Scaring people is a family tradition. It has been this way since I can remember. As twilight fell upon the third floor of our house, my sisters and I took turns jumping out of closets yelling, “Gotcha.” My father used to prank us with the fuse switches in the basement, reducing whatever room we were playing in into blackness while yowling ghostly noises up the laundry shoot. We watched scary movies and donned monkey masks and vampire teeth and terrified each other with stories of swinging tree-top creatures who peered into open windows at night. It happened all year long, spring or summer, day or night.
It wasn’t until I got married that I realized the odd nature of my family’s gleeful scaring sprees.
Matt’s job kept him out late, and he usually got home around one in the morning. One summer night, somewhere around our two month anniversary, I decided it was time to induct my new husband into the family tradition of spooking.
I heard his truck pull into the drive, so I crept over and hid directly behind the front door. I heard his keys jingle outside and the latch snap as he opened the door. Now that I look back on it, I realize it made a sad picture; my poor, foot weary, hard working husband, coming home to a weird crouching wife, waiting to scare the life out of him in the dark. I know ... horrible ... but it seemed like fun to me at the time.
I waited until he shut the door and seized my opportunity. I jumped from the dark corner, fingers curled like claws and made a catlike sound, “Hissss!”
What happened afterward shocked me. I was used to family members being momentarily stunned and then laughing, slapping their knees and saying, “I’m gonna really get you next time.”
That. Is. Not. What. Happened.
My lovely, strong, handsome new husband leaped backwards, belting out the loudest roar I’d ever heard. It went something like this, “ARIRGHGHGHGHGHGIIIIRGHGHGHAAARIRIGHG.”
And while he was emitting his bear-like shriek of horror, he simultaneously threw his keys. I’m not sure why. He didn’t throw them at me, but he vaulted them as a projectile object all the way through the living room and into the kitchen at the back of the house. Pure horror causes people to do strange things.
I immediately knew I had made a mistake, ceased hissing and stood still, hands at my side, eyes wide.
Matt slumped against a chair, exhausted from his massive adrenaline induced fight or flight reaction, “Why would you do that?”
I bit my lip, “I thought it would be funny?”
Matt stared at me silently, obviously rethinking his legal commitments to a complete psycho bride.
I dug a deeper hole, “We do it all the time at home ... it’s fun?”
“Please don’t ever do that to me again,” Matt asked seriously.
“OK,” I promised.
And I never have. Honestly, I still feel guilty about that ordeal. I’d like to say that our house is a boo-free zone, but Halloween makes me crave a good scare. And since Matt is off-limits, I save all my spooking energy for Mabel. When I jump out from behind a closet door and yell “Gotcha” at her, she gets it. She runs in circles barking, wagging her tail and Matt watches TV, silently shaking his head.
Boo; not everybody likes it.
