The summer after 8th grade, my life changed forever when my mom got my brother, my dad, and me in the car early on a Saturday morning and said we were going out to breakfast, but then an hour later parked the car outside one of the worst places imaginable: The Renaissance Faire.

"YOU TRICKED US!" we exclaimed. My mom just smiled.

"It's the Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival! This will be fun!"

We all stared at her and refused to leave the car until she used her Mom Powers to scare us out and obediently (but very reluctantly) follow her to our doom The Faire.

My brother and I decided, "Fine, I guess we can try to have fun or whatever."

We began by watching a staged joust that even my mom agreed was stupid.

NO ONE EVEN GOT IMPALED!!! BOOO!!

My brother was a traitor because he actually seemed to be enjoying this crazy Faire.

Things began to look up when we tried violent games like knife throwing and archery (great activities for children, by the way).

The peak was watching my brother pay to throw tomatoes at a grown man as said grown man hurled insults at my poor little 6th grade brother (he called him a beanpole, HA HA).

Then things went south. I began to get the creeps as this backwards event started to resemble Sodom and Gomorra with each passing minute.

Some wacko sat in the middle of the dirt path crawling around and howling at passer-bys for coins or some junk. I was honestly scared he was going to try to kill me.

This scary faceless man was playing a mysterious bell instrument thing. His songs honestly made my skin crawl and gave me a shaking suspicion that the end was near. I think I might've started crying because of this guy thing.

This is just inappropriate. There were impressionable, young children there being corrupted by sinful messages like this!!

KEEP YOUR CHILDREN AWAY FROM THE RENAISSANCE FAIRE! It's too late for me, but save yourselves while you can. And if you really wanna try and visit one, that's cool, by all means, go for it. Just don't say I didn't warn you if you come back shaken to the core like I was.