No one tells you how hard being a parent is. How quickly time passes, how violent your child inevitably becomes. Your sweet, sweet child. You think they’ll eventually be like you, and probably they will, but by then you will have changed as well. In the meantime, you have to put up with the growing pains. The murder, the mutiny, the exorcisms, the cannibalism, drinking all the fucking Diet Coke.
I think my son Jimmy is trying to lose weight. On that assumption, I told him if he wants to reduce his caloric intake, he should start by consuming less human flesh.
“I’m afraid they don’t make Diet Human,” I joked, and he just scoffed – he scoffs at everything nowadays. “That was so lame. Hannibal Lecter would never make a lame joke like that. What’re you even talking about?”
I reminded him that Hannibal Lecter wasn’t real, certain people were just talking about him as if he was real, and anyway even if he was, he’d be pretty old by this point. Then there was a knock at my door – and wouldn’t you know it.
Hannibal Lecter sat on my couch drinking a can of Diet Coke through a straw, looking up at me from under surprisingly long eyelashes with his big blue eyes. He twirled the straw around with one finger. “A lot of people started believing in me,” Hannibal said, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Guess that makes me kind of cool. For a ‘pretty old’ guy, anyway.”
“Super cool,” murmured Jimmy.
“I don’t know,” Hannibal said, not breaking eye contact. His eyelids hung heavy like thick curtains in a smoky room. “Regardless, here I am.”
“Dad,” said Jimmy, “He should totally work at the haunted hayride this year. So many people would come to see him.”
But being a parent means making hard decisions. If you don’t want your kid to get addicted to TV, you don’t buy them an 86-inch ultra high-definition television. You buy them a book about bugs or a bucket of goo or something, and say, “Get addicted to that.” And it works. Or should work. Parenting should really work that way.
I didn’t need my cannibalically-inclined son hanging around the man who put contemporary cannibalism on the map, so I turned Hannibal away, claiming I didn’t need the extra business – to which he replied that I would need it actually now that he was going to eat all the business.
“Come, Jimmy. Hannibal’s going to show you how a real Daddy terrifies the public.” Then, whispering in my ear and nibbling it a little, he said, “Good luck, babe.”
And Jimmy left with him, because Jimmy is an impressionable teenager. Between you and me, I think he’s still a little hurt after what happened last Halloween. But being a parent also means letting your kids make their own mistakes.
Anyway, here are the changes to the haunted hayride this year now that Hannibal Lecter has manifested Santa Claus-like by way of some of you entertaining the thought that he could, maybe, who knows, it’s a crazy world out there, be real:
- Farm, shmarm. The hayride’s going through the whole town this year. And instead of riding in the wagon behind the tractor, we’ll be in – you guessed it – an armored vehicle!
- There’s no need to wait your turn at the beginning of the hayride anymore. Hop in the armored vehicle whenever you like. Like if, for example, you feel you’re being watched.
- You’re being watched! By me, on the cameras installed in the armored vehicle, for liability reasons. That bad boy was expensive as hell and I won’t have anyone’s slippery kids spilling hot chocolate on the leather seats. For perspective, you’re also being watched by two cannibals. So take your pick – potential lawsuit for damaging my property, or a potential run-in with a man who once made a mask out of someone’s face. Up to you!
- I used to have a firm no-guns-on-the-hayride policy. Then there was that year I got waaay too lax about it… and since then I’ve settled on a safe middle ground: You can carry a gun, but you have to prove that you know how to use it responsibly. I’ve always preferred evidence of this to be a cool trick, like shooting an apple off of a loved one’s head, or spinning it around on your finger and then steadying it really quickly in someone’s direction. But I’m afraid for Jimmy’s sake, so I’m going to have to go back to the no-guns policy.
- If you’re starting to think this year’s hayride sounds a bit like a one-spook pony, think again. For one, Hannibal Lecter indoctrinating my son is not part of the hayride. People being eaten is not part of the hayride, for Christ’s sake! People being scared out of their minds, however, is part of the hayride, which is why I’ve hired several Anthony Hopkins lookalikes to roam around town, smacking their lips in dark corners and grinding spice mixes as if for a delicious roast! There might even be one hiding in the armored vehicle. 😉
- Okay, sure, that actually does make this year’s hayride sound like a one-spook pony. But I’m not done yet. You remember the freaky little guy from Saw, right? He’s going to be a part of the hayride as well! He’ll be on the TV in the armored vehicle.
- “Oh, but Creepy Marty, isn’t the freaky little guy from Saw fictional too?” Of course he is, don’t be an idiot. I hired someone who promised to behave and do exactly as the freaky little guy from Saw behaves and does. He said, and I even have this in the contract, “It will be fiction come to life. And with it, justice.” I mean, come on. That’s so metal, right?
- Speaking of icons! I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention beloved haunted hayride attraction, Freddie Krueger. He had a falling out with Jimmy after calling him pathetic, so I wasn’t sure I’d be able to book him without causing an issue. But Jimmy’s cast his lot with another Spookmeister, and I need to get butts in the armored vehicle, so he’s back!
- Be gentle with Freddie. He may not haunt your dreams with the same maniacal intensity you remember from previous years’ hayrides. He may seem a little… subdued. I’m not supposed to go into detail as to why. Okay, fine – I’ll say this. Freddie knew to stay away from Epstein’s island, knew what those dreams would look like. But, especially as you get older, it’s hard to stay up to date with pop culture. “Who’s this Diddy guy?” he asked me once. “I don’t know, a jazz singer, I think.” And that’s on me. That’s my fault.
- I imagine most people haven’t plumbed the depths of AI to see what kind of horrors it can produce. I have! And so has Jimmy. The other day he used generative AI to make gruesome images of Peanuts movies about minor holidays, claiming afterwards he, “saw God, and feared Him, finally.” I haven’t yet figured out how to incorporate AI into the haunted hayride (though I know that once I do, it’ll mean Big Money), but I bring it up because the scars wrought by plumbing those depths have left me with a condition, and I can no longer legally drive. I’m currently accepting applications for a driver. If no one submits, I’m getting Waymo installed.
- We’re going green! The hay is being replaced with microplastics.
“Election year? More like Election fear,” one of you joked the other day, suggesting I make Creepy Marty’s Creepy Halloween Hayride Haunt election-themed. I gave Hannibal your address.
Happy Halloween!
