Fast-forwarding here, it took up nearly every evening and most of my weekends, but… I finally had everything just right. It was two nights before the ladies were to come over and have the fright of their life when I finally finished plugging in the last audio wire out in the garage. We have a big one, a 2-car, with lots of extra room off to the side. And I’d totally cleared it out, moved everything into the spare bedroom or outside behind the house.
But just to get a second opinion, I brought Lisa in and took her through it, every step of the way. It took about 25 minutes from start to finish. I led her through, without a blindfold (which, to be clear, her lady friends would be wearing), explaining things as I went. I had the scary sounds turned down half volume so she could hear me, and I pointed out places where my body parts would be crushed. When I finished she just stared at me. I couldn’t tell whether she was pissed off, shocked, or in awe of my obviously brilliant and imaginative mind. A slow smile crept onto her face.
“You, my Billyboo, are completely insane.” She gave a short bark of laughter. “I hope you live through this. And that Big Jim and the twins survive. I’d miss them, ya know.” She paused. I tried to think of something witty to say. But she quickly asked “Now, just so I’ve got this right, the lights will all be on, there’ll be special lamps lighting the areas you’re filming, and the ladies will all be blindfolded --except me, right?”
I nodded confirmation. Then she turned on her heel and disappeared into the hallway leading out of the garage.
On the day of my doom, I left home at lunchtime, sick. Okay, so I wasn’t really sick, just so damned nervous and excited I the attention span of a gnat. In fact, my boss threatened to fire me if I didn’t leave. (I’m pretty sure he was only kidding.) I drove straight home, sweating profusely with my car’s air-conditioning cranked on high the entire way there. I kept thinking that Lisa was right, I AM insane. At the house I got out of my suit and into some shorts and a tee, and headed for the garage, my soon-to-be Chamber of Horrors. I left the hallway door open so the a/c would cool the garage. I hung up several greasy bratwurst sausage links along the wooden plank walk the ladies would walk along first. (Can you imagine walking into a hanging row of those, blindfolded, not knowing what the hell they were!) I finished off that section with extra long spaghetti noodles. (No sauce-- didn’t want to mess up their hair or clothing.) It might not scare them to death, but it sure as hell would gross them out.
The wooden planking led around the room, up and down stairs, a safety rail on either side. (Even though through it all they’d be holding onto the shoulders of the lady in front of them, my non-blindfolded wife leading the single-file line, I wanted first and foremost to guard their safety. Especially on the stairs.)
The next section led down into a 2’X2’ shallow wooden tray of sandwich-baggied peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I had borrowed exactly one dozen video cameras and tripods from various friends and coworkers. I had two of the cameras, aimed from different angles, one at floor level, one about knee level with a wider shot, all ready to film. Yup, I’d be looking at edited 2-angle video footage of this food crush action while eating PBJ’s for the next two weeks! (Watching on my laptop, in a deserted conference room at work, every day at lunchtime until all the sandwiches were savored and eaten.) I’d have high-pitched nasty-sounding monster noises coming from speakers close to the floor, beside the tray, to mask the sounds of crinkling sandwich baggies being stepped on. (Because crinkling sandwich bags, to me at least, don’t sound all that scary.)
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