Beware of the Mask

The year is 2003.

Just about 3 months from the day that Jason and I got married. We headed to New York to attend the wedding of Jason's cousin Kathy. *editors note: his cousin Kathy, is married to Jeremy who is now an INVESTIGATOR with the police force he works for in New York state) holla!

Kathy's family arranged for Jason & I along with other family members to stay for free in a home owned by some friends of theirs. This home was no longer being used by this family, so it's doors were open to us to use for the weekend in preparation for the wedding and we were grateful.

We traveled separately and arrived at separate times. This would be my first time actually getting to know many of Jason's extended family members.

This house was... memorable. It was fairly dusty so I quickly developed allergies and couldn't breathe. I went thorugh a whole box of kleenex and several bottles of ibuprofen. So I was self conscious wondering what Jason's family thought of his new asthmatic bride. (though I don't even have asthma!) There was one restroom upstairs with a bear claw tub and the toilet was no longer usable because *someone (who shall remain nameless) broke the toilet seat in half. When it was time to shower, there was only one restroom with a shower smaller than the earth's smallest closet, and to top it off, it had no door. We had to actually open up the pantry door which was beside the restroom, so that people would see there is someone in the shower, naked, at this present time, please don't go beyond this door...

As we chose bedrooms we noticed that each room had a weapon of mass destruction hanging on the wall. The room Jason and I chose had a gun and a sword hanging up. Another room had a sickle, and yet another room had a spinning wheel (hey, I know there are psychos out there that can wield a spinning wheel for killing purposes) there were others too, but I can no longer remember what they were. Out of all the items in the entire household that caught our attention, there were 2 that were extremely eerie. Masks. What were these people doing with ceramic white masks laying around the house? Perhaps this is the reason they abandoned the house in the first place: it was haunted!

Of course, as I said earlier, this was my first encounter with most of these family members-including Uncle Gil whom I coined the funniest uncle ever in my previous post. He found the masks. Our first evening in the house he took the masks and made them float in front of each bedroom, warning us that the minute we fall asleep-the masks would get us.

Here is the picture we took all those years ago, posing with the masks. I love how Gloria is cradling one of them. Pay no attention to the fact that I look drugged. Indeed I was.

You can imagine my surprise then, after all these years... When we went to bed the first night of the family reunion, after hours of reminiscing, I laid down and I heard something crumpling underneath me in our pull-out bed. I reached behind my back and found this.