I Do Believe In Spooks, I Do, I Do, I Do!!!!!!!

In the five and a half years that I've been married to Thomas, some of the strangest sentences have come out of my mouth:

• "Do you think that body'll fit in the trunk?"
• "If it looks too bad, just cover it in blood."
• "I swear, I'm done with that skeleton! I'm just leaving him here!"
• "Seriously, there has got to be a price tag for that bag of limbs around here somewhere!"

And about a gagillion others just as disturbing. (Might I add, I work for a church...)

The oddest utterance to date, though, has to be the one that occurred over the weekend:  "Yeah, we should totally do Halloween Horror Nights."

What have I done?

In my thirty-three years on this Earth, I've been in a grand total of four haunted houses (okay, seven, if you count the real ones. Oddly, two out of those three didn't bother me, and the third was more annoying than anything else, but that's another story, nevermind). Now, out of those four, one was the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. Not going to lie, it makes me nervous. I love it, but it ups the anxiety level. One was my little brother's elementary/middle school fundraiser house, where the ghouls kept yelling out, "Boo, Curt's sister! I'm going to get you, Curt's sister!"

It was truly frightening, as I'm sure you gathered.

One house was at Niagara Falls, and boasted the most polite, well-mannered Ghost Face known to man. I ran through it with my eyes closed, clutching the jacket of a friend who was nice enough to go first. The last haunted house I attempted was at Universal Studios Hollywood, and I made it almost through the foyer before having to be escorted out by the Phantom of the Opera.

What have I done?

Truth be told, I'm really looking forward to going. For the past few years, Thomas and I have done the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom (and loved it!), but only toured Universal during the day. In broad daylight, you can see some of the decorations and scenes for the Horror Nights, and they looked really cool. I was especially impressed by the Walking Dead set up last year, with a car waiting for Sophia, and an abandoned school bus. We could also see ads for the shows that only run during Horror Nights, including one featuring Bill and Ted of the excellent journey fame. This year, they've added a live Rocky Horror show to the mix. It's never been my favorite movie, but I can see where a live performance might be a hoot. On top of all that, we're both super interested in horror makeup and scenic design. Why have we not been doing Horror Nights, again? Oh, yeah...I'm a coward. That's right.

We'd decided months ago that we wanted to do the behind the scenes tour (Unmasking the Horror. I still can't link--thanks, Blogger--but you can google it) that takes you on a lights-on, actor-free tour of three houses. Little by little, though, we started talking about maybe, possibly, trying to do Horror Nights just for the shows and cool decor. We could skip the houses, since we'll already have seen two of the ones we were most interested in (our tour includes Cabin In the Woods, American Werewolf in London, and La Llorona.), and the roaming scareactors (pronounced s-characters) are mostly Walking Dead themed, so they shouldn't bother me too badly. I've dealt with more than my fair share of zombies. I think I'll be okay. (key word: think) We'll just do the shows and ride some rides, and get to see the neat scenery. Plus, I hear they have margaritas. That's always a plus.

All of this is to say that, for the next few weeks, I'll be in mental preparation mode. There will be loads of research done on the event, the movies and legends behind the houses, and all that jazz, and it's most likely going to make its way over here. I'm a novice Horror Nighter, and a wussy, scaredy cat one, at that, so if nothing else, my probably idiotic attempt at conquering my fears might prove entertaining for you guys. Happy Haunting, y'all. Wish me luck.