Haunted Houses are Apparently Pretty Scary

So Riley has been BEGGING, PLEADING, HARANGUING me for weeks now to take him to a haunted house, a real, live, honest to goodness, scare the bejezus out of you, haunted house. There's one by us that's supposed to be like, in the top 10 scariest haunted houses in the country. But me being the good mother that I am, say no way, no how will I subject my sweet and innocent child (who I don't even approve of letting him watch a simple vampire movie) go to a haunted house like that. The school has a pretty simple one at Fall Fest, he can go to that one this coming weekend, it's pretty tame. Well, Saturday night on our way to a Girl Scout sing along, I see our little town has a haunted house, in an old rickety building, entrance fee: 2 canned goods. How scary can that be if the cost is food? It's probably put on by the high school kids since it's across the street from the high school, and in the parking lot of an elementary school. After the girl scout event, I call Riley, tell him to throw some tuna in a bag and be ready, I go pick him and David up, and we go wait in line for the haunted house. And we wait...

We waited for 3 Frickin Hours!! The kids had a great time running around and playing, listening to the people scream inside, someone knocked down the walls so they had to put everything on hold to put the walls back up, which is why it took so long. They met a kid there whose parents were working in it, he was telling them all about how scary it was, he took them to the exit and let them meet the "chain saw master" so they weren't scared of him (it was the kid's cousin). I kept telling the kids, we don't have to do this, we can go home, but they were SO excited, and were jumping up and down, thrilled to no end.

Finally, it was our turn, they were only letting about 6-8 people in at a time, with a guide with a tiny flashlight. We walk in, turn the corner, and BAM, my poor son's face is buried into my side, where it stays the ENTIRE time, crying his eyes out, he's crying, "MOM, get me out of here, I want to leave, it's too scary!!" There was a guy screaming, "HELP ME!" while some guy drilled into his fake leg, the girl from The Ring followed us around making that clicky-croaky sound, a tricycle rolled across the floor by itself, a clown with a hatchet in his head chased us, a blacked out maze with skeletons and bones on the floor that we were tripping on, a body in a guillotine, and as we walked by it goes down and the head comes off, LOUDLY, there were a lot of loud noises, and Riley cried through the whole thing, I kept telling him not to look, and he says, "I can still see it!!" I covered his eyes, had his head pressed to my side, wrapped around my body, David was carrying Regan and she was buried in his neck, at the end the scary clown was calling us to him, and I was like, you're out of your ever lovin' mind clown, but then I realized he was trying to get us away from the chain saw guy, but the kids knew him, so when they heard that, they knew it was over, and they were okay then. We rushed through that whole thing so fast, we got outside, and then the kids were mad at ME. They said it was all MY idea.

I thought they might have nightmares or something, but surprisingly, they didn't, and today they woke up laughing about it, Riley said it wasn't scary, yeah, right, but I think we're gonna wait a few more years before we try anymore haunted houses.