THE UGLY
Obviously I've been procrastinating on this one. Mostly because it's pretty embarrassing for me. So I'll make it as quick and painless as possible.
As a sophomore in college I was looking for a small job. Nothing fancy, just something to earn a few more dollars a week for spending money. Mid-September I thought I found the perfect one. Actually it
was the perfect one. The commitment was for five hours every night until October 31st. I was hired as a spook in a haunted house.
This was an easy job. All I had to do was show up, find out which ghoul I was assigned to be and the make-up artists would do the rest! I was a cloaked spirit (this one was my personal favorite because you were supposed to be silent at all times and just follow people and hide in corners. I actually made several grown men scream out this way), I was a mummy that shot out of a coffin, I was a ghostly prisoner locked up in the cell of the living-dead (This one required a lot of screaming, and moaning. The owner liked to put me in this position the most because I was good at it. He even gave me a cash bonus a couple times!) and a few other ghosts or ghouls that don't really have any names.
Anyway, it was because of the cell of the living-dead that I found myself in the throws of embarrassment.
There were always two prisoners in the cell. I was in there often and usually put with the same guy. Now for the first couple of weeks there aren't many people who visit a haunted house, so we had lots of time to talk and pass the time away. You can probably see where this is going. He was about a year older than me and pretty cute from what I could see on his drivers license (that was the only way to show each other what we looked like - lucky for me my driver license picture was pretty good in those days).
On some of those slow nights half of the staff, being bored, somehow would get caught up in an impromptu game of sardines, hide and go seek, or tag. Our "haunting" grounds was a lazer tag arena turned haunted house, so there were lots of places to hide. I don't remember which game we were playing, but I was hiding one night and my cell partner stumbled across me and hid in the same place. We were laughing and snickering - and then he pulled me in for a kiss. (What?! Where did that come from?) Did I kiss him back? I don't know. Maybe.
The next night the owner called me into his office before "showtime" and had me sit. I thought "Cool, is he going to tell me about another bonus opportunity or that I'm an awesome Dracula?" Instead started he started with this. "Do you have something to tell me?" What? I clearly didn't know where he was going with this, total confusion until - I remembered the stolen kiss last night. So I just said "About what?" I'll spare you the utter details, but he went on to tell me that someone came to him last night and said they thought they witnessed some inappropriate activity. I went red and felt like the big spot light from the sky was shinning down on me. "Well, he kissed me." My boss waited. Then squinted his eyes and said "He kissed you. He didn't do this or this to you?" WHAT????? Now I'm red-
hot. I had to clear my name! I explained to him the games and the kiss, but was SOOOO embarrassed that people were thinking otherwise.
After making sure there was going to be no more riff-raff in his Haunted House, which included double checking with me about what happened and then announcing to the
whole staff that he knows all that goes on in his arena and there will be no "fooling around". (Which by then everyone knew what he was talking about through gossip in the work place - so MORE embarrassment for me during this little announcement since only he knew the true story). We went back to work that day, but I never saw my cell partner again.
There it's out and it's done. No more UGLY stories. Don't ask me anymore.
