My W is here.
“My hersband is too afraid to go,” W texted her friends from work.
They are going to Terror Behind the Walls at Eastern State Penitentiary tonight. The website bills it as “A Massive Haunted House in a REAL PRISON.”
No thanks. Count me out. I will stay home and watch reruns of Orange Is the New Black, which is a comedy set in a FAKE PRISON.
I know what you’re thinking, faithful followers. Middle-age Butch, you are the butchest person I know. Aren’t you butch enough for a little old haunted house?
Um, no.
I am butch enough to wear flannel everyday of the week. I am butch enough to arm wrestle k.d. lang. I am butch enough to wear a necktie when every other woman in the room is wearing a dress.
But this butch doesn’t do haunted houses or haunted hayrides or anything else that involves paying a fee to be scared.
That is not butch. That is stupid.
W is paying $20 to be scared by chainsaw-wielding strangers wearing face paint and fake blood.
If anyone out there wants a really good fright, mail me $20. Tell me your worst fear, or I can make one up for you.
- Dear Netflix Subscriber, We regret to inform you that there will not be a Season 3 of Orange Is the New Black.
- Good news! I’ve cleared my calendar and will be able to stay with you through the holidays! All of them!! Love, Mom
- Dear Former Student, It wasn’t just a recurring bad dream. You really are three credits short. We will be revoking your diploma.
When I was a teenager, my father took me to a haunted house at the New Jersey shore. I remember crowding into a room that was supposed to be an elevator with a bunch or other people and being scared to death. I thought I was going to die. It was the last time I held my dad’s hand.
Too much blood for this butch.
I am not a fan of horror movies either. I can count the scary movies that I’ve seen on two hands (hands missing several digits due to an accident involving farm equipment) — Poltergeist, Children of the Corn, Silence of the Lambs, The Blair Witch Project. I started watching The Shining when I was in college, but my friends had to remove me from the theater because I was turning green and about to pass out from all the blood.
Alas, I am a delicate butch.
I did tell W that if she doesn’t come home tonight I will look for her.
In the morning.
When the sun comes up.
It’s what any butch would do.
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Do you like haunted houses and scary movies?
The Flannel Files 