The Haunted House

When I traveled to Ben & Jocelyn’s wedding in Kentucky, their families were kind enough to spring for a guesthouse for us largely un(der)employed twenty-something guests to stay at, making the whole trip significantly more affordable. The home was just down the street from Ben’s childhood home and conveniently walking distance from restaurants, bars, and the site of the wedding. Given those details, I would have been happy if the house was a shack with yoga mats to sleep on, but I was pleasantly surprised at how amazing the accommodations were.

Before I give you the wrong impression, this house was no playboy mansion. It was a large place for sure, but not the vacation destination that young people would normally choose. Instead, this house was a grandmother’s paradise – literally. The house had belonged to a recently deceased octogenarian woman, pictured here.

When I first entered, I excitedly sprinted around the house screeching “Oh my gosh!” as if I was first touring a posh pad for The Real World. Just about everyone else had a different reaction, however: they found it creepy and believed it to be haunted. To quash the haunted rumors, Ben’s mom told us that the woman had not died in the house. But the woman was practically homebound, so of course she died in the house, this was a lie meant to placate.

It was huge. There were enough beds to sleep about twenty people, and even though we were never even close to being at capacity, people still wound up passing out on the floor or in broken wicker chairs. What can I say, it was that kind of week.

If I didn’t love the house enough, I loved it even more when I found out the deceased woman had raised about a million kids in the house, but now lived alone. Well, practically alone. One and a half people, really. It was just her and a quadriplegic living there. Since her house was so big, some quadriplegic stayed there, too, and they shared a caretaker. If you didn’t know, I am obsessed with quadriplegics and for all the wrong reasons. Well, I’m not really sure what the right reasons would be, but I digress. Lose one limb, that sucks. Lose them all, and DAMN. How can I not gawk and be fascinated? It didn’t matter that that guy moved (or was moved rather, hahaha) when the homeowner died, just being there was fantastic enough.

I know people thought the artwork was hideous, but I rather liked it.

And this boy is ridiculous. A mirror hung on the wall opposite from him, so it was like he was perpetually looking at his reflection and responding with surprise.

I liked him so much, I made him say bacon.

Here’s the entrance.

The house also had a nice porch. Look at Jenna enjoy the porch.

While we’re on the subject, ask Jenna about how she didn’t know that the phrase “porch monkey” is considered a racial slur. Good times.

Most of the guests were thrown by the chotskies, finding them absurd and tacky.

Needless to say, I find them awesome, not "creepy." I do understand why, when one guest woke up in the night feeling "watched" and realized there was a painted woman looking at her, she was spooked.

I don't get the fear surrounding the doll room. Having a room full of dolls is peculiar, but not dangerous. Some people found the dolls so eery that they wouldn't even step foot in it.

On the other hand, I enjoyed the dolls' company.

And here's the room that scared people the most. Though every room was furnished, this one room had nothing in it but a chair. Apparently, this is "scary." Again, it's peculiar - the explanation was that the dead woman was on an oxygen tank and she liked a quiet private room to do that in - but it's not frightening.

I was dared to spend ten minutes alone in the room, which I accepted. And guess what: Nothing happened!

I can get pretty scared, but when other people get scared around me, I tend to find it silly and employ logic instead to remove the fear, and step up as the brave one. Consequently, I was the one to always go check on random noises, explore new rooms first with a flashlight, etc. I got a thrill from it. After a while, I got a bit cocky with my brave status. One night, I boasted that I would go explore down in a vent located on the floor.

I had anticipated that there would be a crawl space down there, but this suspicion proved untrue. It might have been for the best, because if I actually ended up crawling around down there by myself, I would have actually been terrified. Improvising with the situation, I suggested that people put the grate back over me, call someone else into the room, and have me pop out to terrify them. (Note: this all happened in the pitch dark, but the flash illuminates it for us.)

It worked well, look at Stephanie's surprise.

Actually, it worked too well. Despite freaking out, she still took an extra step forward, causing her to start falling into the hole and landing on the ground.

Ha, that was great. Maybe this house is haunted... by me!

I know most people were happy to get out of that place, but I would honestly stay in that house on a vacation again. What can I say, I love the decorating style of recently deceased elderly women. If no one wants to go with me, maybe I can invite the quadriplegic to visit his old home. We could contact the dead woman by having a seance. Well, maybe not a seance since we couldn't hold hands, but I'm sure we'd find some fun non-appendage-requiring activities like looking at dolls or something.