Minnesota’s Children of the Corn

Ex#2 and I took the daughter to the Shafer Corn Maze this weekend. It seemed like a fun, family outing when I suggested it and obviously the others agreed because they were game to go.

Normally this time of year, I am gearing up to start complaining about the cold. Not this year. This year in Minnesota the weather has been so lovely I’ve completely confused the seasons. It’s been in the 80s this past week in Minnesota.I am sure it is really spring and summer is just about to begin.

Usually by mid October the less sturdy of us have already given in and turned on the heat at night. This past weekend I was bitching at myself for taking out the window air conditioning units too soon.

I’m loving this weather. It’s ruining my blogging and my relationships but I am totally loving this weather. I walk around with a smile on my face, I have nothing to complain about and most importantly Xcel Energy can suck it because I get at least one more energy bill this season where I won’t have to sell a kidney to pay for my heat!!

So I was all jazzed about going to the corn maze for an afternoon of adventure.

The deal with the Shafer Corn Maze is that you go through one of the mazes (they have three) and try to figure out the whodunit they created.

Basically it’s like Clue. At least that’s what the woman in the little ticket stand said as she passed me three cards that needed to be hole punched at each check point.

It seemed like an easy enough thing to do – find 6 check points, mark the card with the hole punch at each one and then figure who did what.

The whole who did what aspect of the maze was lost on me and my daughter. Ex#2 didn’t even bother to understand it. He spent most of the time walking through the maze telling me that what was missing was motivation. You see, he wasn’t motivated to find all six check points because he knew there wouldn’t be beer at the end. Now if they had a keg at each check point, he said, things would be different.

But we live in Minnesota and you can’t sell, or otherwise distribute, beer in the middle of a corn field. This is too bad because the Shafer Corn Maze is pretty cool. It’s a huge maze, cut well and they have a bunch of activities outside of the cornfield.

The Shafer Corn Maze is also just a stone’s throw from the Wisconsin border and I am pretty sure the corn mazes there offered beer.

Even without beer we pressed on for two of the check points. No one had a clue who did what to whom and no one cared. Both the ex and the daughter were bored and wanted out of the maze.

I tried to convince both of them, but especially the daughter, that this was a lot of fun and when we were through the maze we could say we accomplished something for the day. Of course the whole time they were complaining I was wondering how we were going to find our way out of the maze. I had my phone so I was pretty sure if we got lost in the corn maze the police or whoever finds idiots who can’t find their way out of a corn maze, could track me, I mean us. Thankfully, I was not that woman who got lost in the corn maze. However, I totally understand how it could happen.

Neither of them cared about accomplishing anything but getting out of the maze. Normally I would have pressed both of them to finish the damn maze. It cost $21 for the three of us to walk 2 miles through the stupid maze and dammit we were going to have a good time doing it.

Normally that’s what I would have done.  After seeing this, I thought better of it.