It really was the perfect end to my weekend, which was packed full of work, grouchiness, and, most importantly, recognition that the next several days were going to be spent evading grievances centered around the upcoming holiday.

I honestly forgot about Valentine’s Day until late last week, when a radio DJ started going off about HALLMARK HOLIDAYS! and STUPID GIRLS! and IT SUCKS AND IS LAME! and let me tell you, I don’t know what I’m more sick of, Valentine’s Day, or people complaining about Valentine’s Day.

They should create a holiday based solely around people who hate Valentine’s Day, and everyone can get together and send each other someecards and forget the fact that most people have been hating some form of Valentine’s Day for hundreds of years. And then angry lovers who love things that are lovey can get on the radio, or log into WordPress, or approach you at the water cooler and say, over and over, “You know, I’m happily married, and I think this dumb holiday was created by greeting card companies to profit off of people who like to bitch.”

Of course we got lost. At least three times. The iPhone’s navigation system makes finding on-the-go directions virtually impossible unless you have two exact addresses to begin and end with, and even in the middle of an unfamiliar highway, it insisted we were on a backstreet at least two miles away.

And while I’m on the subject, when it does succeed in getting at least somewhat close to your current location, its first instruction is, Go East on Smith St. toward Lombardi Lane. Great. So not only do I now have to buy a compass, but also familiarize myself with every street name in the vicinity of every neighborhood I might someday ever find myself lost in before I even start the car.

We finally arrived at the Demon House to a very small crowd, which isn’t uncommon this early in the month, made up of couples and families with at least one small child who didn’t want to go in. I was more tense from the ride there than anything, because when I’m traveling through small neighborhoods lined with houses I’ve never seen, and the only places to get directions are the small, rickety gas stations which are always empty, in the dark, WITH AN IPHONE, the one thing that continually circulates through my head is this would make a great horror movie.

The house was really well done. There was a large bonfire, a tent playing black and white horror movies, a character expertly spooking around on four-foot stilts, a stand with hot dogs and hot apple cider, and a little person with a Billy mask riding a squeaky tricycle in circles around those waiting. They sent small groups of four or five at a time into the “mansion,” where we walked through some cool scenes and encountered some actors who not only emphasized the legend of the building, but seemed like they were having a great time doing it. One thing with an unmoving, white face even crawled on the floor behind me, which totally freaked me out.

The downside with visiting these places every year, and having more interest in the execution than the desire for the rush of being frightened, along with my love of horror movies, is that every season, I become more desensitized to the scariness. When I was 16, I would cling to someone who would have to practically carry me through with my eyes closed, and even then I would shriek at every sound in a five mile radius. Now I need, at least, an unexpected chainsaw.