Let's scare the heck out of them

For reasons I still can't pin down, my dear wife decided to purchase a halloween toy this year in the form of something called Shaking Spirits. I thought it was silly but figured people would laugh at it and that would be that.

We opened for business this evening as Sarah headed out with Jon (as a dapper vampire) with Steve as the designated candy server.

My office is right next to the front walkway, so I immediately had to deal with the squawking noise going off every couple minutes. The skeleton started going off randomly and some people thought it was neat (I was seriously wondering at some point), a few laughed and there was some discussion. About what I'd anticipated.

And then the first perfect moment. A couple families, a gaggle of little girls and the skeleton of terror went off just as they passed. One girl shrieked and another let out a loud yelp, there was a lot of urgent chatter as the source was identified and then oohed and aahed over. I couldn't help it, I started laughing. After listening to the infernal contraption for 30 minutes or so, I had the payoff.

A bit later, we'd run out of candy when the treat scavenging duo returned home. We shutdown the front lights and killed off the motion detection light on the corner of the garage. I came back down to my office figuring the activities for the evening were finished and totally forgot about the electronic monster lurking a dozen feet from the front door.

You've got to love teenagers.

There's a reason that young people are the primary targets of monsters in the movies (besides the fact that young gruesomely dead bodies are better from a cinematic standpoint and the young are the primary customers). They'll blindly charge ahead where others fear to tread. Ignoring all signs of evacuation (except for my office light and a light upstairs in a bedroom), they climbed the 14 steps on the winding path or came up the rather steep driveway. We've got a half moon so you can see reasonably well, but it's still dark. They were a lively group but even when they were up the hill I figured they'd turn around.

I really hadn't considered the potential effect of the shadows near the front entrance with all the lights off. They're never completely off if you wander around a bit (it startles me occasionally) and don't actively make it so.

Now I believe I've got a better understanding of the people designing stuff like this.

When the twitching, flashing and screeching gadget launched its act, pandemonium ensued. We registered at least two more shrieks. The whole group froze in place for at least 30 seconds.