, Henry.

I had a really good grilled cheese and then used the last of the toilet paper in the bathroom when I peed and didn’t tell anyone.

After the home haunt (Grimm Manor, which again, I will let Chooch write about) we drove a few miles away to Sharon, PA for Ghoul Mansion, where I got to flash our Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts membership cards at the ticket booth for a discount (we saved $12 total!) while Henry hunkered back into the shadows because he was embarrassed by how elitist I was acting.

We had a tiny bit of a wait inside the Mansion but it was OK because the line-actors were stellar. There was this girl dressed a bloody surgeon and she kept trying to lick Chooch and me. It was disgusting and awesome. I applaud her commitment to her role.

Some bloody photographer made us pose for a picture in the very first room, which I thought was just a set-up for something horrible to happen, and I was right because it turned out to be a real photo and you know I hate having my picture taken, but I thought my hair looked good so I made Henry buy a copy. Also, that coat is my grandma’s from the 1980s. I used to visit her and she would start pulling shit out of her cedar closet for me to take home. I have this really pretty lavender trench coat-type thing that everyone always asks, “OMG WHERE DID YOU GET THAT” and I literally say, “The Cedar Closet” like I know about some secret society boutique. I haven’t been able to wear it in a few years though because HENRY needs to sew new buttons on it. God Henry, you fucking suck.

Speaking of Henry, look at his molester-y side-eyes. I hate him. (No really, we’ve had 87 fights today regarding Halloween and costumes and our marital status.)

Anyway, some asshole in a Jason mask separated Chooch and me from Henry by pretending to do us a favor (there was another one of those stupid inflatable vaginas that I didn’t want to walk through so he offered a “shortcut”) but what he really does was shut Chooch and I into a pitchblack room with the instructions to “GO TO YOUR RIGHT.” Fuck you! I’m not going anywhere! So Chooch and I stood there, holding hands, ALONE IN THE DARK and I almost started to cry (OK, I cried) and I just repeatedly shrieked, “HENRY! HENRY! HENRY!” over and over, as if he doesn’t hear THAT enough. Chooch however was very still and silent.

Henry said that basically he was forced to walk through a darkened maze alone while the actors weren’t even trying to scare him, and all he could hear was my big mouth from a distance. There was some monster I couldn’t see that was apparently standing right next to us and he kept screaming, “HENRY’S DEAD! I ATE HIM!” and I can’t remember the last time I was so scared and happy all at the same time, maybe the time I realized it was just brain matter and not menstruation on my white seersuckers. Then the monster yelled, “You can have her back now, Henry! She’s annoying me” so we were finally reunited.

Ghoul Mansion I think is going to make it into my Top 3 for the season. I was actually sweating by the time we made it out.

Henry applauds himself for pissing in a portajohn, a real life Bitstrip.

Seriously, speaking of Bitstrips, I’m not sure what is what more annoying: The actual posting of the Bitstrips or the people bitching about the posting of the Bitstrips. If you have logged into Facebook even once in the last two weeks, you probably know what I’m talking about.

By the end of the night, Henry was completely done with us.

And Chooch was fucking exhausted.

Here’s a video! Henry has a two-second sound byte in this that rivals the beloved NO YOU CAN’T HAVE A SHAKE! line from the “Henry Eating Ice Cream” video of last spring. Oh, memories.

My throat hurt from screaming and my stomach ached from laughing: sure signs of a fucking good weekend.

According to the text that Henry just sent me, if Chooch had three wishes, they would be:

1. To have the Backstreet Boys sing at our house. [He recently watched “This Is the End” — JUST THE END, even Chooch can’t handle some (most) of the shit that is said/done in that movie! There’s a scene at the end where Backstreet Boys are singing in Heaven and now he’s obsessed with them, but mostly just that one song, thank god.]

2. To live in Heaven so that he can take cool Instagram pictures.

3. For Christofer Drew to be his dad.

If #1 happens, I hope I’m at work. I don’t even want to think about #2, and #3 would be awkward because it would mean Christofer would have been like 14 at the time of Chooch’s conception.

Though I do dream of being a cougar one day….

OK, I have to finish eating my apple.

Oh Henry, you shouldn’t have.

I swear, the older I get, the faster these months fly by. It is infuriating! We didn’t even go to a goddamn pumpkin patch this year (and here is where I remind myself that I actually hate pumpkin patches, but whatever)! But I did go to a fucking bushel of haunted houses, so it all evens out I guess.

(Bushel can definitely be a measurement for haunted houses.)

Anyway, here’s a bushel of photos from my phone that I would like to post here for posterity, plus some meaningless words. And I can do that if I want! Bushel bushel bushel!!

Chooch’s eyeball shadow.

• I usually talk to Henry on my cell phone while I’m walking to the trolley every day. We barely see each other during the week because of our opposing work schedules, so I basically call him 87 times a day until I get to work. He’s lucky that I abhor personal calls at work or else he’d never get a reprieve. Anyway, that’s not the point. So I was walking past the bank while I was yammering away about probably really important things (i.e. more shit I want Henry to do for me). There was an older woman in a motorized wheelchair, zooming toward me as I passed the bank, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that she stopped in front of the bank door. I turned around to see what she was doing and she was just sort of chilling in her wheelchair, facing the bank. I went back and asked her if she needed help with the door, and she said, “Oh yes, please! I didn’t want to ask you because you seemed like you were in a hurry.” The bank door opens into a foyer with another door at the end, so I had to walk inside with her in order to open the next door. I could hear Henry asking me what the fuck I was doing, because he knows how much I HATE TALKING TO STRANGERS so he probably thought I had run into an ex-boyfriend and advanced straight to the nearest alley to start an affair. As I opened the final door, the lady thanked me sweetly and mentioned again that she was sorry I had to stop for her when I was in such a hurry, and I assured her that I actually wasn’t in a hurry, and was about to joke that I just naturally walk like I’m an undercover CIA agent who’s headhunting a Nepalian jewel thief in Belfast, but then I didn’t want to talk about ambulation to someone who can’t walk because god, what an asshole I’d be. Anyway, the point to my story is that it really made me sad to think that this lady was too afraid to ask me, the only other pedestrian around at that time, for help because she didn’t want to bother me. I know I’m always “Blah blah, I hate people, go get fucked” but honestly, I could never be in “too much of a hurry” to help someone open a door, or cross the street, or chase down the hooker who stole their car keys. And fuck anyone who is. I may be a lot of lowly things, but “rude” is not one of them. Wheelchair or not, I always hold the damn door for someone. (Just not Henry or Janna. I like to force it shut on them. It’s a hobby.) Anyway, my own boyfriend of 12 years, having witnessed this via cell phone, was so astounded by me doing a good deed that his first instinct was to laugh at me.

• One day last week, Chooch stopped in front of this house and asked me to take his picture. “I wish this was one of the school picture backgrounds,” he said all wistfully. “Because this house is SO BEAUTIFUL.” I mean, it really is beautiful when your basis for comparison is the shanty we currently live in. But then I realized that this is the house that has the cinder block wall that Chooch loves to “parkour” on. So that explains that.

• Haunted House Journal excerpt from 10 years ago. I’m such a loser but I am secretly so proud of these journals. I’m also completely spazzing out because I am so behind with my haunted house chronicling. Let’s be honest here: if you’re a blogger, you know how much easier it is to type that shit out. Writing by pen is almost so archaic to me now that my hand cramps within two minutes and my hand writing looks like it matches my mental age. Totally awful, but I refuse to be defeated. Keeping a log of my October jam is way too important to let a little pen-in-hand lethargy win the war.

I know it looks like he’s smiling but he was actually VERY MAD AT THE WORLD.

• I’m having a really hard time focusing on things lately. I can barely even sit through a TV show. (Trust me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; I’d love to go back to the days when I literally NEVER WATCHED TV. I was so much better off. Now Henry is reading this and getting a hard-on at the prospect of canceling cable, haha.) This probably also explains why I can’t keep up with haunted house journaling. I probably have ADHD or something but I refuse to be medicated so what does it even matter.

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  Also, yesterday and today I think I had some sort of mild panic attack before work. It started to happen again earlier this afternoon when everyone was gathered around the cake corridor. We were celebrating our boss’s recent nuptials and I had to peace out right after the toast and retreat to my office-thing, where I rested my head on my keyboard until everyone started to make their way back to my quadrant. Either my anxiety is coming back full force or I’m way more averse to marriage/other people’s happiness than ever, thanks Henry. I’m telling you this because you’re my doctor, right?

• I love it when this guy rides the trolley because although he has Beats by Dre headphones, he inexplicably uses a real life CASSETTE WALKMAN, you guys!
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  I can’t even explain the sweet, sexual nostalgia that’s dumped upon my head like a bucket of gland juice perspired during the filming of a Jodeci music video. And when he would eject the tape, flip it over, and then smash down the “Play” button with the fingertip force? SWOON, MOTHERFUCKER, SWOON. It made me want to eBay a yellow Aiwa Walkman, just like the kind I had in high school.

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  Bitch, you best believe I still have the mixtapes for it. I’m not sure what the man was listening to at the time I stole his soul with my iPhone lens, but I can promise you that he was rocking the FUCK out to Queen a few weeks ago. It was goddamn adorable.

• Speaking of cassettes, my buddy Alex asked me to make a Halloween mixtape for his Mixtape Monday blog thingie that he does. He posted it yesterday and I’m really excited about it because bone-chilling music rules. You should go check it out, OK?!!? I will now end this jumbled post with a video for one of my mixtape songs because I know you are going to be all like, “I will click that link, just not right now” and then tomorrow you’ll kind of think about it while shaving your mom’s back but then you’ll be “in too much of a hurry” just like one of those jerks who can’t even stop and open a fucking door for a crippled person!! And then by the next day, YOU’LL HAVE COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN THAT YOU PROMISED ME YOU WOULD CHECK IT OUT and why do I suddenly feel like this post is exorsizing all of my bottled-up feelings!?

I have reallllllly been slacking with my Glenn-making. (If you’re new to this wasteland, you can learn about Glenns here.) I can’t even remember if I ever mentioned on here that I started making a wall of RIP Glenns, but I did. Last May or something, I think. Basically, when someone famous dies, they are reborn as a Glenn. Here are the ones I have done so far, and there a ton that I missed, I’m sure. But I was in a Glenn-funk for awhile, I guess.

One Glenn to represent my precious Gerber daisies that bit it last summer.

“It’s all fun and games until you’re putting me up there,” Glenn mumbled as I taped Lou and Edna Krabappel to the wall of death. That was a pretty sobering moment. But then we had champagne to celebrate our boss’s recent nuptials so I’m all evened out now.

Isn’t this how you dress for a 5K?

I joined The Law Firm’s team again this year for the annual Heart Walk 5K, which raises awareness and money for the American Heart Association. I don’t know anyone personally who has been affected by heart disease, but it scares me and I enjoy walking so I have signed up for the last two years. It’s not like I ever have anything better to do that early on a Saturday morning so why not?

I did not bring Henry, though. We’re lucky he even rolled to a stop long enough to allow us to safely exit the car before he sped off to a land where he didn’t have to be someone’s BITCH for a whole two and a half hours. This left Chooch and I standing alone on a street corner, no weapons, no (moral) compass, NO MONEY. It was really scary, but Chooch was like, “We can do this” so we held hands and walked to Heinz Field where we immediately became lost and couldn’t find anyone from our team and strangers kept talking to us.

This year, Sandy signed up and brought Elena, which was good because Chooch was JUST complaining the other day about how he isn’t hugged enough by little girls, so problem solved. And thank god he spotted them so then our group of Lost People expanded to four. We kind of just stood around, looking confused, until Monica and Chris rolled up, casually biting into apples like it’s the sole purpose we were given teeth. God, how arrogant. Maybe I’m just bitter because I can’t nosh on apples like your everyday Farmer Jenkins. My apples need to be sliced by an apple-corer and sometimes need to be even more cut after that. So I disgustedly watched them snack on their produce like regular pioneers (god, why don’t you just wear a bonnet, too!!!) while cursing my mom for not teaching me how to eat a fucking apple. I AM TOO OLD TO LEARN NOW.

But anyway—SAFETY IN NUMBERS! I already felt better, and even embarked on a mission to pee all by myself! And I didn’t get lost! I asked Chooch if he wanted to go with me or stay with everyone else, and he chose to stay with everyone else because he’s not new to this game–he knew he’d be safer with them than me.

He likes to pretend like she drives him nuts, but we all know Chooch is a big softie underneath that Bring Me the Horizon t-shirt.

While waiting to have our Law Firm Group Picture taken, the most awkward interaction Chooch and I have ever had with a mascot (or furry, for that matter) happened when Steely McBeam (“Fuck the Steelers!” is what I wanted to shout to get him to piss off) completely infiltrated our personal space and REPEATEDLY TOUCHED US. He kept trying to grab Chooch’s lollipop out of his mouth and then he was unwrapping and rewrapping my scarf and even fluffed my hair at one point. I was stunned, paralyzed, speechless. I mean, if you’re going to violate me, at least give me a plate of apple slices afterward.

He finally walked away with his head down and Monica commented on the awkwardness of the scene so I’m glad it wasn’t just me being a social reject again.

The best part about this photo is that Chooch didn’t even ask to have his picture taken, but some lady was all, “HEY KID, GET IN THIS PICTURE WITH ME & STEELY MCBEAM. IT’LL BE AWESOME, A YINZER MEMORY TO LAST A LIFETIME.” Even CHOOCH is like, “This mascot is fucking stupid.”

Then another of our co-workers, Elaina, arrived with her mom and dog, and Chooch lost interest in everyone and everything else after that because OMG DOG! MOMMY WON’T LET ME HAVE A DOG.

Right before the walk started, Sandy gave Chooch a banana who then remembered he only likes bananas on Tuesdays with a full moon, so he gave it to me and I happily ate a piece of fruit that can’t defeat me.

And then we walked the 5K which took FOREVER because it’s basically just a stroll and I’m not really good at walking that slow, plus I had to keep stopping to fetch my child who would wander off to throw sticks and empty cans of Skoal into the river. And then he picked up a piece of Caution tape and gave it to Elena, who immediately attempted to tie it around her waist like a gritty haute couture sash. She’s very fashion-forward. Probably somewhere around the one mile mark, Chooch started complaining about phantom stomach pains and began finding all the different ways we could cheat and not have to walk as far. Nice try, too bad you’re saddled with a mom who loves to walk (yet has an ironic collection of wheelchairs).

Chooch is going through this adorable phase where he wants everyone to know that his father is an alcoholic because sometimes he might drink THREE BEERS on a Saturday night AT HOME. So naturally, whenever I would be asked whey Henry wasn’t at the Heart Walk, Chooch would butt in and casually say, “He’s drunk.” Of course, this is hilarious to me and not-at-all-hilarious to Henry who is so afraid that someone is going to think it’s true and then he’s going to get taken away to the slammer in the back of a 1920’s police car. Mostly I think “alarmed” reactions were only garnered was because Henry had the balls to leave Chooch and me alone on the North Shore.

(That night, we were at Ghost Lake in Conneaut and Chooch was reading the rules that were posted outside one of the attractions. “No pushing. No smoking. No ALCOHOL, DADDY!” It was fantastic.)

“Mommy, look!” Chooch yelled, flipping me the bird with his gloved hand. I started to Be A Parent, but he quickly cut me off and said, “No, it’s OK! My finger’s not actually in there!” He held up his hand again with all of his fingers folded down and the black-knit middle finger-pocket was indeed empty, albeit standing erect. So then I had to explain in hushed tones that this still was inappropriate because we were in public and it would only be OK if it were directed toward his alcoholic father.

Monica and Chris told Chooch that he should come visit them and see their cat, but I’m not stupid. I know they just want to rub their 2013 County Fair’s Most Elegant Apple Eaters blue ribbons in my face. Jerks.

And then the walk was over and everyone left except for me and Chooch, who had to stay for unlimited minutes and wait for Henry’s Gitney Service to come back for us. Chooch busied himself by playing on every single bouncy-attraction and asking strangers where they got their balloons. Then he went up to some nutrition tent and spun a wheel which landed on “Breads and Grains” so he had to tell the lady something in that food group in order to win a prize.

“Um……” Chooch started, seconds ticking away loudly into the ether. A small group was forming. Answer the fucking question. STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT, PEOPLE WILL THINK I ONLY FEED YOU TOOTSIE ROLLS , CAT FUR AND CHEETOS CRUMBS! JUST SAY A BAGEL, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! “Um, bread?” Chooch shrugged. The lady begrudgingly handed him a UPMC pencil and a large stick of sidewalk chalk even though she was clearly disappointed in his answer.

Well, technically “bread” is in that food group, so stop frowning at my failure to teach my child about nutrition! And this was still better than last year when he completely shit the bed and said, “I don’t know, what is food?” for his final answer.

Finally, we managed to cross the street without dying and Henry swooped in with his Dad-chariot and we immediately started crying to him about how hungry we were.

So, hooray for raising money and awareness for heart disease! However, the real success story here is that we walked a 5K without Henry holding our hands and no one stepped in hobo shit or fell into the river!

Scaremare

It was at an old bank full of Gangsters.  We had to crawl twice. One time we had to crawl    like for 2 minutes. I saw a real snake and Mother didn’t see it. At the end the tour guide said ”this is the time you go in one by one” Daddy had to go first he said “F*** IT I’ll go in alone :(“. at the beginning this Old man in the 1920’s like daddy’s age screaming about the Children behind bars. And we had to sing HAHA EAGOR YOU CANT GET US NANANANA then he broke through the bars like THIS: IIII:)IIII.    This lady in front of us THAT DADDY LIKED THAT TOLD US TO hide her from the ring around the rosey  grandma that told me I stole her cat so she told me to check mommy’s weird purse so I pushed it. I loved the haunted house

THE END

Sewickley Methodist Haunted Church:

Janna wouldn’t go with us. because she got a new kitten named Ted Nugent it was to dumb to leave it alone. At the beginning there was this fake spider from the HALLOWEEN STORE.  This guy in a red mask said what’s your name I said Riley mommy said Erin and Henry said Henry The guy in the red mask said Erin more like Smelvin  witch doesn’t even make sense BUT IT WAS FUNNNNNNNNNNYYYYYY  BECAUSE I WOULDN’T STOP CALLING HER THAT!!! I got to spin the wheel and it landed on door one of death I’d rather go in door two of terror. The guy that was dressed like a girl was from a TV show called Wheel of Fortune named Vanna White. I never even watched Wheel of Fortune. The janitor which wasn’t really the janitor hung himself on a rope and had really big teeth. I loved the haunted church this year!! last year um I forgot what happened last year. i’ll just say it was good. maybe next time Janna wont be an idiot and will leave her kitten TED NUGENT that’ll teach you a lesson JANNA! LEAVE YOUR CAT IT CANT OPEN WINDOWS OR GRAB THE NOB OF THE DOOR!!!

Cheeseman Fright Farm:

In line I had to go to the bathroom. I went in the boys bathroom but there was this like 10 year old and he was POOPING in the stall and the urinal was too high so I couldn’t use it so I had to use the girls bathroom no one was in there. it was awkward.

Michael Myers was chasing everybody in line. the people in front of us were like ‘oh well crap Michael Myers is in line’

the hayride part well I kept saying hi to all the monsters they said hi back. The chainsaw guys kept putting their chainsaws in the hay right by laura she was so scared ha-ha. Anyway look at her face in the picture. Jason was in a tractor and it came out of nowhere from the hay shooting fire out from the pipes. It made me feel hot. well it did! The fire went right in my face. The haunted house part we got out of the hay tractor I guess that is what you would call it, and we were going in through a hay tunnel I realized I was in front and I was like “no no no” so I turned around and squeezed past laura to be in the middle.  Mommy was scared because I popped out of nowhere and she screamed AAAHHHH.

There was this guy holding a fake snake  but there was a real snake behind him in a tank. He was like “like my cat? wanna pet it?” I was like “oh it’s a cute cat I wanna pet it!” He was like “OK go head!” This girl from a graveyard screamed in my face, popped out of nowhere like a butterfly and I was like “well I can scream louder!” and I screamed, so.

I liked it. I had fun. And that’s when I liked chainsaw guys. Please don’t make me write about the picture with Michael Myers.

Primanti’s. Dozen. Pamela’s. The Dor-Stop. OK WE GET IT, FOOD NETWORK! You have a hard-on for popular Pittsburgh establishments.  The placesI love in Pittsburgh never make any “best of” lists, and they’re not even all crack dens, I swear. Maybe it’s because I tend to shy away from trendy hipster-meccas and any place that Guy Fieri might have grazed his L.A. Looks gel-coated hands. But you know what, Pittsburgh? I have been squatting in your legendary steel-producing town for 33 years and it’s about time some of my favorite local joints get a little lovin’.

OK, let’s start with something that’s not even in Pittsburgh, because that makes sense.

Best Place to Get Indian Food On Those Days You Feel Like Driving For 90 Minutes

You know how sometimes you say out loud to your cat, “I really want some curry but I want to drive a substantial distance for it rather than have it now, right now”?

Then Govinda’s Restaurant in New Vrindaban, West Virginia is your jam!

And now I’m going to tell you why:

IT IS THE CAFETERIA INSIDE A HARE KRISHNA COMPOUND, YOU GUYS! About a 90-minute drive from Pittsburgh, New Vrindaban is situated smack dab in the dueling banjo hills of West Virginia. Tobe Hooper definitely joy-rides around those serpentine country lanes for horror script inspirations.

Before you eat the food that is served to you by a Hare Krishna man with a head tattoo, make sure you take a monk-guided tour of the nearby Palace of Gold, built by the Hare Krishnas some decades ago for their leader-person and currently in a state of disrepair which adds to the whole “This might be my final destination, did I kiss my cat goodbye?” vibe. Honestly, I thought I was going to be taken the day I was there.

I guess that the Palace of Gold is renown for their rose gardens, too. So maybe take a stroll through that as well.

The cafeteria is down the street (you can walk there, unless you can’t walk) in the actual Krishna compound, which makes it even scarier. They serve Indian food, which is comparable to ordinary Indian food. So I guess if you’re looking for HOLY SHIT I JUST CAME Indian food, maybe you should ask Urban Spoon for some advice. But if you’re looking for an EXPERIENCE, go to Govinda’s where you will be stared at by all of the robe-wearing Hare Krishnas and gigantic dancing acolyte statues.

Also, I don’t know if this will help sway you, but people were MURDERED there. (Not in the cafeteria, I don’t think.)

Don’t forget to buy some weird fabric things and a How To Be a Swami For Dummies book in the trailer-cum-gift shop.

Best Place to Eat If You Like Eating Where Someone Was Murdered But Have Already Been to Govinda’s

While I can’t find any Internet evidence to back this up, I was always under the impression that the location of the Johnny Gammage murder-slash-one of the most controversial cases of American police brutality was in the parking lot of Frank & Shirley’s diner on Rt. 51 in Overbrook.

Even if that’s not the case, you should still go there if you like really good French fries and are either a child smoker (as in a child who smokes, not a person who smokes children) or someone with a propensity for yanking on knobs, because Frank & Shirley’s has really good French fries and a cigarette machine.

You can tell them I sent you because they don’t know who I am.

Best Place to Look at Large Boxes That Play Music

Friends, next time you’re entertaining an illegal alien who doesn’t care about buying Steelers memorabilia or going to a Steelers game or petting your collection of Palomalu locks, take them to the Bayernhof Music Museum in Sharpsburg. It is some dead guy’s mansion glutted with a collection of obnoxious music-makers and curated by a man who wears suspenders (although one time I went and he verbally and physically communicated his irritation with himself for forgetting his suspenders by groaning and tugging on his waistband during every pause of Big Band classics). The décor is 1970s Bavarian kitsch, which may or may not make a huge comeback if I ever buy a house. White carpet, sunken living rooms, HIDDEN PASSAGES. You guys, come on — who doesn’t want to take a tour of some dead rich playboy’s house (where you just KNOW a ton of amateur porn was filmed back in the day) and ogle the sights (and smells) of 1970s opulence? (I mean, other than my friend Andrea from California, who still has waking nightmares of the 2.5 hours she spent there when she visited me last year. I guess she’s a German music box racist. I left a framed picture of her in the canning room during my last visit. Yes, there’s a canning room. Yes, I love tacky things enough to take two tours of the place in one year.)

Hey, speaking of the tour, it’s $10 for 2+ hours of enough Hummel figurines to last you a lifetime, but you’ll have to call ahead for reservations.

Just don’t get too butt hurt when Tony the curator ridicules you for mistaking some honking-loud music maker in the basement (yes Pee Wee, there is a basement!) for a calliope when everyone knows it’s really a band organ. GOD! Also, please don’t tell him I sent you. I may or may not be banned from that place.

Best Place to Buy Weird Fruit?

No, this is a question. I’m asking you. I’ve been on this exotic fruit kick (NOT MANGOES OR PAPAYAS) but apparently this shit is hard to acquire here in Pittsburgh. I usually go to various Asian markets around town and sometimes they reward me with persimmons and dragonfruit, but I WANT MORE. My boyfriend keeps snapping about how THIS ISN’T GOOD FRUIT SEASON, OK but I usually stop listening as soon as I realize someone is saying something that I don’t like.

I was on a real roll there for a hot minute, even had a personal fruit purveyor in California (the German music box racist), but like all good things and “Call Me Maybe,” it petered out and now I am back to eating regular American people fruit, like stupid apples and Cuties.

So please, if you know a guy who knows a guy who was in ‘Nam with a guy who grows potentially fatal and weapon-like fruit in a spare room of a tenement in Garfield, please hook me up. I’ll turn a blind eye to the pot plants he’s got in there, I promise.

Best Cake To Put In Your Mouth*

*(But not in your asshole. There’s a cake for that but it’s on another list.)

I spent the first three decades of my life in the same culinary circle jerk as most of the South Hills because let’s be real, no one bakes a motherfuckin’ birthday cake with better panache than Bethel Bakery, the premier go-to cakery of my family. Every last one of those assholes got their birthday cakes from Bethel Bakery.

Except for me. Because Bethel Bakery went on vacation every year during the week of my birthday. EVERY YEAR!! So I always got some shitty grocery store cake. Or worse — Kribel’s. But I didn’t hold it against them. I continued the tradition of patronizing this long-standing family establishment into my adulthood, getting birthday cakes for all of my friends and cats. (To be fair, most of my friends are cats.)

Having an anniversary with your mistress? Here’s a Bethel Bakery cake for you to eat together in a seedy motel room!

Celebrating five years meat-free? Bethel Bakery’s got a three-dimensional hamburger cake to tempt your least-favorite vegan!

STD screening come back dirty? Woo! Sheet cake with frosting in the hue of Snooki’s infected kooka!

Bethel Bakery was even kind enough to make me a cemetery cake for my baby shower. (My lame boyfriend Henry refused to tell them we wanted a baby doll in the coffin when he placed the order, so I had to plunk a plastic baby on the cake myself.)

“OK great, Erin. We get it. Bethel Bakery is your favorite and you want to stick your imaginary dick in it,” says the one person who might have had the stamina, patience and poor-taste to read this far.

WRONG. That was then. Zia Custom Desserts is now.

I will never forget the moment when it all changed for me. Spring of 2010. I had just started working at The Law Firm and everyone was yapping about these macarons that our co-worker Kaitlin had made.

Macarons.

From scratch!

For no reason other than she wanted to!

I could say that Kaitlin had me at “macaron,” but then I tasted one of her cakes and suddenly Bethel Bakery was no better than a box of Duncan Hines baked in a hobo boot. Kaitlin has a way of dumping a bunch of fine ass ingredients into a bowl and knowing how to mix it with the necessary panache to prevent it from baking up into a crusty blob of shit-dough like what always happens when I put shit into the oven.

(Maybe I should stop putting shit into the oven.)

My theory is that Kaitlin uses a combination of French swears and vintage Nintendo cheat-codes when she’s plunging the paddle into the bowl. Casse-toi! Up down up down left right left right b a!

Kaitlin’s sugarplum repertoire is vast – she can do anything from the aforementioned macarons to cake pops, themed cookies to tiny desserts in cups. She even sets up entire dessert tables for functions, so if you’re having a shower or celebrating your mother’s prison release, she’s got you covered. Sometimes I consider telling her I’m throwing a random party for my friends just so I can eat everything myself.

Because my cats don’t like cakes.

Kaitlin even made me an almond-raspberry Robert Smith birthday cake two years ago, so suck on that one, Bethel Bakery.

You can find Kaitlin’s sugar-spun mastery on Facebook: Zia Custom Desserts. Like her page and tell her “Some annoying broad who loves Jonny Craig and swear words sent me here.” And then ask her if she can make lavender macarons. She’ll know.

As usual, we’re at a crossroads with Chooch’s Halloween costume. He changes his mind constantly and then seemed set on something that would be so easy (and free) to pull off, so we thought we were all set, but then I had to go and be a dummy and accidentally thought of something better so now Henry’s Sunday is going to be super busy. As a child who was forced into boxes (literally) every year for Halloween, I vowed to not be That Mom with my own kid, but Chooch just might end up in a box after all. Unless we can use fabric instead.

Or unless Chooch changes his mind again.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to revisit all of his past costumes, like the ones from when he didn’t have his own ideas yet and we could just buy something from the Halloween store.

HOW FUCKING QUAINT.

———————

2006: Ice Cream Cone. God, those were the days. (Here’s a reprisal of that costume. At least I got my money’s worth.)

2007: Hobo? I guess this was a hobo. This costume cost nothing except for the black makeup stick we bought at the Halloween store.

2008: Frankenstein. Why am I having a hard time remembering this costume? (I do remember that the makeup job sucks because I was still at work when trick-or-treating was starting so dum-dum Henry had to apply it.

Good job, Henry.)

2009: Jason Voorhees. He was OBSESSED with Jason when he was 4.

This was also back in the days when I knew how to use my camera even less than I do now, if you can imagine.

2010: Psycho Clown! I think this was my favorite costume. This was another one that cost nothing because I already had that shit on hand from a photo shoot I made Christina do.

2011: Zombie Justin Bieber. This one kind of flopped, as evidenced by the ZERO people who could tell what he was supposed to be, haha.

Also that year, we went to a Halloween party so Chooch and I dressed up in our PJs and went as a Zombie Sleepover.

And he was a Zombie Dweeb at the Zombie Carnival at Monroeville Mall.

2012: Daryl from the Walking Dead. If you ever need to dress up as someone that no one will ever guess, come to me for ideas. I’m apparently chockful of ’em. (Seriously, that year’s Halloween really stressed me the fuck out.)

So, there you have it. The evolution of Chooch. I’ll leave you with a photo of him looking evil on just a regular day. Have a good weekend, boyyyy!

It was snowing this morning when I walked Chooch to school. He was all, “Yay snow!” and immediately stuck out his tongue to catch snowflakes while I was more like, “WTF it’s only October!

” while wishing I knew German so I could really vocalize my anger.

I’m doing a Heart Walk 5k thingie in the morning and I would really like to not have to don thermal underwear and an Anorak, so please come back, autumn.

The Law Firm is doing this Global Days of Service thingie where we can sign up to do volunteer work one day next month. I didn’t think anything of it when I replied to the email a few weeks ago and said, “YES COUNT ME IN” because I have to fill my suck-up quota somehow.

But then today I came to work and found out that I had to go up to the scary 28th floor and register for a charity and time-slot. I immediately started begging people to go up there with me because GOD FORBID, you guys. Just, god forbid. Luckily, my buddy Natalie offered to accompany me even though she had already gone up earlier in the day to register. This is why working a weird mid-day shift often sucks.

Anyway, once I had a substantial, internal freak-out session over what charity to pick (I settled for the Food Bank), I happily loaded two October-flavored cookies onto a plate and Natalie escorted me safely back to our department. Crisis averted!

So, I texted Henry and of course took the altruistic route by BRAGGING THAT I WAS GOING TO BE A DO-GOODER for a whopping two hours out of my lifetime.

“Oh, boy I hope someone takes pictures of that,” Henry texted back. “I hope it’s manual labor, lol.”

What a dick! So I cried to Barb and Debby S. about it which is something that I do very rarely so they took it seriously.

“Maybe Henry should not spend so much time making fun of you and instead volunteer himself!” Barb said, so I of course relayed this message to Henry because ha-ha-ha Barb’s sticking up for me!

“Tell Barb that I have spent the last 12 years of my life volunteering for a charity,” Henry texted.

Oh OK, good one Henry. (No, really, that was a pretty accurate response.)

Anyway, other than picking up hitchhikers and being friends with Janna, I’ve never done any real charity stuff before, so this should be really interesting. I hope I don’t have to talk to people. Or wear a hair net. Barb and Debbie have me really concerned about hair nets now.

Hold up, wait up a minute. It’s more than halfway through October and I haven’t already posted 87 times about haunted houses? Shit son, let me stuff the word cannon.

This Halloween season, I have been pretty nostalgic about the “old days.” Way back in the age of flowing flannels and Contempo Casuals (where I would buy all of my slutty “I’m a slut who has money” slut uniforms), it was possible to go to two, sometimes even THREE haunted houses in one night for under $20. True story! It seemed like every last VFW, YMCA and Boy Scout Troop had hoarded enough black garbage bags over the course of a year and used their dues to stock up on slipshod Halloween masks from K-Mart to pull off a “haunted house.” And it may have been hokey and rudimentary, full of blacklit Jason Voorhees masks and “accidental” boob-brushes, but fuck if it wasn’t fun.

In high school, I would scour the newspaper for haunted house ads and then my friend Lisa and I would stuff her parents minivan with our ragamuffin group of friends and proceeded to exercise our god-given vocal prowess. We were Those Kids that everyone else hated standing in line with. And I was That Girl who flirted obnoxiously with Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, hoping to make my crush Evan jealous. (HE NEVER EVEN NOTICED.) There was the Bethel Park Haunted Yard, Clairton’s Haunted Pool, the Glassport Haunted Fire Station, and then all of the Haunted Schools: Castle Shannon, Victory, the Tri-City Jaycees one that I lost my keys in and then it burnt down (no correlation to my keys). Before there was Hundred Acres Manor, there was Phantoms in the Park and Terrors By the Lake. Before Kennywood had their Fright Nights, Station Square transformed into Station Scare and offered carnival rides just in case all of the fog machines, hyper-jealous boyfriends and diet pills* didn’t get you nauseated enough.

*(What? My weight issues go waaaay back.)

But then the behemoth, corporate haunted houses started popping up and taking over. The ones that pay to have haunted house listings and the Travel Channel call them the #1 Haunted Attraction. The ones that make you wait in line for upwards of 3 hours because OMG WE ARE THE BEST IN THE BIZ SO STAND AND WAIT, JAGOFFS. They pour loads of money into their advertising, production and animatronics, but they lack the true Halloween spirit and moxie that the smaller haunted joints have. Money can’t buy moxie, you guys. I’d rather walk through a haunted trail lit by flaming jugs of moonshine in some hick’s backyard than give those corporate bastards my money, if we’re being totally frank here.

People are usually shocked when I start waxing contrary about the city’s most popular haunted attractions, so I have compiled a list to offer some insight into what makes a “good” haunted house.

Here is the official Oh Honestly Erin Haunted House Criteria:

1. Will There Be Chainsaws?

It doesn’t matter how many times Henry exasperatedly assures me that there are no chains on the chainsaws, the moment I hear that whirring, no matter how far away it is, I am suddenly in booty shorts at Camp Crystal Lake and Jason Voorhees is mad as fuck because I just had sex on a hammock, and where the hell did this adrenaline come from? I don’t know, but look! I can scale the backs of the people in front of me!

Even when I’m standing in line chanting, “I hope there are no chainsaws. I hope there are no chainsaws” the truth is that there better be at least one fucking chainsaw guy who takes his position really fucking seriously because I just gave you $15 to scare the shit out of me, so please, do just that. Henry does my laundry, so what do I care.

*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Chainsaw Guy at Cheeseman Fright Farm. It was really cold that night on that bale of hay, and your persistent wielding provided warmth to my shivering extremities. Also, you didn’t give up even when I used my 7-year-old son as a shield. Good for you, Ambitious Non-Hockey Mask-Wearing Chainsaw Guy. You were way better than the apathetic Voorhees-wannabe at Freddy’s Haunts who whir-whir-whirred for approximately 10 seconds before walking away.

2. Will There Be the Possibility of Simulated Horror Porn by Michael Myers?

So, maybe it’s just me, but when I’m singled out in a crowd by some dude who looks like his face got violently bear-hugged by bologna slices and green olives, maybe even corners me and snorts and snarls in my ear, I am REALLY FUCKING EXCITED to be there at that haunted attraction. Especially if it’s a particularly sexy-savage Michael Myers. And for those 30 seconds you’re towering over me with your fake machete and vacant eyes, I promise to pretend that you’re not actually some pizza-faced 17-year-old band nerd. NO, YOU ARE A FUCKING HOT PSYCHOPATH WHOSE EVERY PRIMAL INSTINCT IS TELLING YOU TO KILL ME, BUT WAIT! WHAT’S THAT!? YOU ARE FALLING IN LOVE WITH THIS CHUBBY MOM-BROAD WHO IS SCREAMING HER FACE OFF!

And then I’ll go home and write about it in my haunted house journal and it goes something like this: Holy fuck, I am so hot for Michael Myers! I bet he doesn’t pay that much attention to anyone else in that wing of the haunted maze! When we made eye contact, I think he winked at me but it was hard to see over the strobe lights. AND SPEAKING OF HARD! I’m not sure if that was Michael’s tumescent cock-machete or the Pizza-Faced-Kid-Dressed-As-Him’s satchel of dork dice, but I’m totally probably maybe pregnant now, you guys, right?

Just to really illustrate my alarming Michael Myers crush, my kid wouldn’t exist today if I hadn’t thought his dumb dad looked like Michael Myers when he would wear his stupid blue Weiss Meats coveralls back when we were co-workers in 2001. THAT IS WHAT MADE ME WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM, OK?

Anyway…

*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Rich’s Fright Farm Michael Myers. You smashed your fist into the wall in front of me every time I tried to escape and at one point BROUGHT ME TO MY KNEES while Janna stood off to the side, staring at her imaginary watch. I could feel your hot murderous breath on my neck and it was, well, fucking hot. Now your demon seed is sprouting inside my womb. Womb, womb, womb.

3. Will Someone Please Entertain the Fuck Out of Me?

Hi. I just dropped the cost of a concert ticket* down on your haunted establishment, so please prove to me that I didn’t make a mistake. *(What? I like underground bands, you guys.) If you’re charging me approx. $18 for 30 minutes, then I better come out the other end feeling like I just came. I mean, feeling entertained. Ridicule my blondness with your biting wit! Tickle my eyeballs with your macabre decor! Make me follow directions! Engage me! (No really—do you want to get engaged? Because Henry apparently doesn’t.) Pay attention to me, to me, to me!

*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Castle Blood, duh. You still never fail to call me out for being a dum-dum. (Remembering three talisman is trying. IT’S HARD FOR ME TO PAY ATTENTION, OK!?) You still make me believe I’m going to be poisoned in Professor Scrye’s lab and turned into mortal mana pua by some convincingly realistic witch. (I don’t know why I picked a Hawaiian food that I have never eaten.)

But let me tell you something about this sanguine estate—if you came looking for chainsaws and robotic corpses hemorrhaging on toilets, queue the Sad Tuba soundbite. This is half past Saw, more toward Nosferatu. Castle Blood’s tagline is “Halloween the way it oughta be” and they mean it. It’s elegant and unique, it’s intelligent and interactive, it’s humble and passionate about the season. I’ve been going to Castle Blood since the late 90s and it’s still just as refreshing and inspiring as it was when I was a teenager. We’ve been taking Chooch since he was a baby (first to the no-scare matinees; he’s since graduated to the nighttime tours) and he loves it because it’s magical while still maintaining a high creep-factor—-plus, sometimes Henry gets presented with a death certificate.

4. Will You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman Teenager Again?

As previously mentioned, I long for the old-school haunts of yore. The ones in vacant buildings that charge $12 and under and probably meet the safety standards of a treehouse in 1954. The ones that aren’t mentioned in the obligatory WHAT TO DO THIS OCTOBER newspaper write-up or any of the haunted house listings online. The small haunted house put together by members of a local community and advertise by tacking up flyers in Spirit Halloween stores or sticking bright orange signs in the ground next to the highway. I like giving these people my monies! They know how to crack me up while also making me pee my pants. (I had a longstanding reputation at the now-defunct Victory Haunted School, and every year, from the moment I set foot inside, the “monsters” would start chanting, “Erin’s here! Erin peed her pants!” So fucking obnoxious but I loved every second of it.

If I’m in such pitch-blackness that I need to walk with outstretched arms while simultaneously screaming to no one and everyone that I AM SO FUCKING SCARED OMG WAS THAT A BREAST I JUST TOUCHED, then this haunted house rules. If I’m told, “GET DOWN ON YOUR KNEES AND CRAWL THROUGH THE TUNNEL OF LOVE…OR DEATH!” and I literally find myself scrambling on my hands and knees over top of what I really really really hope are pieces of a CLEAN mattress and I start screaming about how I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVE TO DO THIS! I AM SO SCARED! OW I JUST HURT MYSELF! then this haunted house rules. If the volunteers are so over-the-top with their theatrical lines and fake gunfire that I am literally doing pee-squats from laughing so hard, then this haunted house rules. If I tell the guide that my name is Erin and he decides that “Smellvin” is a better name even though that would only make sense if my name was Melvin, but everyone else thinks it’s hilarious, then this haunted house rules. If some kid pops out of nowhere and freaking feeds me a mouthful of Silly String and even HENRY laughs, then this haunted house rules.

*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: Ohmygod it’s a tie! Teen Quest’s Scaremare in Mon City and the haunted basement of the Sewickley United Methodist Church. Can we please admire the irony here, that two of this heathen’s favorite haunted houses are Christian-based? IDGAF, these two haunts made me laugh until I almost peed. (ALMOST, I swear!) It was like being in high school again, faced with the threat of falling down a staircase and inhaling asbestos. And the volunteers at these two places had way more enthusiasm than any of the ones anywhere else, especially Terror Town, who apparently pays their actors and that is just ridiculous because for the last two years, their “employees” were relatively ineffective and I’m officially done giving them Henry’s hard-earned Faygo money. Especially after seeing one of those “actors” on Facebook turn her nose up at people who, god forbid, volunteer their time to play zombies. The people at Scaremare and the church in Sewickley had HEART. The church even had a babydoll displayed in a very horrific, decidedly un-Christian way! I applaud them for that, for being able to recognize that it’s OK to be outrageous and controversial in the name of Halloween, and for being so balls-to-the-wall. I actually wish I had the time to revisit both of these places this month. Even if it’s just essentially dropping money into a collection plate. I’m OK with that.

5. Do You Have a Worthy Haunted House Companion?

Chances are, during this season you are going to sometimes be driving great distances and are probably going to get lost at least twice (are you going to a hayride on some jackass’s farm? Yeah, good luck trusting your GPS with that), so you better make sure you don’t bring some douchebag along with you who is going to drive you so insane that you need to buy your first pack of Camel Wides in 7 years at some sketchy gas station in the middle of downtown Sharon, PA. (True story.) And then once you’ve arrived at the haunt, you might be standing in line for an hour at least. DON’T BRING A DUD OR YOU ARE FU-HAHAHAHA-UCKED. I was lucky this year and have gone to haunted houses with quality peeps (and Henry), but I have been pretty unfortunate in the past. Your company can make or break the haunted house experience, especially if you are so fucking over-the-top annoyed at who’s ripping your shirt in faux-fear that you forget about the actual haunted house itself. Did you like it? WHO EVEN FUCKING KNOWS?!

*THIS SEASON’S UNOFFICIAL WINNER*: And the award goes to my good friend Janna. No one handles being pushed and shoved into chainsaw guys with quite the panache as she, nor can anyone tolerate my extreme giddiness with such a steely veil of patience. Except Henry, but he hates going to haunted houses. I like to believe that every time I scream, and I mean SCREAM, “JANNNNNNAAAA LOOOOOOK OUTTTTT!” that I’m actually saving her life for real. And she just kind of chuckles a little at first, but by the end of the night, I sometimes detect some eye-rolling and sighing.

________________________

Those are my unofficial winners because I still have at least four more haunts to attend before Christmas starts shitting all over my fun. And remember, all of this is subjective. The things that I look for in a haunted house might not be the same things that make you scream like Laurie Strode or make popular local radio DJs jack off into each others’ cupped hands. If your haunt isn’t going to be gonzo enough to scare the FUCK out of me, at least entertain me. Make me laugh, make me push Janna into a chainsaw guy, have a hot Michael Myers, make me have some F-U-N if I’m giving you twenty goddamn dollars out of Poor Henry’s wallet.

(And let me just tell you, now that Chooch is brave enough to go to every haunted house with me, October is officially waaaaay more costly than December.)

Some extra tips:

• Look for coupons! Sometimes haunted houses will offer them on their website. Hundred Acres Manor usually offers $3 off coupons at Eat n Park or Burger King. (They’re only good on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, I believe.) And you know, check Groupon and Living Social or have a boss that forwards every single haunted house deal to you like I do. Maybe stop in your local corner pub and gather up enough barflies to qualify for a group rate. Just trying to save you some bucks, OK?
• Go on off-nights! If a haunted house is open on a Sunday or Wednesday night—GO THEN! You will beat the crowds and probably have a better victim:monster ratio. Have you ever gone through a haunted house with just the one person you arrived with? SCARY AS FUCK. Real talk.
• Try to remember that no haunt is perfect and “bad nights” can be expected. Maybe I went to Cheeseman’s Fright Farm last weekend and had a blast, but you went earlier in the month on a night where they happened to have a lot of volunteer no-shows. Shit happens, ya’ll, and most of it is behind the scenes. This is why I try not to do too much bashing. (And believe me, I’ve been to a few duds this year.)
• If you go to a haunted trail after it’s been raining all day, you’re PROBABLY GOING TO GET MUDDY. Don’t be that dickhead who complains about it. Maybe you should have stayed home and watched a Duck Dynasty marathon instead.
• Bitching about standing in line isn’t going to make the line move any faster and pro tip: NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STUPID YINZER MONOLOGUE ABOUT IT, EITHER.
• Pretend that you are actually running for your life. BECAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW.

Chooch and I hid from Henry on Friday because that is what bored children do. Here is a video, but be warned: I’m too lazy to edit so there is a good 1:30 of absolutely nothing happening. YOU’RE WELCOME!

Chooch and I had a full-blown singalong to this song yesterday and it was so good to just not care about anything for a few minutes. Also, Chooch is already way better at singing than me. I am miserably tone-deaf.

Chooch and me during a Saturday session of the STFU Henry club.

In other news, I go back to work tomorrow. :( But I’m happy that I got to squeeze in a sibling hang-out, lunch with my oldest friend Christy (she loves when I describe her that way), hockey games from start to finish, and a ton of haunted houses during my time off.

Chooch and his oldest god mother, Christy. They shared chocolate “mouse” together at Armstrong’s.

And today, Henry is finally back in DIY-action! He’s working on this desk-thingie for the living room. Right now it’s painted gold (duh) and he’s chevron’ing the doors. Earlier, he was researching online for chevron patterns and I said, “Wow, that looks like a hassle.”

“What do you care? You’re not the one who has to do it,” Henry cried like a bitch.

He is REALLY miserable when it comes to home improvement. Especially when glitter is involved.

Chevron’ing, motherfuckers.

We had to go to dreaded Home Depot this afternoon to get more paint, ugh ugh ugh, and some man smiled at me. This prompted Chooch to exclaim that I’d have a better chance at marrying that guy than Henry, and he’s probably not wrong. Chooch’s favorite punch lines are those that involve my perpetual ring-less ring finger, so if I ever did get married, he would probably never tell another joke again. A few weeks ago, he even said to me, “You should just check in with your ex-boyfriends, because I have a feeling Daddy is never going to marry you.” And it’s awesome when he says this shit all somberly and then EXPLODES in laughter. The neener-neener type, which is THE WORST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Unless it’s me who’s actually laughing. Then it’s the BEST KIND OF LAUGHTER.

Chooch’s self-portrait that he made in art. It was hanging up during last week’s Open House and we almost couldn’t find it because it was the only one that didn’t look like a person.

I’ll return tomorrow with a bunch of words about my favorite haunted houses, since we’re about halfway through the season here. But I’ll warn you, I’m pretty passionate and opinionated on this topic! (I know, what else is new.)

Earlier this evening, we went to Chooch’s school for a parent/teacher conference. All kinds of action was blowing up in there today, like a book fair and a bake sale. (OK, so two kinds of action.) Those PTO* people are really fucking smart though, because at the same table as the brownies and cupcakes and banana bread and cookies OMG fuck off Weight Watchers, they have sign-up sheets for various volunteering “opportunities” at the school. Look, I wasn’t born yesterday. I know they want me to get all sugar-stupid so they can sucker a signature out of me, but I showed them—we got our baked goods in a to-go bag.

*(When did it change from PTA?!)

But I started thinking about how inactive I am in the whole grade school experience. Like, maybe I should offer to make some signs or something? I’m pretty good with poster board and glitter so the next time they want to visually announce the fact that the principal was accused of assaulting a minor at a gym, I could be their girl. But anytime I start having stupid thoughts like that, I just remember back to when Chooch was going to That Terrible School of Yesteryear and how stressed out and crazy his Kindergarten Halloween party made me. And how quickly I’m reminded that I CANNOT WORK WITH OTHER MOTHERS. Especially ones that plan the entire thing behind my back and leave me with all of the loose ends to tie using my special “rabbit ears” method.

Deep down, I really like maybe I would have a better experience with volunteering at his current school, because everyone I’ve encountered has been so nice, but that other school really ruined me.

Just to really drive it home, I pulled up this old blog post about the time Henry and I waited until 10:30PM to bake stupid cupcakes for the stupid Halloween party that year, and I feel very confident in my decision to withhold my name from every and all sign-up sheets from now until Chooch is wearing a cap and gown.

“Hey Chooch, remember these cupcakes?” I asked, holding up my phone for him to see.

“Um…nope,” he said with a shrug.

ALL THAT FUCKING HARD WORK AND MY GODDAMN KID DOESN’T EVEN REMEMBER THE CUPCAKES THAT I WAS SO SURE HAD TO HAPPEN IN ORDER FOR MY FUCKING CLASSROOM SNACK CONTRIBUTION TO BE LEGENDARY. I’m so glad I wasted some of my best death threats on Henry that night FOR NOTHING.

Anyway, here is the legend of the cupcakes that broke Henry and me up 87 times one fateful night in 2010. I love/hate October so much.
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I had given Henry explicit instructions on what to get for the cupcakes while I was at work Thursday night. The plan was that he was going to bake them and then I would attempt to not look like an honorary member of The Dream Team while recreating what I saw in the last issue of Better Homes & Gardens (which somehow is delivered with my name on it, but Henry is always quick to whisk it from the mail slot before I throw it away).

When I came home from work, it was after 9pm and I quickly saw that Henry had not yet made the cupcakes.

“I’ll get to it,” he kept muttering.

I distracted myself by stuffing the treat bags with lame little Halloween party favors and candy. Then I panicked because I wasn’t sure if the game we had in mind was good enough, so I printed out Halloween mazes and stuffed those in the treat bags too. Goddamn children.

This took about fifteen minutes, start to finish. One could imagine how exhausted I was, having single-handedly carried this entire party on my back while Henry pranced around in his underwear.

Somewhere around 10:30pm, I found out that Henry had purchased red decorating gel instead of black. RED! I cornered him in the kitchen as he mixed the cupcake batter and laid into him for being so worthless, so stupid, so irresponsible, so UNRELIABLE.

We broke up for the second time that night, but he still put his big boy pants on and went back to the store in search of black decorating gel.

By the time he came back, I noticed that he also forgot the pretzel sticks/Frankenstein neck bolts.

“I just came back! I am not going to the store again!” Henry shouted.

I raised a knife.

We broke up again.

I know, I know: Erin, why didn’t you just go to the store yourself? And let that motherfucker win?! Never. Let me remind you that the fact I haven’t eaten meat since 1996 was born from my impenetrable stubbornness. My head, it is that of a bull. (And not just because I’m that ugly.)

“Just forget it!” I screamed. “Fuck the cupcakes! I just won’t take them!”

“Fine,” Henry mumbled, pushing past me and going to sit down on the couch.

“NO I’M JUST KIDDING WE NEED THE CUPCAKES OMG GET BACK IN THERE!” I yelled, heart rate up, left arm tingling. Ew I fucking hate parties. As Henry walked by to go back in the kitchen, I muttered, “But the cupcakes are going to look pathetic since you forgot the pretzels, good job.” I saw him tense up for a second, like he maybe was contemplating pushing me into the hot stove, but then he adjusted his Susie Homemaker ruffled apron and went back to ladling batter into the cupcake tray thing.

“Did you start cooking the spaghetti yet?” I asked. We needed a lot of spaghetti noodles for the stupid game that the other moms so thoughtfully left for me to come up with.

“Can I get through the cupcakes first?” he snipped, and we broke up again.

Around 11:30, the cupcakes were cooled off and it was time to start icing them. Henry mixed up a bowl of purple frosting while I struggled with the orange. I didn’t mix it well enough, so all the cupcakes I frosted had dark orange striations throughout them, and that’s on top of the sides I smashed in from gripping too hard.

“Look,” Henry instructed. “Turn the cupcake with your other hand so the frosting goes on easier.” But as usual, I ignored his tip and continued glooping on mounds of frosting before moving on to the frustrating task of smoothing that shit out.

I started to cry. Then I screamed, slammed down the cupcake I was working on, and marched out of the kitchen.

But not before breaking up again, followed by a death threat.

“You’re a fucking retard,” I heard Henry say as he examined the three cupcakes I managed to frost before having a full-blown temper seizure. I really believe that it takes a special kind of person to be able to work with sprinkles and frosting without winding up with brain matter Pollacked across the kitchen wall.

I started to watch the Jersey Shore reunion show, mouth still molded into a scowl, until I realized that I couldn’t let Henry take all the credit for the cupcakes. And he would, too. I knew it. So I went back in the kitchen and pushed Henry out of the way. He had a plateful of large marshmallows which he had previously rolled through green glittery sprinkles. I picked one up and decided to start working on the Frankenstein heads, that maybe if I concentrated real hard on that, I could block out the fact that Henry was two feet away from me, making me hate life.

By then, it was midnight.

I did that high-pitched shriek that happens when something isn’t going my way.

“What?” Henry yelled.

“THIS BLACK GEL IS TOO THICK! THIS FRANKENSTEIN IS RUINED!” I hurled it into the garbage.

“Great,” Henry said sardonically. “Now we’re going to be short one marshmallow.” Turns out there was just enough green sprinkles for fourteen marshmallows, the exact number of kids in Chooch’s class. “If you weren’t being such a BITCH, I probably could have fixed that one,” Henry sneered and I wanted to skin him alive.

“Oh you think you’re so fucking perfect!” I spat. And we broke up so badly that I created a profile on Match.com.

Whoever lives in this house after us is going to be haunted by all the ire left clinging to the walls from our mutual belligerence. And that’s assuming we both make it out alive. Otherwise, someone might want to consider taking a wrecking ball to 3021 My Street.

Being short a marshmallow, I made the executive decision to only use half and do spiderwebs on the other cupcakes. Oh great idea, Erin Rachelle. Next time, maybe try to remember that you have an unsteady hand and SUCK at decorating.

How do you bitches make this look so easy?

I was standing over the oven, dragging a toothpick over these bastards, and GRUNTING. It was excruciating! You need precision for this shit. And precision and me? We’re not friends. We’re not even frenemies. In fact, if precision turned into a zombie, I’d push everyone out of the way so I could be the one to shoot it in the motherfucking head. Precision makes me cry, you guys. And I think I have arthritis now. I fucking hate you, too, spider webs.

I hate anything to do with baking! I hate frosting! I hate food coloring! I hate the kitchen! I hate Henry!

I do like licking the batter off that mixing contraption though.

The worst part is that I kept catching Henry trying not to laugh when my sanity was very clearly slipping through my fingers like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Of course, they looked nothing like Frankenstein and I had a failure-induced panic attack. Then I realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to have a variety.

“What if the kids start fighting because they all want one with a marshmallow head?” I freaked out.

“It’ll be a good lesson for them. You don’t always get what you want in life,” Henry said matter-of-factly. That’s great, but I didn’t want to be there when parts of Mr. Potato Head began flying as the kids fought each other with tinker toys and glue sticks and teachers staggered away with pencils jutting out from their femoral artery. You might be wondering what sort of impression I have in my mind of preschool classes. Obviously a very Mad Max, post-apocalyptic one.

It was nearly 1:00am by the time we finished decorating the fuckcakes. Henry and I slept in separate rooms.

FUCKERS!!!!

[Ed.Note: Henry can attest this is not an accurate account. It has been toned down. A lot.]