Bodies… all… the… bodies…

Today is Dia De Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.  When I lived in Las Cruces, NM this was a pretty big deal.

In the antiquated town of Mesilla on the southern outskirts of Las Cruces they shut down the town square and people from all over the area set up alters for their deal loved ones.  It’s really cool to walk around and check out the different altars, each one laid out with the favorite items of their deceased.  Its hard not to eat the food laid out for them too because it’s always something really awesome and homemade and of the Mexican variety… dear god I miss Green Chile.

Speaking of the dead I checked out Cutting Edge haunted house in Fort Worth last night.  I went with the two male offspring of my sister along with one’s “bff” and the other’s “gftw” (gurl friend this week, I swear he goes through them like underwear.  I miss being 18.).  What a bright idea it was showing up to the fifth best haunted house in the nation at 9:30 on Halloween night.  What an intelligent idea it was…

I figured we had a wait ahead of us but we literally stood in line for about 3-4 hours.  We were like heffers amongst costumed cattle being carted off to slaughter.  Every now and then a guy would pop into the crowd with a chain saw and chase people around; he actually chased a girl dressed like Little Bo Peep out of the line.  The poor girl came back to her group about 20 minutes later.

I began to think the scariest part of the haunted house was going to be wasting $25 and 4 hours in line for people to jump out and yell “boo” a couple times but I have to admit I was thoroughly impressed.  It was mostly dark twists and turns through smoke and eardrum-piercing snaps and pops but it definitely had it’s highlights.

One room was filled with wet dead bodies wrapped in plastic hanging from the ceiling.  The whole scene was reminiscent of a reoccurring nightmare I used to have when I was little so it got to me quite a bit.  One of my nephews ahead of me was swinging the bodies so against the strobe light you couldn’t really tell when you were going to get shwacked with a slippery wet body.

After we passed through the room of live drummers banging along to the metal playing in the background they took us to a big room and played a “SAW”-like video saying we were going to play a game.  They then turned off the lights and released us into a maze with glow sticks to find the door marked “I want to live”.  Somehow we all managed to go out one door but my younger nephew didn’t make it out…

We waited for the maze to clear but he never came out so we figured he got all mavericky on me.  Ahead was a sign that said “WARNING you will get wet” and this begun the most terrifying part of the house.  I have to admit this part really messed with me.  The room was filled with thick steam and very little to no lighting; somewhat like the steam room at a trashy gay bath house… it’s like it puts you in a horror movie mindset and tricks you into thinking that everything might not be okay for a minute…

Anyway we had to grope our way out along the wall exiting the haunted house through a tunnel of foam completely soaking all of our clothes, phones, cigarettes, etc etc etc. hoping to find my nephew waiting for us on the outside but he was nowhere to be found.  After about 15 minutes I started to worry, I mean the kid’s 16 and built like a brick steroid factory but once upon a time I changed his diapers and played power rangers with him so I get protective.

I walked out to the car and he wasn’t there.  Just to be safe I went to a cop and told him that we had gotten separated from someone in the group and he talked into his little ear thing a bit and said they’d look for him.  I turned to walk back to the group and out from the foam came the missing nephew covered in bubbles.  He said as he left the maze someone took him to a different area so I totally think that’s part of their whole mind trip, scare the hell out of you by thinking someone in your party didn’t make it out!

After that we hauled ass out of Fort Worth to try and get the nephew’s girlfriend home before 11 so she could wake up bright and early for the SAT’s at 6am.  The current time was 2 something in the morning and they still had about an hours drive to go.

Poor girl’s going to have to go to a state school.