Cori and Aaron talk about Halloween and a haunted house that's gone too far.
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
S3 EPISODE 8: SOMETHING'S WRONG WITH THIS HAUNTED HOUSE - powered by Happy Scribe
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. This is Season 3. If you want to connect with us or grab some merch, visit us at 7minutestories.com. That's the number, 7minutestories.com.
Hi, Aaron.
Hey.
I have a question for you.
That hey was the most-
You're a little creepy sometimes, but I love you.
What? I'm not creepy.
No, not creepy.
Is it because this is Halloween, you called me creepy?
Yes.
I was like, "Hey." I was caught off guard.
I know because I told you I was going to be in charge of the episode, and now you don't know what to do with yourself. You're just going to drink your coffee-
Drink my pumpkin spice latte.
-at our dining room table where you've set up, and you're going to now tell everyone that I have the good mic.
You do have the good mic.
I know because you're nice to me.
You also called me basic this morning.
You woke up and said, "I need a pumpkin spice latte."
Oh, I said it like that with my voice?
Actually, you just texted it to me from the bed while I was getting a kid ready for school.
I think I said, "Need a PSL," didn't I?
You did.
You sent me memes of people laying in bathtubs drinking shower water, which is actually pumpkin spice latte.
That was awesome.
Awesome. Why have you brought me here this morning?
I just wanted to ask you a question.
What's up?
Have you ever been to a haunted house?
I have, yeah. Not recently, but I have when I was in high school.
Did you go with a group of friends? Just a girl?
You asked I let a girl-
I'm just curious. What was your experience?
Yeah, it was a group of friends. Yeah, we go to haunted houses. Group of friends.
Did you go to more than one?
I've been to a few. We went to one that's scarier with jump scare where there's people hiding behind walls, pitch dark and strobe lights and blood and all that stuff, which is scary. Again, I'm easily scared of stuff. I like spooky stuff, but that.
Also, what I did like was the haunted hay rides.
Yes.
That's like, "Ooh." That was more of my speed. But yeah, that's my [crosstalk 00:02:26] extent.
Are you referring to the apple orchard that existed here in Ohio?
It may have been that.
They used to do one. It was amazing.
So fun.
So fun. Not super scary. You and I are not like, "Let's get scared out of our minds people."
Well, I've always thought about Halloween—I mean this—more from a metaphysical perspective. I find the idea of paranormal spirits… I know. I get it. I like scary energy and ghosts and all that stuff. I get that, and I have fun with that. But it's more of actually just a respect of Halloween. This was a day of the dead kind of thing. I like the idea of having a time where you're just like, yeah, this is a day where there's spirits on the other side. Maybe there's times where we intersect, and this could be a day where that happens.
You know what I like about Halloween?
Why are you making that face?
I'm not making any face.
What's that?
That's just my life every day. There's just all the spirits all the time.
Yes, we've talked about that.
Yes. It's just the spirits hotline.
It is the spirits. Does it never spike at Halloween?
No, never.
Really? Maybe it's just an arbitrary thing.
Actually, it gets quieter for me.
Really?
But I think that's just because I get excited about other stuff. I make the kids costumes every year.
Maybe the spirits just know it's overdone. They're like, "Listen."
They're like, "She's not listening anyways."
It's Halloween. Everyone's going to be there in line. It's like breakfast on a Sunday. They're like, "Look." All the spirits are like, "Look, did you see the line? It's going to be a two-hour wait."
Yeah, we're good. No, Halloween for me has never been about spirits. It's always been about fun and candy and-
Trick or treat.
Yeah.
Costumes.
I love costumes. I love making the kids costumes. It's my favorite thing. My biggest fear about them growing up is that they're at some point going to stop wearing costumes.
Well, if you haven't, and neither have I… We don't go crazy, but we do. We come up with a costume idea every year.
Oh, yeah. Last year, we were my octopus teacher, which took the most tiny amount of effort. We got you some goggles and I sewed a stuffed octopus onto a headband, and we moved on with our lives.
Also, please remember this. I think if people have listened to this podcast, they'll know there's a story, a very slight reference, one Halloween where I was one Captain James T. Kirk, and you were a Tribble.
Oh, yeah. I was.
Remember the trouble with Tribbles? I was Kirk and you were just this fuzzy ball.
Yeah, it was amazing.
It was incredible.
I wore a fake fur coat that I bought at an estate sale. It was amazing.
It was. Yeah. I do think Halloween is a time for people to… There's people who want to get scared out of their minds with movies or haunted houses or experiences, but I think that it's another opportunity to transform into something else, to dress up for a day. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. So fun.
Yeah.
I prefer the fun parts of Halloween over the, "Let's get scared out of our minds," parts.
Right.
I feel like you and I are not the kind of people that are like, "Yes. You know what? We enjoy being uncomfortable."
Never.
Not a chance.
I know we said we weren't going to talk too much about this place, but here's an example.
Because the mere mention of it scares me.
I'm just going to say one time. We talked about the different types of haunted houses, what we enjoy. There is a part of society, though, that for some reason, Halloween or not, enjoys really terrifying things.
There's this place called McKamey Manor. Remember we were talking about that? We got this Yahoo Lifestyle article referencing. Here's the basic points about it. It is, you have to sign doctor's notices, sign consent forms. You have to get a psychological evaluation, and then you go through 10 hours of torture to win $20,000.
Didn't it say something about the torture including, by the way, hypodermic needles or something?
Yeah, this is what I'm saying. Like you said, you think about all of human evolution and the drive to maintain some quality of life with air conditioning, heat, and comfort. These people are going against that, and they're like, "No, we'd rather be scared out of our minds to the point where we feel like we're going to die."
Prior to participating, contestants must sign a 40-page waiver, which according to the leaked portion of the alleged waiver, includes agreeing that the tour may include the use of hypodermic needles, zappers, tasers, or dog shot collars, that a nail may pierce their hand or be smashed with tools, or that the nails may be removed from their nail beds.
How is this guy not arrested? First of all, anyone who's doing that-
They might get a tattoo or have a tooth extracted without Novocain.
We might lose a couple of [crosstalk 00:07:05]
What?
If you're doing that, get out of town. I don't want to talk to you. Something's wrong with you. Won a gazillion chance to be alive and you're like, "Yeah, let me get my nails pulled out for fun."
Or your teeth.
What is wrong with you? These people need help. They need help. The other thing is the guy who needs help—and probably should be arrested, I'm not going to say it—is whoever's running that, something's wrong with you.
I have so many thoughts in my head right now, I can't even begin to express because I just don't understand.
Can I just end with this? I think the majority of people… I could be wrong. People could reach out to us at the website, let us know if we're wrong. I think the majority of people are like us, or even people who like regular horror movies. That's totally normal. I get it. But here's the scary thing. It's not just a couple of people. Do you know how many people are on a waiting list for this place? Did you read that part?
Ten thousand people.
You see that? Ten thousand people.
Ten thousand people. More importantly, if anyone has ever actually gone to this place, please email me because I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask you.
Yeah. Hey. Happy Halloween.
Happy Hallows' Eve. That was my creepy voice. Bye.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by T.J. Duke. If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company, ValleyView, does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcast. I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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