Okay, I'll admit that the first time I went through a haunted house I was scared. In fact; I was so scared that I ran out of it so fast I lost a tennis shoe. I was just a little kid. But since that fateful night at a cheap carnival in the Clarks department store parking lot I've not been frightened in a haunted house. To borrow the title of a great Pursuit Of Happiness song: I'm an adult now. What's there to fear from a bunch of teenagers in masks screaming at the top of their lungs.
Not that haunted houses aren't fun. I recently ventured forth to Nashville with Shrub and Kara from Goblinhaus and visited a couple of them and you should be able to read about that soon here. I had a good time, but the only horrifying part was the lack of an air conditioner at Death Row. While I may not have been terrified I did get to witness others that really were twitchy with fear. They may not have lost a shoe, but they did scamper away like rabbits when the Leatherface impersonators showed up with their carbon monoxide polluting chainsaws. They were the sort of haunted house goers that would never be able to make it out of that house that will give you a refund if you make it all the way through the attraction.
You know the one I'm talking about. It's 13 stories tall and you get a dollar back for every floor you get through. At least that's what my daughter's friend Miranda told her. When Emmy told me this before I set off for my haunted adventure last Saturday I chuckled. I told Shrub and Kara the story while we drank some beers at the Gerst Haus. I told them you hear all kinds of funny stories from 3rd graders. Later while waiting outside at Death Row we heard a variation of the story again.
No; Miranda wasn't visiting Death Row. This time a high school dude told Shrub all about this haunt in Kentucky that offered a refund if you could make it through the entire thing. When Shrub pressed him for the exact location he couldn't tell us. It was just "somewhere" in Kentucky. I suppose for many haunted house attendees this urban legend holds out a beguiling two sided allure. If you make it you're a hero and if you don't you can get in touch with the little kid inside yourself that perhaps once lost a shoe and feel that innocent fear once more. Whatever the reason, every year people will tell you about such haunted houses that are so scary they offer you cash back if you can make it to the end.
A quick trip through Google land and I found this from a Dallas website. Here's is another one about Dallas from Yahoo Answers. I found another one on Yahoo Answers about the St. Louis area posted a year ago. The chimera house has also been spotted in Kernelsville, North Carolina. The poster does say that it sounds like BS to them, but wishes it were true. Later, in the thread another person posts this. They are smart enough to include a link to the Snopes page on this phenomenon. The greater Chicago area also is a hotbed for this as this page from Haunted Illinois shows.
Like they say on one certain show; I think this myth is busted.
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