Hurdles of the Haunt
November 10th, 2010 by John WolfeWith the SOS haunt going up and coming down in a single day, there’s always a lot of hectic, behind the scenes things occurring. This year was busier and more hectic than years past, so it shouldn’t be too surprising there were even more curious things happening than usual. With that in mind, I thought I’d devote an entry to detailing just a few of these quirky events from Halloween 2010.
Also, most of the following could probably be added to a future You Know You’re Obsessed With Halloween When entry. Let’s face it, you have to be totally obsessed with October 31st and determined to pull off your yard haunt to land firmly astraddle a few of the following hurdles (plus many more) and keep going.
A Gathering of Leaves: Our October was unseasonably warm this year. In fact, we never hit the freezing mark a single night during the entire month. Due to this, almost every tree I encountered was as stubborn as a mule about relinquishing its leaves.
We eventually ended up collecting nine black trash bags full of leaves to spread throughout the display and all but two of the bags were gathered the hard way – by dragging a rake or a stick along tree branch after tree branch, causing each leaf to drop to the ground, one by one. At one point, I even resorted to hand picking leaves from trees.
A Splintery Manicure: I spent all of Halloween night with a splinter, roughly the size of a broken segment of toothpick, stabbing into the delicate skin beneath the fingernail of my left hand’s middle finger. In a hurry, I quickly reached down to pick up a wooden box used in the haunt and greatly miscalculated where to grab it. The force of my hand drove a splinter in the opposite direction deep beneath my nail bed. Ouch!
Since the splinter was wedged tightly between my nail and finger, and it continued driving itself deeper every time I would bump it against something, it was impossible to pull out without a pair of tweezers. The splinter remained under my nail until just around 11:00 pm when I finally had several minutes free to devote to digging it out.
Now I know what the little dude in the Operation board game feels like, eagerly anticipating the tweezed removal of something.
The Muted Sounds of Halloween: It was so busy bringing everything in on time for the display that I totally forgot to setup my CD player. Even worse, I was in such a drained state by the time trick-or-treaters started arriving, I never noticed my favorite Nox Arcana tunes were missing in action. Once I finally realized there was no music playing in the haunt, the night was almost over.
Dust Devil Humor: As the sun quickly made its way lower and lower in the sky, I could feel my back against the wall – there was still much to accomplish and time was no longer on my side. In the midst of this realization, and despite what seemed like the tick, tick, tick of an audible second hand growing ever louder in my head, I was doing my best to create decoratively-horrific cornstalk lean-to’s, otherwise known as shocks throughout the display.
Nature, perhaps sensing my increasing levels of anxiety, decided to get involved. Channeling its wisdom through a gusty breeze, a small dust devil formed right above a shock I had just put the finishing touches on and proceeded to shred it to bits. I like to think of this gesture as a gentle smack to my forehead regarding ways to better prepare for next year, and/or reminding me to quit taking myself so damn seriously in the process.
Mind you, that last sentence is how I look at this event in hindsight. In the moment, however, I was a little too busy to notice nature channeling its wisdom; probably because I was doing some channeling of my own, albeit through a stream of utterances that could never be labeled as wise.
Spewing forth crazy combinations of four-letter words that would have made Redd Foxx and George Carlin proud, I was cussing like a cross between a truck driver, my grandpa and a guy who just got sucker punched in the “grapes” by one of his kids on America’s Funniest Videos!
After my outburst, and with its relatively harmless and somewhat humorous demo job accomplished, the concentrated force of wind dissipated and broke apart as quickly as it had formed, all without affecting anything else in the yard.
A sense of calm restored, I started sounding less like a raunchy nightclub act and more like Linus Van Pelt during his backpedaling repent from uttering the phrase, “If the Great Pumpkin comes.” Mumbling a couple of apologies for my explosive eruption and hoping I had made peace with the gods of Halloween, I quickly went back to work rebuilding the demolished shock.
Light My Fire: Just after dark, the haunt’s almost complete when we realize we’ve yet to light any of the pumpkins or cemetery lanterns. Since we always have a family get together on Halloween and everyone lends a HUGE hand in helping me prep the haunt, my mom took on the task of lighting everything.
About fifteen minutes after agreeing to take charge of the candle lighting, she reemerged from the house, informing us there’s not a match or lighter to be found anywhere; the stoves electric (so we can’t light the candles with it) and the neighbors either weren’t home at that time or they weren’t participating in Halloween whatsoever — porch lights turned off, curtains drawn, etc.
Thankfully, there’s a gas station a couple miles away and my dad was willing to go pick up a lighter for me. A similar situation occurred regarding a cord for my webcam on Halloween night, but I’ll save that story for another time.
These were just a few of the quirky situations and obstacles that presented themselves this year. And while they really weren’t that big of a deal, I wanted to present them in a light that poked a little fun at myself, and hopefully gave you a chuckle in the process.
Of course, when you’re under the pressure of trying to meet the Halloween night deadline, all of these minor things add up. As one thing happens and then another and another, I’m not sure if it’s sleep deprivation or lack of food, or maybe both, but you eventually stop getting frustrated and you actually start laughing amidst all the little glitches and issues.
Halloween day and night prep for the yard haunt is always interesting and there’s never a dull moment to be had. That’s all part of the fun, well that and sticking duct tape to my grandpa’s ass when he’s not looking, until he’s eventually walking around with a giant wad of it stuck to the seat of his pants. 
November 11th, 2010 at 11:49 am
I know how you feel. It seems like you have everything under control and then it gets down to the wire and it seems that you have forgotten far more than you thought possible and that what you do have is not working right. Funny stories by the way. I do not see many dust devils here but would not be happy watching one demolish my work. It is good you have a positive perspective in retrospect at least.
November 11th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Ethan,
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up exactly! Though I’m always trying to make improvements on getting a leg up before the big night, I’ve also come to make peace with the idea that last minute stuff, along with a few hurdles are going to be inevitable parts of the prep. This is especially true as the haunt grows larger (or when I add more complex props to set up like the Angel) and because of the fact everything has to go up and come down in about a 24-hour period.
Glad you liked my spin on the stories, both in the moment and after the fact.
Thanks for your comment.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
These stories are fantastic. John! I really love the one about the leaves especially, and I can easily picture you picking them right off the trees! Next year, if you get in a jam with uncooperative trees just let me know and I would be happy to ship you some of ours. We have enormous oaks and elms and pecan trees all over and I’m sure a big box of leaves would actually be fairly light weight and not very expensive to ship.
I’m so glad to know that I’m not the only person acting in a comedy of errors on Halloween and the weird thing is I got a splinter in my hand on Halloween too! I’m glad mine was in the meaty bit of my hand, in my palm, where I could baby it and not under my nail! Ouch! There’s a reason prisoners of war are tortured with bamboo toothpicks under their nails! Your description of your GrandDad with tape on his butt is priceless!
I can’t even wrap my brain around the idea of setting our haunt up and taking it all down so fast. If you could alter just that one fact by a day or even a few hours it might help, yes? If not, I’ll get crackin’ on that whole clone thing and see what I can come up with!
November 15th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
You indeed had a very eventful Halloween my dear friend
Sounds like it’s one for the books for sure. After reading this entry, I can easily think of dozens of wonderful entries for your “You know your obsessed with Halloween if…” blogs. Leaving the splinter painfully under your fingernail all through out the night is absolute dedication to Halloween night. Some might question your sanity at that point, lol, but for those of us who know you as we do, we would expect nothing less of you. Splinter sminter, ….it’s Halloween night and John is on his mission so watch out!
The things you do for Halloween John is absolutely unreal. I have never known anyone as dedicated as you to Halloween. You are a huge asset to this planet sweetie and to us all. Your love and passion for Halloween is outstanding and it shows in all you do John. I’m also pleased that your re-organizing your year for 2011 so hopefully things will be in more control for you on Halloween night. Regardless everything looked phenomenal and just like fine wine from the beautiful Napa Valley, you and your haunt continue to age perfectly as time goes by.
Oh and THANK YOU soooooooooo much for spoiling us just a bit more with your excellent creative writing abilities. Some day I hope to write as elegantly as you do. Keep it comin’ hun….I can never get enough of it
November 15th, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Camile,
That’s really sweet of you to offer about the leaves. I would never ask you to go to all that trouble for me, but if next October starts out as warm as last month, then I just might be wishing I took you up on the offer.
Seriously, thank you, Camile — your willingness to do that for me just continues to speak volumes about how tremendously kind you are! I bet those big oaks produce some gorgeous leaves though, huh?
Sorry to hear about your splinter, but that is an interesting coincidence. Yeah, that whole nail bed thing wasn’t fun. My nail beds seem to be really sensitive anyway. I’m always jamming my fingertips against something and in the process it pulls the skin that’s under the nail away from the nail itself. In fact, I just did that today on my truck door. The result is always blood oozing out and the nail bed being extremely sore for the next several days. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when I ended up getting a splinter under my nail. It always seems like whenever you have a spot that tends to get hurt fairly easily on the body, it’s that very spot that continues getting the brunt of your injuries.
Glad you liked the part about my grandpa’s duct taped jeans! I’m always joking around with him like that, but it usually involves water being sprinkled on that same region while we’re out in public together.
Usually, if I do it lightly enough, he can’t feel it. After several squirts, the back of his jeans are pretty wet!
You’re absolutely right about trying to get a little more of the haunt set up a day in advance. I’m not sure the cemetery could be done ahead of time for several reasons, but I’m definitely going to do my best next year to have the porch entirely finished as well as having all the pumpkins carved a day or two before Halloween. With that being said, I’m still not turning down your clone either.
Thanks for your kind feedback and great comment.
Goldie,
You’re so right, it definitely was one for the books. But looking back on it, I don’t think we’ve ever not had some craziness when doing any of the more elaborate displays. Even back in the mid ’90s it was pretty chaotic, more so during the parade of trick-or-treaters than during setup, but still there was lots fun stuff going on! Of course, back then the haunt was more interactive with the kids and their parents since they had to walk through the hallway and by the display rooms to get to the front door. Now since it’s less interactive, but more detail oriented, the majority of wackiness takes place during setup.
I think my sanity always remains in question no matter what I’m doing,
but I’m glad when it comes to to Halloween that my tunnel vision and all-encompassing commitment is a little more understood, especially by those of you who know me. I always try to remember what the self-help and personal development teacher/entrepreneur, John Asaraf (sp?) says: “Someone who’s committed to accomplishing a goal and achieving their dreams will do whatever it takes. Someone’s who’s not, only does what’s convenient.” I never want to look back on anything I’ve done with SOS as taking the convenient route. So I always try to do whatever it takes, even if it means walking around with a chunk of wood under my fingernail throughout Halloween night. 
Thank you so much for your kind words about the haunt’s progression. I hope to be able to continue that trend next year as well. I’m also glad you enjoyed my writing in this entry. Personally, I think you do a wonderful job in your writing as well. I’m still waiting for the Goldie blog to come online.