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Have you ever known you were about to face something difficult or challenging, so you prepared yourself and went in ready to overcome and conquer, only to have something random or small or totally unexpected be your downfall?  If I hadn’t experienced that before, I sure have now.

I mentioned in my last post that last week my husband and I celebrated our anniversary by driving twenty minutes north and spending a few days in Salt Lake City.  Our actual anniversary falls in the middle of September, however we had to wait just over a month to actually go away until my wonderful sister-in-law could travel out from L.A. to watch our precious little boys.

It being the end of October when we had this little getaway, we decided we’d turn it into a little Halloween themed trip.  We did things like seeing Dracula one night, or driving to Gardner Village in West Jordan to see their famous display of witches, but the highlight of the trip for my husband was going to a haunted house.  And not just any haunted house, one of those big-time, truly scary, costs around $30 per person, totally legit haunted houses.

I was enthusiastic about going when my husband suggested it.  I hadn’t been to one since college, when every date you’re asked out on during October is to some sort of terrifying place so that hopefully us poor females will clutch to our gentlemen like a toddler to her blankie.  Which of course we do, no questions asked, because a well done haunted house really is incredibly scary.  Silly, but definitely fun memories are associated with these for me, so when my husband pulled out our fancy VIP tickets in the parking lot of a particularly famous house here in Utah, I truly looked forward to a fun and spooky night.

Everything began as I would have expected. We walked in, gave up our tickets and waited in line.  We took our picture with Beetlejuice, (incredible make up job on this guy) and then went to wait in another line.  Just before it was our turn to go, my husband and I got ourselves all situated for the journey.  I clutched his hand with my right and he pulled me in close.  I hung onto his left arm with my free hand and prepared to duck my head down into his shoulder.  I have decently long hair to about my waist, so you better believe I put it all to one side and created a sort of curtain to hide behind.  Ok, ready to go, I thought.

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Instantly, it was obvious that the money we’d paid had not gone to waste.  Everything was incredibly detailed, from the noises, to the set design, to the smells even.  Things jumped out at every turn and I of course did not disappoint them as I screamed and squealed and clung to my big brave husband.  After most every scream though, I would laugh or giggle, as I truly was enjoying the time with my husband, the definite influx of adrenaline, and the feeling that I was a kid again back in college. I would describe everything up to that point as “delightfully terrifying.”  Unfortunately, I was about to be blindsided by something much less delightful and far more terrifying.

I’m a fairly claustrophobic person, which I’ve known about myself since probably 6-years-old when my cousin once trapped me in a sleeping bag.  It’s not like it’s something that defines me though, simply because I really haven’t been put in too many situations all that compromising.  I did do a Tough Mudder race in 2012 where one of the obstacles was to crawl through an underground tunnel.  I couldn’t do it.  I started to freak out just a bit and didn’t want my team to have to wait for me to muster the courage, so I opted out. (If you don’t know what a Tough Mudder is, Google it.  They are freaking awesome.)

“Step right up to the Tight Fright!”  I heard as we entered a room in which you get chased to the end of a corridor by some scary psycho or zombie or alien in a grotesque mask carrying a huge hammer, and your only means of escape is to squeeze through one of 3 slits in the far wall.  It was like two inflatable bounce houses had been smashed together, and you were expected to slide between them to the other end.  As I released my husband’s arm and he pulled me into the slit I was laughing and squealing, but as I felt the walls on either side of me press in tighter and tighter, I abruptly stopped laughing and started yelling, “Nope! Nope! Not doing this. H-no!” and truly frightened, I pulled my hubby backwards out of the wall.  (Ya, I actually said “H.”  How Mormon can I get, right?)

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He stepped back and tried to encourage me to try again.  The psycho/zombie/alien guy also encouraged me to proceed as he ran at me with his raised hammer and disgusting mask.  My husband pulled me in once more, this time going even farther, and as I felt the walls so suffocatingly tight, I truly began to panic, screamed for real, and escaped back the way I came as fast as if I’d touched something hot.  Unfortunately, this move had been so fast that I let go of my husband’s hand, and I was then back in the room with the psycho/zombie/alien man bent on murdering me.

I guess I’ve never had an actual panic attack before, or faced such a blatantly real fear, so I was surprised when I started crying.  But believe me, “panic” is the perfect word for what I was experiencing, and “terrified” very accurately describes how I felt.  Other people were walking past me now, the psycho was jumping and yelling and swinging his hammer at me while loud disorienting music blared in my ears, I’d lost my husband, and now I stood all alone in the eerie darkness sobbing and panic-stricken.

I’m not sure how long I stood there crying with my face in my hands, but apparently it was long enough to make this actor break character and try to console me.  He put down his hammer, softened his voice, and tried to tell me I could do it. I sobbed out, “No, no I can’t.”  And he leaned down and kept saying “Yes, you can. It’s all right, you can do it.”  What a nice psychopath.

About that time, my husband had made his way back to me. He hugged me and somehow convinced me to try once more.  We did the claustrophobia challenge at a run this time and I made it through, but not without renewed sobbing.  From that point on I was in no mood for scary fun.  Unfortunately we were only about halfway through the haunted house, so we had to just keep going.

Our very next obstacle was a maze that my husband could NOT find his way through for the life of him.  Every wrong turn revealed some horrifying clown yelling at us, and with each yell I would sob more and more vehemently. After almost 10 minutes of unsuccessfully navigating the maze, I seemed to have pulled on the heart strings of another actor.  He didn’t fully break character, but instead of yelling boo, he quieted down and in a low gruff voice finally said, “Ooooooookaaaaaaay.  Let’s get you guys out of here.  I hate to see a lady cry.”  And so we followed him this way and that until we’d come to the end of this nightmare and into another one.

The rest of the experience was sort of shot for me.  I eventually quit crying like a frightened bunny rabbit and simply closed my eyes as my sweetheart led me through the rest of the horrors and out into the night air.  As we made our way to the car I was actually able to smile and laugh at what an unexpected turn the evening had taken for me.  My husband joked that it was still early enough to go to another haunted house across town if I’d like.  I declined.

Now I’m sure there’s some gospel parallel in this story about holding to the iron rod or always being prepared for life’s trials and challenges, but I’ll let you find your own parable.  As for me, I’m going to have to think long and hard before I attend another haunted house in the future.

I wish you all a very happy Halloween, and hope you enjoyed this particularly embarrassing tale from a not-so-typical day in the life of a Mormon Housewife.

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