Haunted House...well, Carport... well not so Haunted either...

When I was in Architecture school, every year for Halloween our student organization made a haunted house as a fundraiser. We would set it up in my backyard, and it was SERIOUSLY scary. Ever since college, I have been waiting for the right opportunity to try and come close to the success of our past haunted houses. Which brings us to this year.

My original plan for the haunted carport was to have a table set up with some candy on it... pretty standard stuff. Now on the table next to the candy would be a jar... with my head in it! I would just be sitting there with a hole cut out in the table with my eyes closed. When I would hear someone coming up or messing with the candy, I would quickly open my eyes and stare at them yelling, "Don't take my candy!" What could I really do but stare... I mean... I'm just a head on a table. But wait... There's more!!! Just when the little hoodlums thought they had escaped they would be chased by my friend Jacob! Now everybody has seen the ole chase someone with a chainsaw routine, but we didn't have one... so we used the next best thing... A leaf blower!!! Man that thing sounded ferocious!!!

Now things didn't go exactly like we all wanted. We weren't able to find a container that my head could fit in, so what we ended up doing was having the table set up with the candy on it, and me hiding in the hot water heater closet with a mask and a bloody hatchet (fake blood of course). Once I felt they had taken enough candy I would make my move and jump out scream. Champ the Bulldog was an added decoy, meant to distract the Trick-or-Treaters, so they would be even more terrified when I jumped out of the closet yelling!

Now that we had it all planned out and set up it had been dark for about an hour... still no "Trick-or-Treaters" to be seen on the streets. Immediately I begin to think, we've set this thing up and nobody is going to show! Well, about 30 minutes later we have our first two victims!

Jacob and I move into position, me in the dark and Jacob grabbing the leaf blower tightly! The 9 year old hobo went in for the candy first and the 8 year old skeleton followed after. Jacob and I were just waiting for the right moment to pounce!!! And then...

I jumped out of the closet and yelled in the creepiest voice I could yell, "You took too much candy!!!" Both the hobo and the skeleton jumped back, froze, and stared at me for a few seconds as I held the hatchet over my head! I could see the fear in there eyes! So much so that the skeleton began to make a little whimpering noise which soon turned into a full out flood of tears!!! Jacob lowered the leaf blower and I took off my mask and tried to give him more candy. I knew it was bad when Amy came running in there saying, "It's OK. Let's go out this way!"

Needless to say Jacob and I both felt pretty bad after that but were comforted when we heard their parents laughing at them when they came out!

We only had three more groups of people come through after the hobo and the skeleton... kinda disappointing. I guess I just thought there would be more foot traffic in the neighborhood.

So a few thoughts for next year:
Advertise + Better Candy + Set Up Before Dark + Louder Leaf Blower
=An even more sweet haunted carport!!!

By the way, isn't that the biggest crawfish you've ever seen??!!

-Jeff