Madame Tussauds: After Dark

Not many people get the opportunity to work in a haunted house during their lives, so when I was told I'd be helping out with Madame Tussauds Halloween event, I got pretty excited. My duties were really all over the place for the 8 day event. They started with me working in the lobby answering questions and providing support for the staff, but as a few days passed I couldn't resist throwing on some make up and getting involved in a little scaring.

Saw a lot of great costumes at the door during the event. This guy didn't know what a Batliff was, which was majorly disappointing, but I still liked his costume enough to take a picture with him.

Luckily for me there was the opportunity to do just that. A few of the "seasoned scarers" helped teach me how to put on some pretty gross make up, and I was off. I was able to scare in many different zones at the attraction as I was mostly filling in for people who weren't able to work certain nights, which was fantastic. My first night officially scaring was in the eight floor "maze" room. We transformed a storage room into a huge maze with 4 different zones. The best part of scaring in a wax museum is that since the people pass so many wax figures before they get to you, sometimes you don't even need to hide to scare someone. Just stand very still in a funny pose and nobody will think any different. Once they start looking closer at you wondering, you strike. Of all the scares I did that one was definitely the most effective.

The maze was lots of fun. I was in the jungle themed room, so I did a lot of yelling. I also had a gigantic plastic centipede that I liked to slam against walls and the floor. It made lots of noise. Noise scares people.

There were a lot of jerks that came through the attraction. Most of them were boyfriends trying to impress their significant other. Laughing and not being scared I'm fine with, but the guys who pretend to slap us or scare us back are just stupid. They generally waste their 25 bucks because once you do that to a scarer we generally stop trying to scare you. Way to ruin it for your entire party.

The last two nights of After Dark I spent scaring people in "The Gallery." Its where we keep our political and historical figures, and when the lights go out its a lot of fun to scare in there. Once again my favorite scare was pretending to be a wax figure. When standing in the middle of the room people would occasionally spot me, but whenever I stood next to Jackie Kennedy or GW Bush nobody ever did. Those were the best scares. I also enjoyed sliding in front of people and pretending to be a dead body that came back to life. That one usually got people running away.

After work things got a bit more annoying. Public transit sucks after 11PM, and there are no NJTransit trains after 1:20AM, so a coworker and myself needed to Subway it to World Trade Center, then take a PATH train to Newark Penn Station. The commute home took around 2 hours each night. Gross. 

BJ said it looked infected. He might be right.

After Dark didn't really seem like work though. The shifts flew by and despite my horrid, horrid sleeping schedule that has ensued from getting home at such late hours (i woke up at noon today) I really enjoyed my short tenure as a haunted house scarer. Back to reality on Tuesday when I start being an Operations manager again. I enjoy that job as well, I just don't get to scare people for no reason anymore. Its nonsense, but at 22 I love it when I can get it.

Atleast one more blog coming today. Many more coming this week.