We have work today?

It was our first Wednesday of the season... and also our last Wednesday of the season.  Due to the wet weather of the month, Bates has been closed the past two Wednesdays.  It felt odd to be there on this past evening.  Granted, the Wet Wednesdays were a nice break, but it certainly threw me off when I set foot on the farm.  Do I still get makeup or should I just sit there and look purdy?  Do I still act like a sick hick or should be a hospitable southern man?  Do I still speak in that twang or should I speak like an Australian?  Many confusing questions I had in my head, but turns out Wednesday is just like any other day.  Who knew?!

Also, tonight was the last night for our weekday saw-bed victim, Janet.  I will miss seeing her around the farm these next few days!  We had been singing wonderful Disney tunes in between wagons that sure got me through the past couple nights.

When you sacrifice your social life and your sanity for the sake of this job, the people you work with on these nights become your family.  They become the only people you truly converse with for the month because you're either sleeping or just too drained whenever you have contact with other human beings.  And what a family!  Any folk who work at a haunted attraction are a special breed, but I feel as if the ones at Bates are a very particular breed.  You could spend each evening talking to somebody new and still become fascinated or mesmerized by each one of their personalities and their lives.  And the whole experience of scaring folk every night for a month.  You learn things about people you would not normally learn about someone you just met a month ago.  You learn what makes them tick.  You learn what issues they have going on with them in their lives.  You learn about how they truly are.  The farm is an escape.  From your life at school.  From your work.  From your loved ones.  Even from any issues you have going on in your life.  For just one month, those issues get put on hold if you want them on hold.  Or the family takes care of them for you.  Either way, the farm is a nice getaway.

Anyways...

The night was yet another night at the sawmill for myself and Colin.  I believe I am pushing my feet a little too far.  My right foot is acting up and now I have a temporary zombie walk for a couple weeks to come.  This is all, of course, my fault because I don't pay heed to my body when I am in character.  The whole scare for my scene involves myself posing as a mannequin on a giant spool.  I jump, sometimes clicking my heels, laughing or barking like a dog, as my feet in my boots meet the dirt ground.  It has taken a toll most on my feet, my knees, and my back.  But no matter, I say, I'm young, I'll recover!  However, tonight, every jump was felt in the SOULS of my feet, as I would sometimes yelp at the patrons; not out for fright's sake, but for pain's sake.  Oh well!  November is for recovery.  It's still October!

Due to the closures of the Wet Wednesday, our family night and military appreciation night were rescheduled for this evening.  Tonight would call for a much more respectful and respectable crowd.  Tonight involved a lot of laughs.  Good-hearted laughs, if I may add.  I had a lot of enjoyment just conversing with the folk tonight.  In my hillbilly hootinany, of course!  There were a few scaredy cats on the back of the wagon tonight.  I'm not sure if I told you how Colin and I like to follow folks out of our scene, but we sure got some good screams and laughs tonight out of that.

Later in the evening, Colin's brothers came through.  We weren't entirely sure what wagon he'd be on, so we just had to keep an eye out.  We knew we couldn't really scare them on account of them being brothers and not a mother (moms are always easy to scare, yet I don't feel right scaring my mom...), so we tried for the whole let's-make-them-uncomfortable-and-create-a-show-out-of-it.  So a few wagons went by when I got word they were in the woods.  I jumped down and they were immediately there.  Perfect timing, maybe.  I grabbed on to the one.  And Colin snorted into the other's ears.  It's always rough scaring somebody you know.  If they have no idea where you are and what you do, it's easier, but if they do know that fact, then you have to get creative with the scares.  And the hayride is extremely difficult to get creative.

After that wagon went through, Colin and I both just wanted to be done, for it was past sell time.  And soon enough, we were.  The end to our first and last Wednesday of the season!

(End of 20th evening).