There are a few things that I know with absolute certainty I will never do in my lifetime:
Jump out of an airplane, with or without a parachute.
Sing karaoke at a bar.
Go through a corn maze at Halloween.
This is the time of year when mothers and fathers bring their children to wander through giant fields of standing dead corn in the name of Halloween fun. Actually, having been a mother myself, I sometimes wonder if parents take their kids to corn mazes to deliberately lose them.
What are people thinking who plunge into these crazy, disorienting fields of dried corn stalks just to have a thrilling experience for the holiday? Do they really believe they will ever be seen alive again? Do they know that mazes were originally invented as a torture chamber for prisoners with the intention of driving them mad?
Just thinking about being in a corn maze makes me a little crazy. I would never find my way back again and would have to be rescued, hysterically screaming and crying, by the National Guard who would have to rappel down into the maze from a helicopter to pluck me out to freedom.
I know this for sure because whenever I go to a mall (I try to avoid it) or a big box store I am never certain that I will be able to find my way back to my parked car once I’m done shopping. I’m like a person in a foreign country, nervously noting all the landmarks leading into and out of the store. Even so, I usually spend half an hour or so wandering around, lost in space, trying to remember where I parked my car.
A person who cannot find her own car in a parking lot shouldn’t even think about trying a corn maze.
Just as people who get dizzy climbing on top of a kitchen chair should not parachute out of an airplane. Or bungee jump off a bridge. Or sing karaoke in a bar. Now this last one I have actually tried and I am here to tell you that unless you enjoy making a fool of yourself, you should avoid it. Especially after a couple of drinks.
To me, corn mazes are one of the scariest things about Halloween. You get in there; you can’t get out. Although I can think of a few people I would like to see confined to a corn maze, the only thing worse would be to get stuck in one with somebody who had a karaoke mic.
Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.
