My Fear Of Wax Figures

I am on a spring break trip with my family. I must say, it is one of the best things about life. We only have them for so long before they are grown and gone. Except maybe for that one who lives in your basement, until he’s thirty. I will never regret a dollar spent on making their childhood magical. So here we are.

Today, my oldest son said: There is nothing more that I want in my life, than to go to a wax figure museum.

Maybe that is slightly more dramatic than his actual words, but that is what my mother ears heard him say. I love my oldest son, so Dad and I agreed. Sure, why not drop 100 bucks on staring at fake people? Off to the wax museum we went.

We walked in and headed for the ticket counter. The lady behind the counter tried to upsell us, naturally. You can see the wax museum OR you can see the museum AND go through the house of mirrors, escape a zombie outbreak AND go stare King Kong in the eyes, at the very top of the building.

Clearly, that lady does not have four kids. No, thank you. Take my 100 United States dollars and point me to the wax people. My son was practically skipping through the doors.

The very first figure was Jennifer Lawrence. There she stood in a fabulous black dress, with perfect hair and even more perfect teeth. I stood beside her, all the while thinking that this is exactly what it’s like to stand beside Jennifer Lawrence. Minus the soulless eyes, of course.

After Jennifer, the actual order of the wax celebrities and movie characters gets a little foggy. I can tell you that I saw Rocky Balboa, Hulk Hogan and Captain Jack Sparrow.

I saw Michael Myers, The Terminator and Michael Jackson.

I saw Beyoncé, Lucille Ball and even took a selfie with Johnny Cash.

Oh and I had to peel my husband off of Charlie’s Angels.

Everyone was having a grand time. Then something weird happened. I came upon a display with a young Elvis, Marilyn and Humphrey. I gazed at Elvis. I admired Marilyn’s breathtaking beauty, in a constructed completely of wax kind of way. Then I locked eyes with Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey looked a little TOO something. Humphrey actually looked ALIVE.

I had no problem with the museum until that moment. I found that I could not take my eyes off of him. He was mesmerizing. He looked amazingly life-like. I stared into his eyes because looking away was not an option. I was frozen. I feared that at any second his eyes were going to go from soulless wax vessels to real eyes, burning a hole through me.

Then I thought, what if he was a human? What if he was part of the exhibit put there to freak people out? What if he suddenly reached his hand out and touched my arm? Would I be caught on camera screaming and running away? Or would I assault Humphrey Bogart in self-defense?

I had to collect myself. Of course this was not a human. No one could go this long without blinking. Suddenly I felt so wrong for gawking at the lifeless figures. What if they didn’t like it when people stared at them?

What if there actually WAS a soul trapped in there? What if Humphrey Bogart was right now willing himself to wrap his hands around my neck and choke me, snapping from all of those who had stopped to admire him today? What if wax Humphrey Bogart hated me?

After what seemed like an eternity, my daughter walked up. I grabbed her shoulders and spun her around. I told her to look at this wax figure. Didn’t he look too real? I told her to stare into his eyes. She looked at him. Then she looked at me, in that middle school judgmental kind of way.

“He looks like a super old wax dude. You should probably chill.”

Then she walked away.

Whatever. Children.

I took another look into Humphrey Bogart’s eyes then realized that I had to get on with my life. Either Humphrey Bogart was plotting my demise or I had an irrational fear of wax celebrities.

Absolutely spiders make me act ridiculously. And clowns better not even with me. Ever. But who could have known that people created of wax could creep me out.

My rational brain told me that a person made of wax couldn’t really do anything but stand there and look super realistic. Maybe it is because staring at wax people is kind of like staring at dead people. Except dead people’s eyes aren’t usually open and staring back at you.

My take away was that I never want to go to a wax museum again. I can only imagine that the one thing worse than staring at wax figures would be staring at a wax figure of yourself. Talk about super creepy.

Regardless, my son was happy.

I took one for the team and I never have to stare at wax people again.

Now if I could just figure something out about all of the spiders and clowns.
Look at Dale Earnhardt. Look into his eyes. The Intimidator for real though.

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