ALL HALLOWS' PEE

It is my favorite month of the year, the month that holds my birthday AND my favorite holiday, Halloween. I love, love, love Halloween more than any other holiday. Yes, even more than Christmas. It's the one night it's okay to be whatever you want, something bloody, something retarded, something unique, something other than yourself.

I've always loved Halloween. Halloween is typically a time of cold and crispy air, though it's still in the 80's right now thanks to global warming, and I'm cursing the never-ending heat in the Southeast. Growing up in the Seattle area, Halloween always involved a parka or an umbrella paired with your costume. Leaves crunched at your feet as your teeth chattered in a mix of ghost fear, and the biting cold. I loved it! My mind would drift off to the ghost stories my mother always told us from the time we were kids, and as I went from door to door trick-or-treating, I would wonder if the house we walked away from would still be there when we turned around?

My imagination is my greatest ally, and my worst enemy. I remember the walk that my friends and I would make to the rope swing in Nike Park in my late teens and early 20's. I would recall the stories of the man in the black cape who would kidnap children and stuff them in garbage cans; the legend of the dead girl's ghost that would appear at Frog Pond off the trail; the supposed genetic testing that went on at Nike Base before it was abandoned and then built over with breezy, overpriced homes; the inhuman screams that my friends would hear while partying at the park. We would grab our flashlights, absolutely sober and make the trek to swing over what seemed like a never-ending ravine, late at night. All the while my friend Erik would chant "Candyman. Candyman. Candyman." and I would start yelling, "Shut the fuck up!" out of shear terror.

I love being scared. I hate it, but I love it. I grew up entranced in the ghost stories my mother told me; the episodes of Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents; and the spooky stories I would sneak late at night in my bed. I always believed in the unknown, yet feared it more than reality.

I remember numerous trips to Disneyland where my family tried to get me to go in the Haunted House, only to be met with my tears of fear. I was 20 before I finally went on that ride and loved every moment of it, and it was always one of my favorite rides until one time with my brother and our friend Sean, it broke down in front of the dance scene. We sat there for at least five minutes and one announcement that they were "experiencing technical difficulties" before I announced, "If I have to walk through that fucking graveyard to get out, there's going to be a problem."

Why? Why when I know it's just a ride? Because I pee when I'm scared. Maybe I'm half skunk, spraying what I think are my predators? Maybe it's to save my life. They say that if a bear attacks you, to play dead and pee on yourself. This supposedly marks your own territory. In all actuality, I'm sure it's more because I start laughing when I'm scared and end up peeing as I do when I laugh too hard. The proof is in the pudding, or the panties. I'm notorious for peeing myself in haunted houses. There was the haunted boat where I peed on a couch we were instructed to sit on and then saw Freddy Krueger coming at me. Scream. Laugh. Piss. I wondered how wet I left the cushion for the next tour to go through? Numerous other incidents where the urine usually hit were when the chainsaw arrived. I'd be laughing out of fear the entire time, then the Jason wannabe would jump out, catch me by surprise and all energy went into my scream and forgot about holding in the bladder. A friend finally suggested I wear a pad in future haunted houses. I owed many jeans in October to that friend.

In addition to the peeing there is the oddity factor - the weird things that seem to happen every few years in a haunted attraction. The first came my Junior year of high school, where along with my friends, we bailed on Homecoming, got drunk and went to a radio station's haunted house. There we entered the doors drunk, wearing the Burger King crowns we'd just acquired. Bubba was first, I was second and the rest of our group was behind me. Some people had snuck in beer and were drinking as we walked through the dark corridors. Bubba was holding his bottle when a monster jumped out. I screamed! Bubba went up to the guy and slurred, "Hey buddy!" He put his arm around the monster. "Dude, this is awesome!"

The monster backed up. "Hey man, keep on going. You need to keep moving."

I grabbed Bubba's shoulder and steered him back to the path. We all went on a bit further when someone screamed, followed by my friend Kurt's scream and a shatter. I'm not sure what had jumped out at Kurt, but he wasn't thinking and threw his beer bottle at the ghoul. Of course then the monsters gathered and kicked us out. Kicked out of a haunted house.

The next time is by far the most bizarre thing I've encountered in a haunted house, and quite possible one of the oddest moments in life. It was one of the most disgusting and entertaining things I've ever witnessed.

I was 22. Friends and I went to the radio station's annual haunted house. This year it was on the pier on the Seattle waterfront. I was wearing my pad just in case. I had learned over the years, and I was prepared this time. What ended up happening, I was not prepared for though. It was about halfway through the haunted house when my friend Kim and I got separated from our friends. We were laughing and running as things jumped out. We passed by the various gruesome scenes set up when we came to what was a mad scientist's lab. The mad scientist cackled and screamed as he worked on a head. No one is there but Kim and I and the guy looks up. He walks towards us, laughing wickedly, opens up his lab coat and that's when we see it. The mad scientist is wearing a HUGE strap-on penis!

Kim and I stopped and screamed, "What the fuck?" and burst out laughing! We are frozen in place; shock, awe and amusement paralyzing us. Then the mad scientist reaches towards his rubber member, and squeezes the strap-on penis. I still remember the moment in slow motion. Kim and I are laughing still, when we see the stream of white liquid squirt out. I jump to the side as if dodging a bullet. Kim's jaw drops as she see she is the target. The white goo shoots at her and splatters all over her shirt.

"He jizzed on me!" She screams. "He fucking jizzed on me!"

I'm not sure how he jimmy-rigged the strap-on, but I wasn't too concerned that it was real jizz. The time it would take for that loon to jack off and then feed it into his fake penis just seemed very unlikely. Plus I recall that we sniffed it once we got out.

"HOLY SHIT!" I screamed, and was taken over by laughter once again. I grabbed Kim's hand and took off running from the goo-spewing scientist.

"He jizzed on me! He fucking jizzed on me!" she screamed as we ran through the rest of the house. The rest of the way we were pretty much left unscathed from the monsters and villains, confused at the girl screaming about jizz. And as we passed the menagerie of evil, scratching their heads, I howled with laughter and peed my pad.