If there was an award given for the biggest wuss of all wussy times, I would win it. I would win it a lot. I’d win it for every horror movie I got peer pressured into watching and then couldn’t sleep for five to ten years afterwards; for every dark alley, or lighted alley, I refused to walk down, or next to, or near; and for every time I deflected my son’s desire to read Goosebumps by telling him to “Save that one for Dad because it’s his favorite.” I’d win so often they’d put me on the Wussiest Wussy Wall of Fame, which I wouldn’t visit because it probably would be located in the same town as an abandoned mental institution or whatever and there would be no chance, no chance at all that I would subject myself to any such nonsense.
On Sunday, I went through a haunted house.
This weekend was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and my parents and Eleven decided to celebrate with a trip to the pumpkin patch. This particular pumpkin patch was particularly family-friendly, and so we spent a couple of hours sliding down slides and riding on hayrides and donuting through donuts and having a lovely time. Midway through the revelry, my dad pulled a ticket out of his pocket and said,
“Let’s go through the haunted house.”
Near the entrance of the patch was a haunted house – or, rather, haunted houses, because the owners had connected several dilapidated single-room…maybe grain bins, maybe sheds…and built a creepy fence around it and that was the haunted house. Kyle and my older son had gone through it last year and had noted that it was “not scary” and “nothing jumps out at you and there aren’t any real people” and “there were little kids in there, Mom, and they were fine.” For our part, Eleven and I had peeked in through the creepy fence gate, took one look at the creepy scarecrow sitting on the creepy front porch and noped our way out of that activity. As was the case both this year and last, our entrance to the pumpkin patch included tickets to the haunted house.
“Nope,” said Eleven.
As opposed to his wuss of a mother, Eleven is inconsistent in his fear. For every horror movie or video game or book he eschews, there are two others that he loves. Five Nights at Freddy’s is a particular favorite, which I had to PAY MONEY TO SEE IN THE THEATER even though I never opened my eyes. My best example of Eleven’s Elevenness comes from a Halloween past, when Eleven was three and Fifteen was seven. While trick-or-treating, Fifteen insisted we visit a VERY SCARY neighborhood haunted house. We went as a family, with Fifteen holding my hand and Eleven holding Kyle’s. Fifteen made it two steps inside before he hopped up in my arms and I carried him through what I assume were a myriad of terrifying creatures groping and reaching out at us (I wouldn’t know because I was looking at the ground the whole time; they sounded horrible, though). Eleven, on the other hand, took his sweet time walking through so that he could shake the hands and claws of every single actor.
“Why don’t you guys go through and I’ll hang out with Eleven,” I told my parents. “Then you can tell him how un-scary it is and he can go back through with one of you using my ticket.”
“Deal,” my dad said. My mom and dad went through the haunted house. They came out smiling.
“It’s very fun,” they told Eleven. “And the only thing that’s scary is a horn at the end, and that’s just because it’s loud.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Eleven said, sounding incredibly unsure. “But first, let’s go to the petting zoo.”
We went to the petting zoo, and down the slide again, and on the racing pigs (not real pigs), and we bought pumpkins, and we did all sorts of things but we never did go back through the haunted house.
The next morning, after my parents left, Eleven asked if we could go back to the pumpkin patch for an hour.
“We did it up yesterday,” I told him. “What’s left to do?”
“The haunted house,” he said, after a pause.
“Oh,” I said, after a pause.
We returned to the pumpkin patch.
After shooting corn out of cannon and playing tetherball and going down the slide for the 200th time, Eleven took a deep breath and turned towards the haunted house. We walked through the creepy fence, up to the creepy porch, and opened the creepy door.
“I think this is too ‘pooky for me,” I told him, honestly, referencing a word we use as a family to describe something so indescribably scary that it’s ‘pooky.’ “Can you go by yourself?”
“No,” he said, his face falling.
“Okay, I’ll be brave,” I said, unable to allow a sad kid to leave the pumpkin patch. “But let’s do this: the next big group that goes through, we join them. They can protect us.”
“Deal,” he said.
We went back out through the creepy fence and knocked into a giant group of people made up of kids and grownups dressed like witches. While I held the gate open to let them through, Eleven gave me a “how about them” gesture and I gave a “sure, okay” shrug in return. We turned back around, and I struck up a casual conversation with the caboose – a gentleman in cool sunglasses – about his cool sunglasses so that Eleven and I could sidle up without being obvious.
We walked back up the creepy porch. We walked up to the creepy door. Inside, the children at the front of our party were already screaming.
“Don’t read into their screams,” the mom told an ashen Eleven (or maybe me). “It’s not scary, they just like to scream.”
Eleven took a deep breath, and stepped forward. I grabbed the back of his t-shirt and brought up the rear.
Let me tell you, that haunted house was SCARY. I mean, I didn’t look at most of it because I was too ‘pooked, but it seemed really scary. Eleven, on the other hand, had the time of his life. He had the time of his life so much so that he went through twice more. The second time, he held the hand of a little boy who was too ‘pooked himself to go it alone.
For my part, I stood by the back steps and admired the gravestones and skeletons climbing the walls – the Wussiest Wuss who ever Wussed.
I took the photo above while my parents were buying $0.50 gourds and Eleven was watching a movie on a character named Spookily. The haunted house is not pictured (too ‘pooky).
This week on North Dakota Today we talked about the community of Grafton, my Nice People of the Week, as well as an awesome partnership between the YMCA and Big Pine Lake Water Skiing Team. (Valley News Live)
This has been BIG (literal and figurative) news across the country this week: Paleontologists have discovered the first known trackway made by a full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex in Marmarth, North Dakota. (Smithsonian)
West Fargo’s Mike Kiernan honors veterans through Labor Day. (KVRR)
North Dakota is preparing to graduate its first tribal police officers. (North Dakota Monitor)
In North Dakota-adjacent news, chislic is getting its international moment in the…sun? Paper container? (BBC)
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