Ghost Story

Alicia is afraid of the vacuum cleaner. If someone flushes a toilet and she hears the water running through pipes "somewhere", she gets startled. Finding a stray hair touching her skin is enough to cause her to completely freak out.

So when she told me she wanted to go into the haunted house at the Chugiak Elementary School Halloween Carnival, I had some doubts.

Several 3rd grade girls, dressed up as various princesses and storybook characters were in the hall outside the haunted house in full debate with their mothers as to whether or not they wanted to try entering the room of doom. Alicia pushed past them, handed her 3 tickets to the door keeper and ducked inside.

She has a habit of running ahead. As it turns out, this isn't so wise in the confines of a haunted house. I tried to catch up with her in the darkened entry hall. But I wasn't moving quite fast enough to get to her before a high school student dressed up like a mummy leaped out from under a low-lying elementary school table and yelled, "boo!". Alicia let out the perfect, terrified scream while jumping at least 2 feet off the floor. She immediately burst into tears.

The mummy felt so bad she pulled off some of her wraps to assure Alicia that she wasn't really that scary. Too late...

Alicia had bolted back through the dark entryway and out the door, flying past the indecisive 3rd graders and settling their debate.