OAK HOLLOW — Staff at a popular neighborhood haunted house asked a 9-year-old trick-or-treater to "please dial it back" Saturday after his costume, a full-length grocery receipt, caused several adult visitors to scream, weep openly, and in one case sit down on a hay bale and stare into the middle distance for 40 minutes.
"We've got fog machines, we've got strobe lights, we've got a guy in a clown mask who hides in the porta-potty," said owner Terry Voss. "Nobody's ever left here crying. Then this kid walks in, a grown man reads '$7.49 — CEREAL, 1 BOX' off his chest, and just starts apologizing to his own children."
The costume, made by the boy's mother, Kelly Brandt, from an actual receipt from the family's weekly shopping trip, is eleven feet long and must be carried by two cousins. It lists 64 items, a $3.99 bag of grapes the cashier rang up twice, and a line at the bottom that reads "YOU SAVED: $0.41."
"Honestly, I wanted him to go as a ghost," Brandt said. "But we couldn't afford a sheet."
Neighbors said the costume was the most frightening sight on the block for the second year in a row, narrowly beating last year's winner, a teenager who went as his family's printed car insurance renewal notice.
The haunted house has since posted a sign at its entrance warning that the attraction "may not be suitable for anyone who has bought groceries recently."
At press time, Voss had offered the boy a seasonal job as the attraction's final room, which he turned down after learning the hourly wage was less than the cereal.