My wife and I absolutely loved going to Six Flags when we were younger. We would get season passes and, due to the fact that we lived so close, go a few times a week. Most times we went in the late afternoon or on rainy days since the crowds would be small. As great as it was to ride Medusa several times in a row, it paled in comparison to the park's annual Halloween celebration Fright Fest.
The amount of work that must go into transforming the park into one big haunted attraction is mind-blowing. The level of detail is actually quite amazing. Caskets, tombstones, and pumpkins litter the park. Workers dress in costume, ranging from gory to nightmare-inducing. Even the old Warner Bros. characters like Porky Pig get in on the action, dressing in robes to shock the younger crowd. It was really quite amusing to see the people who scare easily freak out over what I considered to be little things.
Until it happened to me. One particular night, my wife and I were there with my brother and his girlfriend. It was getting dark out, usually when the kids started to leave and the adults had dominion over the park. As we made our way over to the part of the park that housed Runaway Train, a favorite of ours since childhood, I noticed what looked to be the detailed dummy of a clown hanging from a post.
I approached this mannequin to get a closer look at the level of design, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in a place designed to try and scare everyone. Looking back at the level of naivete that I exhibited, I'm a little embarrassed that I approached the dummy as calmly as I did. I began to reach out to touch it, all too curious to see what could be stuffing this garment in such a lifelike fashion.
When I was within reaching distance, it happened. The employee who had been lying in wait for some schmuck to get close enough sprang into action. He made as if to grab at me, hoping I would shriek, followed a few laughs at how ridiculous I had been. That's not at all what he got.
Unfortunately for him, the arm I had been extending to touch his costume reacted quite violently to his sudden jumpscare. I connected with a clean rabbit punch that would have made Rocky proud. Equally unfortunate for this guy was the fact that he was standing on a pedestal so that he would appear to be hanging from the post. This was enough to put him crotch height with my fist of fury.
As he groaned in pain mixed with shock he crumpled to the ground. I found myself twenty feet away, seemingly teleporting myself away from further danger while proving my autonomic nervous system capable of fight-and-flight. The rest of my party remained at the scene of the crime, laughing uncontrollably.
After this incident, which my wife still reminds of occasionally, I don't ridicule people who freak out over seemingly safe scares. Everyone has a different threshold, some just take longer to reach.Thinking about this incident brings to mind images of the people who get scared easily, and how they are generally able to laugh it off afterwards. They seem to seek that feeling of knowing they are safe after this potential threat. This realization is the high they are looking for.
The other thing this brings to mind is how ridiculously dangerous this whole idea is. Put a large group of strangers together, under the anonymity of costumes that are inherently gory. This seems like an invitation to do bodily harm to someone unnoticed. It's almost as ridiculous as telling kids they should never take candy from strangers and then sending them out on Halloween to do just that.
No comments:
Post a Comment