"Before you can sign out, go make sure the Men's bathroom is clean."
I looked at my diminutive little manager incredulously.
"Sure, do you want me to vacuum out your car as well?"
This earned me a dirty look.
It was 2:30 in the morning, and I was tired. I was certainly not going to go make sure the men's bathroom was clean. This was not something just for me, everyone was supposed to pitch in and clean it. However I know for a fact that I never make a mess in there. I went and sat down and smoked a cigarette instead and watched the people file out.
Most people were moving a bit slow. It had been a 10.5-hour shift, the longest yet. My very last shift had led a parade of the most drunken ghetto and trailer park citizens before me. There was no point in even trying to spook anyone. You just stood there and watched the idiots come hooting and screaming past you. It's really a rather amazing thing to watch. However, it was finally over with.
When you finally finish your shift you first peel off your sweat soaked costume in a little trailer they have set up as a changing room. Its small cramped and disgusting and smells like sweat and nacho cheese. You then wander out and toss your costume into a bin where it will later be laundered. Several ladies donning plastic gloves putter about the laundry pile. If you ever wanted to get into the job of movie costumes, this comes with the territory. You are then presented with a single baby-wipe to get the makeup off your face. You cannot leave the park with makeup on. Mirror space is at a premium. Everyone tries to cram his or her faces into a mirror to get the makeup off. I no longer bother. I sit on a bench and then slowly start scrubbing one side of my face to the other. I get most of it off that way.
Then you have to go present yourself to your manager, whom in my case is roughly 10 years younger than me. They hold the sacred book that you need to sign out with. They scrutinize your face and if they deem it sufficiently make-up free, then they let you sign out. Whatever... its part of the job.
My original cast has dwindled somewhat. A few people took off after injuries. There was one girl who was on a different cast from me who used to be right in front of the door. I guess someone roughed her up because when I saw her next her arm was in a sling and she was now behind the cage with my cast counterpart. I guess she was scared to be out in the open again. I don't blame her.
I have to admit I have a mildly sick fascination with the injuries that happen around me. I secretly like being in the center of all this mayhem. Like when a guy comes running out of the house with his nose spurting blood. I saw one vampire girl, whose face is all painted white, brought in with her makeup ruined because she had been crying. The tears left startling streaks down her white makeup face. I do not know what happened. She seemed to be a tough one though; the make-up artist came out and sprayed fresh white paint over her tear marks. She drifted back out into the streets. I saw another girl sobbing hysterically in her chair.
I heard rumors of other injuries. In one house there is a 'spine girl' a girl bolted to a table with a rubber back attached to her that makes it look like her spine had been ripped out. Some fool had marched right up to her and hit her in the back of the head as hard as he could, giving her a concussion. He is now in jail. In fact, universal has set new records in the sheer number of arrests they have done this year.
I'm not worried about me. I'm safe in my cage. Late at night when the nastiest of the ghetto drunks come filing through, I actually rather try to get them riled up. When the line stops in front of me, I'll go up to some fool with his baseball cap on sideways and his 'grills' poking out of his mouth in an absurd gold plated overbite.
"Hey, hey you. Give me dolly a kiss"
He'll ignore me a bit. I shout a little louder.
"Hey, come here, give my dolly a smooch!" I then follow this with a serious of loud and annoying kissy-kissy noises until he finally looks over at me.
"Yeah, give it a kiss like grampa used to give you!" At this point my tongue will poke out of my mouth and begin flapping about obscenely. I then erupt in a series of cackling laughter. More than half the time this really pisses the dude off and he ends up hitting my cage, making me laugh harder.
Hey, it's a long night; I have to pass the time somehow.
I like the slime guy that comes through. The house has a number of useless props on the walls. Like light switches and fire alarm pulls and what have you. Some universal guy squirts a couple of tubes of KY jelly into a tub and then goes around with a paintbrush and dabs it onto the props. When some joker comes by and grabs it, they end up with a handful of slime.
They also put this slime on the benches out in front of the house. They are there just for atmosphere, no one is supposed to sit on it. So I get a huge kick when some joker flops down on it and then holds up his hand in horror as a thin spiderweb of drool drips off of his fingers. If I see it from my cage I screech out 'I hope you enjoyed the bench! I sure did!'
Only five more days of this left. I'll be glad when its over because I miss my weekends. All I did over this weekend was sleep. However, I will miss the fun.
I snuffed out my cig and wandered back to the signout sheet. "All clean!" I announced.
I signed out and began my 15 minute walk back to my car. I moved like an old man.
2026 Update
Dialing back 20 years to catch Ed Heffernan in a sweat-soaked cage, making kissy noises at strangers and skipping bathroom duty.
Ah, 2006: a haunted house was still a gloriously analog nightmare. One baby wipe for the whole face, a paper sign-out book, and a manager young enough to order you around at 2:30 in the morning. Ed smoked his cigarette, lied about checking that bathroom, and spent his shift baiting sideways-cap kings into punching his cage. Now that entire night would be captured on seventeen glowing rectangles, uploaded before the actors peeled off their costumes, and dissected by a thousand comments by dawn. The sacred sign-out book would be an app. The baby wipe would be an HR violation and they would hand you a full sanitation kit plus a QR code to report your feelings. Ed's kissing noises and 'give it a kiss like grandpa used to' routine? That would not be quirky goblin energy, that would be a workplace seminar. The KY-jelly slime props probably still exist, because humanity still loves a handful of goo. But everything around them has been laminated, gamified, and made into a form. I respect the old chaos. Not the baby wipes, though. Those were always a crime.
“2006 Ed, when you stood up and hollered 'All clean!' without so much as glancing at that bathroom, did you have any backup plan for when the next person walked in, or was the cigarette simply worth every drop of future confusion?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, hell if I know. I had zero backup plan, unless you count the vague hope that somebody else would get blamed. That bathroom was probably passable, I mean, we weren't exactly running a bed and breakfast. I just wanted out of that sweat-soaked costume and away from the nacho cheese smell. Plus, honestly, after ten and a half hours of drunk idiots hollering at me, the idea of walking in to inspect a toilet for a manager young enough to be my kid? Egads. The cigarette was worth every bit of future confusion. If anyone found a mess, they could blame the same ghetto parade I'd been watching all night. I signed out like a ghost. Move like an old man, remember? Maybe that bathroom got cleaned, maybe it didn't. Not my circus anymore.
