Halloween and Haunted Houses

Ok, so you go to an amusement park that is advertising the Halloween Haunt (Kings Dominion in this case).

Key word...haunt.

They have many areas they call "Scare Zones"

Key word...scare

There are haunted attractions with clearly listed levels that they call "Fear Rating"

Key word...fear

So if you are the kind of person who has a really hard time with being scared and do not have the ability to control your actions when scared then why in the name of Zeus's sweaty nut-sack are you doing there?!?


Kings Dominion on Saturday night after they started up the haunt (7pm) had 50-plus incidents where someone got hurt as a result of someone getting scared. 31 of them involved the costumed actors getting injured. Including one poor soul in a costume that can only be best described as the Travelocity Gnome getting REALLY drunk in Vegas and sleeping with a troll. This would have been the love child. He jumps out of the fog and scares a woman who kicks the guy in the crotch very hard. For 45 minutes the security officers were talking to the guy in the costume and to the woman. In the end the County Sheriff's deputies were winding their way through the crowd towards the scene. For the woman and the assault I'm reasonably certain.

Another incident involved me. I was walking through the scare zone trying to catch up with my party that had managed to lose me in the fake fog. A costumed actor jumped out of the fog and a gaggle of girls ran stampeded past through me. I went ass over tea kettle as they shoved me aside over a hay bale. Knees aren't supposed to bend sideways are they? I caught myself before face-planting the asphalt but that tore some muscles in my left shoulder-blade area and so I'm in considerable pain.

Another incident involving me was in the Toxic Sludge haunted house area. Again, a gaggle of women were surrounding this one woman who was so scared that I am honestly amazed (and this is no exaggeration) did not piss herself in the terror. Preppy teenagers in horror movies being chased by weirdos with flesh masks and chainsaws can't act that scared. An actor jumped out and they pressed against the wall so hard that I was being crushed. As we're slowly heading towards the meat locker area (with lovely strobe lighting) again another actor jumped out and the woman in the middle pulled out enough supernatural strength to plow past her friends holding her, and past me. As she past me, she shoved me out of her way and slammed me face first into the wall. Result? Bump on the head, dizzy for a few minutes (although that may have been from waiting for the brain to reboot in a strobe light lit area) and a swelling right eye socket (not the socket itself...the eye was in no danger...but the tissue around the socket).

Again I have to ask. If you are so terrified of places like this, why go there? It's one thing to be a little scared and react to an actor with a start a scream and a giggle afterwards. It's one thing to jump when you're startled and then laugh that the joker "got you". But if your terror is so strong that you will lash out at people you fucking well know are costumed actors (and they announce it ALL THE TIME that they are costumed actors who will NOT TOUCH YOU)...should you really be there? Especially if you're going to beat the shit out of the college kids who are trying to make some extra money. If you are going to be that piss-your-pants scared...STAY HOME DUMBSHIT!

Thirty one poor actors were injured by people like that. Thirty one people were beaten up by people who paid money to be scared by them.

That's the part that really baffles the living fuck out of me. You know that this is their scary bit. You know that Halloween is the time traditionally for scary stuff. You go to the place that is going to run scary shit. You pay money to go and be scared. And then you punish the people who are doing the job that you paid them to do by kicking them in the crotch, punching them in the face, knocking them off of their stilts and stomping them when they are on the ground? Do you bitch-slap your mechanic when he replaces your brake pads? Do you nut-check your dentist when he x-ray's your teeth? Do you push your Cable TV installer down a flight of stairs when he hooks up your internet? Then why the fuck do people assault people who are hired to do what you paid the admission for them to do?

And people wonder about my tagline sometimes. "I never lost my faith in humanity. Can't lose what you never had right?"