I Still Wanna Go

This past Thursday was the first night of the Halloween Haunt at Knott’s Scary Farm, when the western-themed and family-oriented Knott's Berry Farm covers the park in cobwebs, ersatz fog and roaming ghouls. They also modify the décor of each of the rides. The Log Ride, for example, usually features animatronics woodsmen sawing logs using one of those two-person, long-bladed saws you see in the cartoons. During the Haunt they become boogiemen sawing off some appendage or another from some unfortunate Joe. They also do other things like pitch gypsy tents so you can have your palm read and be told whether you and your date are destined to have 12 kids together. (matching M’s?)

Four times I have tried to go and every one of them ended badly. The first time I never even got into the park—sort of. An aunt of ours had invited a bunch of her nieces and nephews to go to Knott's during the day. Even though admission to the park for the nighttime Haunt required a different ticket, the daytime visitors still get to see some of the preparations. So here we were, a bunch of rambunctious kids begging our aunt to get us tickets so we could stay. To her credit, she actually tried, but they had sold out. You can imagine how disappointed we were to leave just as the monsters were starting to come out. I still contend I could have hidden in one of the trashcans!

The second time I went I took a “friend” of mine from high school. I swear I had no idea what a scaredy cat she was. She would not go through any of the many “mazes” they set up throughout the park. You can’t even get on many of the rides without going through a maze. And to make matters worse, she was a little more “friendly” than I felt comfortable with. We only got on a couple things, went through no mazes, and left early.

The third time I went, I took another friend who has the peculiar habit of falling into a narcoleptic sleep whenever you feed her. I fed her—early into the night. We went home early without going through any mazes and I’m not sure we even got on any rides.

The fourth time…well, it was supposed to be this year, but things didn’t work out between Her and me... Update 2/4/07: No whining!

So, at this point, I’d be glad to go with a complete stranger who’s reasonably non-narcoleptic, isn’t too afraid of her own shadow and probably won’t slap me if I squeeze her hand when things get scary. Any takers? I didn’t think so.