As Halloween approaches, the excitement of frightful fun fills the air. My kids have been relentless in their requests to visit a haunted house—a typical rural attraction featuring a haunted hayride and actors draped in fake blood, leaping out to scare unsuspecting guests.
While they may think I’m simply being boring, the truth is far more complex. It’s not the usual Halloween horror that unnerves me. Ghouls, witches, and chainsaw-wielding maniacs don’t faze me at all. Instead, I imagine a haunted house that taps into a deeper, more unsettling fear, one that sends chills down my spine.
Picture this ghastly scenario: I step through the entrance, greeted by an unruly child clad in a spaghetti-stained shirt, clearly lacking in clean clothing options. His face is smudged, and his hair is a tangled mess, yet he believes he’s ready to welcome visitors.
This little gremlin bombards me with a barrage of nonsensical questions and shouts of “Look at this, Mommy!” as I cautiously enter the first harrowing room. It’s a chilling sight, filled with political campaign staff, some sporting atrocious toupees. The television blares dreadful political ads, overflowing with empty promises and cliché slogans. The campaigners grab at my hands, shoving pamphlets into my trembling fingers while urging me to vote for their candidate, all the while slinging mud at the opposition. I flee in panic, completely bewildered by the choice of evils laid before me.
In the following room, I’m assaulted by the sounds of a big screen TV blaring an episode of Caillou at full volume. I gasp in horror as I realize my only escape lies in solving 25 impossible Common Core math problems.
Next, I stumble into a room with a large bonfire, which horrifyingly burns the pages of my unpublished work. A ghastly witch, who strikingly resembles my high school English teacher, dances around the flames, screeching about the perils of double negatives and prepositions at sentence endings. I shudder, desperately trying to recall if I used the Oxford comma correctly. Is that blood on her hands or just ink from her red pen? I dash from the room, screaming in terror.
I burst into another chamber filled with impeccably dressed women, their conversations abruptly ceasing as they turn their judgmental gazes upon me. I suddenly feel self-conscious about my ripped jeans and untied shoes. Panic sets in as I realize my bag clashes with my outfit. One woman, clearly addicted to Botox, leans in to whisper about me being “that woman.” I brace myself for an eternity of cucumber sandwiches and trivial chit-chat about the garden club.
Finally, I enter the last room to find my youngest child hunched over the kitchen sink. My heart sinks as I see her blasting Taylor Swift from my own iPod, perilously perched on the wet counter. She’s washing my fine china but is so engrossed in the music that she doesn’t hear my frantic calls to be careful. My pulse quickens as a wine glass slips from her hands, shattering into pieces on my freshly scrubbed kitchen floor. She carelessly drops another, and then another. My grandmother’s cherished gravy boat is next in line, and I’m ushered out in despair as she rolls her vacant eyes at me.
That, my dear children, is the essence of my nightmares. You can keep your tame monsters and werewolves; if you really want to terrify me, create a haunted house like this. Nothing could frighten me more.
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In summary, the true horrors of motherhood can often be more terrifying than any haunted house, filled with the unending anxieties of parenting.
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