You Call It Corn

Have you ever been to a corn maze, that quintessential autumn experience? Up until a few weeks ago, neither had I. I had always seen the signs pop up around our area at the end of summer, but never really thought it was something I wanted to cross off the bucket list. Mazes in general are not my thing.  As a child, my experience with mazes, on paper at least, involved starting at the finish and working my way backward until I found the start. Yes, I cheat at mazes.

But real life mazes seem to be the kind of thing where evil lurks. Mazes are just easy to spell labyrinths, and labyrinths are the domain of Minotaurs, deranged caretaker/writers, or lesser known Muppets and David Bowie in a bad wig. Add corn to it and well, after Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn,” is there any doubt I would hesitate to wander inside?  A red-headed kid named Malachi is probably lurking inside every corn maze to make sure no one ever leaves. Plus, there seems to be confusion in general over the spelling of maze. If the maze is made out of corn, is it spelled maize? The local establishments sure seem to think so. Are they being clever or ignorant? I just don’t know.

The main reason I had always hesitated in going to a corn maze is the same reason I don’t like to drive someplace new; I am what I like to call directionally challenged. I don’t know north from up, but I am pretty sure they are the same direction. I don’t like to get lost, as chances are pretty good I will never find the right way. I like to look at a map, then print directions, then enter my location on GPS, and finally compile all the information into my own version of Point A to Point B, and somewhere along the way I still manage to get lost. Seriously, I am impressed I know my way around my house.

As soon as I thought “corn maze” and “good idea,” my brain just wouldn’t let go of it until it happened.  I conned my younger daughter into it, selling her on the idea of fun and adventure. She should have known better; I blame her.  We decided to make a day of it, going first on a hayride and then a quick trip to the pumpkin patch. We decided to save the corn maze for last, anticipation and all.

We bought our tickets and approached the start of the maze, where an older man went over the rules before you were allowed to enter. Apparently even corn mazes have rules, including no running and no veering off the marked paths. The last thing those corn farmers need are a bunch of wild people hiding in amidst the corn stalks. After the man gave his little rules speech, I told him I wasn’t very good with directions and asked him about how long it would take to go through the maze.

“As long as it takes you to get from the start to the finish,” he told me. Great, one of those. Just answer the damn question.

“Could you be a bit more specific?” I asked him.

“Bout an hour to do both sides,” he said.

My daughter and I had a quick little chat. We hadn’t had lunch but had enjoyed some fine tater tots at the concession stand. Our water bottles were empty. The only bathroom was a port-a-potty, which I eschew on principle, but if we were only going to be wandering for thirty minutes, we could handle it. We grabbed a map from the man and into the maze we went.

Do you know how tall corn grows? Pretty fucking tall. This corn was a good seven to nine feet, which meant we were no match for it, vertically speaking.

We really should have had a plan. Follow the people in front of us. Only make right turns. Pay attention to the perimeters. Look for landmarks before you enter. Anything. Instead, we just went with our map and my lack of a sense of direction. And it turned out our map wasn’t even a map; it was a list of ten clues. When you approached a number plaque, you were to answer the question, and your answer determined whether you went left or right. I didn’t even notice the answer key on the back, which would have been helpful, considering the clues were all useless corn trivia. We found number one, and then we wandered around aimlessly until we stumbled upon number three. We had no idea where number two went.  We also saw the family that entered before us, but they didn’t look like they knew what we were doing any more than we did.

Not only was the corn really tall, but someone, or SOMETHING, had been eating it. Underneath the stalks were piles of crap. Lots of piles of crap. Most of it was in pellet formation, but I couldn’t rule out human.  After about the first half hour, those piles of feces became our only landmarks.

“Didn’t we just pass that pile of crap?” I said to my daughter.

“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t memorize poop,” she answered me.

“If you had, we wouldn’t be in this mess, now, would we?”

Yes, in the course of thirty minutes, we were turning against each other, just like lab rats, the kind that have to run through mazes and hate on each other. During that time, the sun burned hotter, and we were hungry and thirsty.

“I really need to go to the bathroom,” my daughter said.

“Go under the corn like the rest of the animals,” I said. “I’ll stand in front of you and create a diversion.”

“Are you serious?” she asked me.

“Do you think we can eat this corn, or is it feed corn for livestock?” I asked her.

“I am not eating raw corn,” she said.  “And I am definitely not going to the bathroom in this maze.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

A family passed by us, looking confused. It was a different family. They still seemed enthusiastic and gleeful.

We trudged on. At one point, we heard goats bleating, which meant we were on the outer edge of the maze. We were also on the outer edge of the farm, which meant we were no closer to the exit than we were the entrance.

“This isn’t fun anymore,” my daughter said.

“Was it ever?” I snapped.

“Can’t you look on your phone to see where we are on your phone?”

We stopped and I attempted to verify our location, even though I should have known that a corn maze would not be on the satellite map.  I looked at my watch. We had been in the maze for over an hour. We had sweated enough to reduce the need for a bathroom.  It was now after two pm, and we still had an hour drive home and lunch and afternoon dance practice to get on with. We had no more time to waste, lost in the produce aisle.

So I did it. I called for help. I called the number on our corn maze tickets. And it went straight to voice mail.

“Oh Jesus,” said my daughter. “How can they not answer the phone? How are we going to get out of here?”

“Calm down!” I yelled. “They slap hysterical people, just so you know. I ‘ll try again.”

I tried three more times. Voice mail. Each message I left conveyed more of the panic we felt. My phone battery was at 20%. We moved on, hoping this time to at least make it to number five of the clue list.

We continued to walk in circles, to pass more corn stalks with piles of crap on the ground and the same clue number four and people who were as lost as we but not yet on the verge of tears. I called again, and this time a real person answered the phone. She asked the number we saw last and told us to stop moving. We stood still, defeated. My daughter’s eyes were watering.

A few minutes later, the man who gave us the clue sheet wandered in and gave us a look.

“I told you I had a poor sense of direction,” I said to him.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, and started walking. We followed him. On the other side of corn we could hear other people laughing and rushing. “No running. Rule number two!” he shouted at them.

In less than five minutes, we emerged from the corn maze, our heads hanging low. Other people watched us following the man out. It was the corn maze walk of shame.

We hustled over to the car, not stopping for a bottle of water or a quick stop at the port-a-potty.

“And now we know why we’ve never gone to a corn maze before,” I told my daughter.

“I hope we won’t ever do it again,” she added.

“Can you imagine if it were at night? I mean, that maze is open until ten,” I said. “Can you imagine getting that lost in the dark?”

“If you hadn’t called, we would still be there til ten,” she said.

“You’re right, Malachi,” I said.

“Stop calling me that,” said my daughter.