I am bad at directions. It is statistically proven that if you add another person to help me find my way around – with a map or without – I will increase our odds of getting lost. A quick trip to a store that’s about 10 minutes away could take close to four hours – with a GPS. That’s a true story. Actually happened. My college friends were brave people, getting in a car with a navigation system with me at the helm.
So naturally, when Andy told me we would be going to a corn maze in New Jersey a whole bunch of red flags went up. A few thoughts popped into my head: ‘He knows this is a bad idea, right?’ ‘Maybe we won’t even find the maze’ and ‘Is this a test?’ to name a few.
He begged. He pleaded.
I caved. How could I resist that face?
And so we found ourselves on the road, enroute to Stony Hill Farms in Chester, NJ. Luckily, a wrong turn created a detour from the terrifying New Jersey roads to a quiet little road that we hoped would lead to our destination. And then we saw something in the middle of the road. An owl, I was convinced. We came closer and closer, and it became clear that this massive bird in the middle of the road was a hawk. I decide against creeping up upon it as it stares us down, and stop the car. Andy frantically grabs for the camera as I admire this beautiful sight of one of my favorite animals. And then it flies away clutching a slipping intestine in its talons. It was an incredibly thing to witness.
But then Andy snapped me back to reality and reminded me of his plan for us to die, lost, in a maze. And so we moved on.
Soon, we reached Stony Hill Farms. We picked out our humongous pumpkins with these marvelous stems that would make perfect jack-o-lanterns for our Halloween party. We ate some apple cider donuts. We agreed that we had under-dressed and would probably be freezing for the rest of the day. And then he bought the tickets to the corn maze. I was distracted. I hadn’t known what hit me. All of a sudden, we were watching a short video about what not to do (panic, use foul language, run… All things I do when lost). This would be difficult.
A man, about to enter the maze, explained to his friends that he studied last year’s maze for 20 minutes before entering. That maze still took him 2 hours. I turned and asked Andy, “Did you study this maze?” “Not really,” he responded.
It took us 46 minutes. We survived. And then we did a mini-maze and a rope maze. We were drunk on power. And hungry. So we got back into the car and headed towards a nearby restaurant. And promptly got lost.
Edit: Here are our finished jack-o-lanterns! This was my first time carving, so hopefully I didn’t butcher David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. And Andy’s Void Stiles from Teen Wolf is… seriously amazing.
