Hot on the heels of two intense back-to-back days of theme park trekking, we had a blissfully quiet day planned for today. At least, that was the case for Sandy and Joey. Jae and I had a date tonight with all the ghosts and ghouls from Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights event (HHN). This was going to be the first time any of us had experienced HHN. Jae is super keen on all things Halloween, so this was to be her 19th birthday present from Sandy and me. Tonight was to be all about Jae and what she wanted to do. I really hope she enjoys the experience.
In the meantime, we had to get through the rest of today first. Fortunately, since everyone was up very late this morning, there wasn’t that much of the day to worry about occupying. Sandy fancied giving KFC a try for lunch today, so we loaded into the car with Joey (Jae decided to stay home) and off we set.
After a rather uninspiring lunch, we made our way to a nearby Ross shop. Joey had scored a couple of inexpensive Transformer toys at another one of these the day before. Sure enough, at this particular Ross, they had a small selection available, which Joey wasted no time in clearing out. They were all older models, although that didn’t present any issues for Joey. It did mean they were considerably cheaper than what we had been spending on them in the parks. It makes a big difference to pay just $8 for a six-inch Transformer at Ross, versus upwards of $30 or more for something similar in the theme parks—especially when Joey has accumulated around thirty of them so far on this holiday.
We needed to pick up a few food provisions for back home, and the afternoon was by now starting to tick on. I was conscious of the time, as I had to be home soon to make the planned 5 pm departure time to Universal, which I had earlier agreed with Jae. We had just enough time to stop at Target, but there wasn’t much time for anything else. This created a problem. Sandy had earlier mentioned to Joey that we might stop by Walmart as well, if there was time. As there wasn’t, that was taken off the table, which sent Joey into another anxiety attack. It took him a good hour to recover and bounce back from that disappointment. Of all the emotions, disappointment is one that Joey has always struggled with the most. I’ll get to this in more detail in another blog entry. For now, I want to continue to concentrate on Jae.
Back at home, Jae and I prepared ourselves for the evening’s fun and scary entertainment. It started well. I didn’t have to ask the parking attendant to find a spot for us close to the end of the row. It just so happened we found ourselves there by potluck. Winning.
As we walked through the CityWalk area to get to the Universal Studios main entrance, the place was absolutely buzzing. Thousands of people streamed in from the parking garages. It was as if everyone had chosen this moment to arrive for the HHN event. People weren’t just coming, either. Equally as many people were leaving the park as it was closing up in preparation for the start of the HHN event. Our surroundings were lit up with a plethora of neon lights punctuating the dusky evening sky. Fog drifted through the air from the various smoke machines, setting the spooky tone for the evening.
Once they were satisfied that our tickets were valid, we were let in. We joined the swarms of other people, all having a good-natured time. Actors dressed in Halloween costumes, some holding props like severed heads and the like, wandered among the crowds. They occasionally jumped out at someone, doing their best to frighten unsuspecting people. There were stages dotted throughout, where yet more actors were putting on mini shows to scare the crowds.
Dotted around the park, mainly on the periphery, were the so-called scare houses. Huge sound stages had been devoted to this purpose. In some cases, makeshift and temporary structures were also erected around the park. These were often located outside the park boundaries and could only be accessed via makeshift walking corridors. As a result, we accumulated a massive step count throughout the evening.
The Five Nights at Freddy’s scare house was the first we entered. This was at Jae’s insistence. She is a big fan of the horror genre, and of Five Nights at Freddy’s in particular. The electronic signs dotted around the park, indicating the wait times for each scare house, were already depicting a two-hour queue for this one. I believed our disability passes would grant us access to the Express Pass entrance, but we wouldn’t be certain until we put that to the test. Fortunately, we were indeed directed to the shorter queue after our tickets were closely inspected.
Despite being in the shorter line, it ran adjacent to the regular line, which snaked back and forth countless times in what appeared to be a car park under a warehouse roof structure. I estimated that there were upwards of 3,000 people in this queue alone. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the total attendance turned out to be over 70,000 people throughout the entire park. And to think they run this event for 48 nights this year over the Halloween season.
After queuing for around 20 minutes, Jae and I made it to the entrance of the sound stage. We joined the continuous single-file stream of people snaking through the maze of blood-and-gore-filled scenes. The lighting, smoke effects, anxiety-inducing music, and other sound effects all combined to create a sense of anticipation and fear. Every few meters or so, an actor dressed in horror costumes, wielding axes, knives or other scary paraphernalia, would suddenly emerge into view from some inconspicuous hiding spot, causing us to jump out of our skin in terror. I got ‘caught’ by them numerous times, much to Jae’s amusement.
We visited five or six of these scare houses throughout the evening before deciding to explore what else we could do. Since the park was operating as usual, most of the rides and attractions were running. We went on the Mummy and spent some time in the Wizarding World of Hogwarts – Diagon Alley between scare houses.
While waiting for the Gringotts dragon to spew fire into the now dark skies, I snapped a quick shot of Jae watching in anticipation, then posted it onto my Facebook timeline. I do this occasionally to add a little detail to my timeline, and this was a perfect opportunity. Jae was not too pleased about this. When I showed her the post, she immediately reacted. “Oh, that’s a terrible photo. Please remove that immediately.” She frowned at me, indicating this wasn’t so much a request but a demand. It wasn’t clear whether the issue was that she didn’t find the photo flattering or that I had posted it without her permission. Getting approval to post something to my own timeline isn’t something I’m accustomed to, but more and more nowadays, posting anything about someone else without their consent seems to cross some ethical boundary. Either way, she insisted I take the post down. I felt slighted by this. Remove my own photo from my own timeline? How dare she, right? I was genuinely struggling with this internally. Expressing myself is important to me. It’s one of the reasons I spend so much time writing these blogs. What Jae was effectively doing was attacking that norm for me. It was like being asked to remove a finger voluntarily. Deep down, however, I did also understand Jae’s point of view, even though I still wasn’t ready mentally to accept it fully.
Reluctantly, I did as she asked and removed the post. The whole episode put me in a bad mood, which must have been apparent to Jae. We were in the queue for a cup of butterbeer for Jae at the time. She noted that it would be a pricey beverage, but I casually pointed out that this is why she has a $200 weekly budget to cover such things. Jae was pointing out the cost by way of clarifying that I would be okay with paying for it, as she usually does, but my response must have come across as cold and disdainful.
Before long, I was receiving messages from Sandy suggesting that I consider treating Jae, as she had received relatively fewer extras compared to Joey throughout the holiday. Sandy also noted that it was thanks to Jae for saving Joey (and thus us) from spending $250 on a Transformer toy, which she bought for him for considerably less. Sandy was, of course, correct, and I resolved to ensure Jae would get whatever she wanted for the remainder of the evening. I was actually getting ready to pay for her Butterbeer anyway, but she got to the register before I realised it.
As I stood there, the penny finally dropped. What the messages I was receiving from Sandy told me was that there was some secret communication going on between Jae and her mother right under my nose. Jae had picked up on the irritation I felt at being slighted by her request to remove my Facebook post and had been chatting with Sandy about the fallout around that. More to the point, Jae never let on to me that she was having that conversation in the background with her mother. I was being ‘handled’. It was a revelation for me to see how I was being ‘handled’ by the women as they secretly communicated about me under my nose.
At Jae’s suggestion, and still with no outward sign of the secret chats that were happening that I wasn’t supposed to be privy to, we re-took the selfie with the fire-breathing dragon so that I could post to my Facebook timeline after all. I felt almost proud at the way Jae handled the entire situation. This was mature behaviour. It felt like I was a child being calmed down and led by the hand through a situation, almost as though I needed to be handled in a particular way to avoid upsetting me, but without my knowing that was happening. I had been played, but it pleased me to see my daughter capable of playing me.
After completing the Escape from Gringotts ride, we finished up our time inside the Harry Potter section and made our way back into the park to continue with some more scare houses. Jae was in her element, absolutely loving the atmosphere and the entire evening. For my part, I was becoming progressively exhausted traipsing around the far corners of the park. My hernia was playing up, and I was starting to huff and puff.
Jae had previously expressed how much she enjoyed visiting the Hard Rock Café when she and her girlfriend visited Copenhagen a few weeks ago. As I was spoiling Jae this evening, I gave her the option of having dinner there tonight, which she was all for. By around 11 pm, we made our way out of the park to grab our dinner, which was lovely and everything Jae had hoped for. As if it were the planned icing on the cake for Jae, even the waiter we had was clearly gay. Jae is also gay. She’s a big advocate for the LGBTQI+ community in general. She takes an interest in anything related, so an encounter with another gay person was always going to cheer her up even more.
After the fantastic dinner, Jae suggested there was at least one more scare house she wanted to do. Although I suppressed it, my heart immediately sank. I had high hopes that we could return to the car, but this meant retracing our steps back into the park, which would undoubtedly require a few more thousand steps—possibly more than I could handle. The hernia between my L1 and L2 vertebrae was really playing up, and I was out of painkillers. I was exhausted. Walking through the thick, humid atmosphere, where I struggled to breathe normally at times, was a chore. My body was rapidly approaching its physical limitations. However, I was in ‘yes’ mode for Jae tonight. If she wanted to go back into the park to have some more scary fun, that’s exactly what we were going to do. We made our way back into the park and wandered in the direction of where Jae thought we needed to be.
After about fifteen minutes, we finally reached the physical limitations of my body. I was panting heavily and felt like I was about to collapse. Internally, I desperately wanted to please Jae and continue my ‘yes’ behaviour for her. Physically, I had approached a barrier I was now genuinely worried about crossing. I had to reconcile these two competing urges in my mind somehow. Reluctantly, I suggested I park myself on a bench while Jae went off on her own, which she did. Jae would be perfectly fine on her own, I had no doubt. I also hoped that ditching Dad for a while might give her a bit of freedom as well. I was clutching at straws, hoping she wouldn’t be too disappointed in me. Much to my relief, Jae agreed to continue exploring the park on her own.
I followed Jae’s progress around the park over the next hour with the Find My feature on my iPhone. She visited several more scare houses before finally making her way back to the park exit, where I had relocated to await her.
It was hard work (for me), but I loved that Jae thoroughly enjoyed her 19th birthday present. She was buzzing all the way home. When we arrived, instead of finding a dead house (see what I did there?), we found Sandy up and sitting on the couch. I had earlier sent a message explaining our original expected arrival time at home. As that was before Jae decided she wanted to go back into the park again, we were now almost two hours later than expected. Oops!
Today felt like I had made up some lost ground with Jae. It was all about her, what she wanted, and without having to worry about what was happening with Joey or any consequences thereof that might affect her in any way. She deserved to be the centre of attention for a day. She deserved to have some fun and to do something that she wanted to do. I also learned tonight that my daughter can, when needed, be quite the manipulator—but in a good way. She’s not my little girl any more.