Haunted hayrides make good dates

I enjoy living up to my role as a caring, sensitive boyfriend, and I have to say – Halloween… I enjoy living up to my role as a caring, sensitive boyfriend, and I have to say – Halloween presents a variety of excellent opportunities for guys like me to do just that.

Take Cheeseman’s Fright Farm, for example. It’s everything you’d expect from a typical Western Pennsylvania farmland experience – good people, beautiful, rolling hills, guys with chainsaws all up in your face and splendid chilidogs. Just off of Route 19 in Portersville, the farm runs its “Haunted Hayride and Pumpkin Festival” throughout the month of October. While most of the many patrons you’re likely to see on a Friday night are families – your typical good, salt-of-the-earth people – it’s also fine material for a date.

After all, what’s more fun for a young couple than being carted out into the middle of some field under an utterly black sky, only to be assaulted by flying demons, axe-wielding maniacs and freaky hellhounds with glowing eyes? You’ll confront plenty of these just on the hayride out to the disturbing, strobe-lit hay maze, which, of course, leads to a haunted house that is quite literally in the middle of the woods. The isolated feel of it all is what really gives Cheeseman’s Fright Farm an edge. There’s something about finally escaping the ghouls and demons that have been lunging at you all evening, only to be confronted with seemingly endless dark woods on all sides.

And that’s where I, the sensitive boyfriend come in. For example, while my girlfriend was locked in the throes of what looked to be a very real, torrid fear, I calmed her by saying soothing things like, “You know, if this tractor breaks down, we may have to stay in these woods all night,” and “I bet if you’re just polite to the chainsaw guy, he’ll consider not splitting your skull open.”

Cheeseman’s Fright Farm runs its haunted hayride and its non-frightening daytime counterpart through Nov. 1. Admission is $10 and $4 respectively. An awesome chili-cheese dog will only cost you a buck and change, too.