On Sunday the 18th, I took a trip to Maris Farms with Amber and Mana to visit their Haunted Woods attraction. I’d wanted to get there early enough to take a monster truck ride and see the pumpkin trebuchet and all sorts of other things, but I became engrossed in something and didn’t end up getting there until 5:30, at which point, I got to wander around for half an hour until they closed, pet some teeny-tiny goats, squee over the teeny-tiny racing pigs, and then leave because my Haunted Woods ticket was good for 8pm and they don’t want people there more than fifteen minutes early.

So, I left to go buy dinner somewhere nearby to pass time, and ended up at a place called ‘Burgers International & Pizzeria’ which I FULLY intended to mock. Fully. Because what meal could possibly be less international than burgers?

Friends, I had to make room for my snotty words in addition to my meal when I saw the menu. It was organized by country/continent in terms of where the meat originated. Yakburgers from Nepal. Ostrich from Africa. Kangaroo from Australia. Llamas from…somewhere. Also, specialty ‘burgers from the sea’. Exotic meats AND mocking Jessica Simpson: This place has EVERYTHING.

But that wasn’t all. International burgers is owned by Austrian Baron Manfred and Baroness Ingeborg von Vierthaler. They handcraft their own schnitzel. And I am certain that if Baron Manfred had been around for me to pledge allegiance to him, he would surely sport a bitching mustache, an eyepatch, a dashing grin, and he’d tell me that he slays all of the animals his patrons gorge on with his bare hands.

Guess what I got, guys? Guess!

A BLACK BEAR BURGER. The waitress tried to talk me into something more similar to beef for reasons unbeknownst to me–perhaps Baron Manfred was tired and didn’t feel like wrestling yet another bear. Or perhaps she’s sick and tired of people complaining when the taste of the exotic meats isn’t exactly what they thought it would be. Either way, I would not be deterred. I ate half of Winnie The Pooh (who was delicious), and I saved the other half for Napoleon so he can brag to the other dogs when he goes to Dog Hell that not only has he eaten a bear, he got someone else to do all of the hard work of killing, cleaning, and cooking for him. Truly, he will be every dog’s hero.

I imagine I’ll find myself there more than is entirely healthy, considering they gave me a punch card–buy 12 burgers and the 13th is free–and they serve an awful lot of animals that I’ve never had the opportunity to consume before.

I met up with Amber and Mana back at the farm near 8, and ended up having a really good time despite the group in front of us that walked so slowly that we kept catching up to them and having scares ruined by the girl in that group that yipped like a chihuahua at every opportunity and then started messing with exhibits to, I don’t know, prove she wasn’t scared AND that she was a total fucking asshat. She became known to our group as Dog Girl and it was a total shame that we didn’t get it share that with her.

This time, Amber and Mana pushed me to the front of the group, and I must admit that they even got a few womanish screams out of me, and a vibrating plate in the ground nearly caused me to jump straight out of my stompy boots. The only gripe I’ve got about the haunted woods themselves is that one of the indoor portions was pitch black, which would be fine except I ended up feeling up some poor employee while fumbling about blindly in the wrong direction–if you’re going to send a group through somewhere COMPLETELY blind, there probably ought to be only one direction to travel in. Though that could have been the point–for a while, it seemed like there were two people attempting to separate the group and lead us in different directions. However, being total girls, we clung to one another and eventually blundered our way out after someone stuck a feather in my mouth (perhaps revenge for my totally unintentional knocker-grabbing).

All in all, it was a totally worthwhile trip, and next year, I will definitely be going back for monster truck rides in addition to the haunted woods.

Last night, I met up with Amber & Mana and a few other people and we went to the Kube 93 Haunted House, located at what used to be the Georgetown Morgue. The scares started early, as I dug through my cabinets to find canned food to donate to save money off of the ticket price and I found that the majority of everything in my cabinets was expired, some of it as far back as 2006. That’s right. I moved expired food. Twice. My attention to detail is nothing but astouding, and I’m sure you’re all duly impressed by my housekeeping abilities.

Now, shadowstitch has indicated that if Fallout has taught him anything, it’s that canned food can be good well past the expiration dates, minus a bit of radiation poisoning, HOWEVER, I feel that it’s not really in the spirit of donation to give people botulism.

I arrived early AGAIN (this is the third event in a week that I’ve showed up not just on time, but early. What’s the matter with me? Am I ill?) and hung around waiting for everyone; in the air hung the pungent odor of the loathesome HoneyBuckets, and the night was pierced by shrieks and running chainsaws. The majority of the group finally showed, and we waited together for the few remaining stragglers and watched as a clown repeatedly chased people out of the attraction with chainsaw and laughed because WE knew what was coming at the end now.

They split our group of ten up into two groups of five; I got partnered with 4 girls I’d never met before, and ended up bringing up the rear. For a while, I definitely felt like the man of the group–the other four would shriek and cover their heads and wail and moan and lil ole me bringing up the rear didn’t react at all, mainly because the pop-out scares were always directed at the front of the group. However, later in the house, people made me jump a few times by following me for a while through the pitch black areas and blowing into my hair. Toward the end, the girl in front of me was so freaked out, she grabbed for my hand and put it in a deathgrip, and this is when the clown came out of a side alley, fired up his chainsaw and started chasing us.

…I’m not going to lie, we scattered like sheep.

Running for twenty steps or so works up a hearty appetite, so afterward we all went to Beth’s Cafe, featured on Man vs Food & known for its twelve-egg omelette, which none of us were ballsy enough to order. Whilst we waited for our food, we drew pictures with crayons and admired the plethora of wax-based artwork already on the walls:

I got the bacon waffle which turned out to be even MORE delicious than it sounds. Frankly, I didn’t know it was possible to stuff so much pig product into a waffle iron and still have room for waffle batter, but I’m glad to live in a world where I know now that valiant men and women make the attempt.

All of this screaming and dining has barely sated our lust for screaming and dining, and this is why we are planning an outing to Maris Farms this Sunday, the 18th. They’ve got a Haunted Forest that is supposed to be the very best and scariest in the state (it’s a 35 minute hike!) and you’re not even supposed to show up more than 15 minutes earlier than your scheduled ticket time because the scares start from the moment you get out of your car. However, given that it’s all the way up in freaking Buckley and it’s exceedingly difficult to coordinate disparate groups of people to arrive within fifteen minutes of a specific time when we all live so far away, AND there’s stuff I (and ANY non-terrorist) would want to do there during the day ANYWAY (like MONSTER TRUCK RIDES and the triple crown of pig racing and a DESTRUCTION ZONE where they LAUNCH PUMPKINS WITH A TREBUCHET TOWARD A TRAMPOLINE (this can only end in awesome, I swear) and and and and) so I’m thinking we go for the afternoon on Sunday, leave & grab some dinner somewhere in the area, and then we’ll all be together to arrive for the Haunted Forest. Anyone interested? CAN YOU SAY NO TO THIS?

If you want to come, I would suggest buying your ticket(s) now as supposedly this attraction tends to sell out. We’re doing the 8pm time slot for the Haunted Woods, we can figure out when we’re heading up to the farm for all the other stuff closer to the 18th.