This past weekend was Florida's annual horror convention, Spooky Empire, and I just so happen to be visiting my best friend/blog partner Kristin (@KristinLFowler) during that time. I didn't really know anything about the convention or what to expect while were heading there but I did notice that R.L. Stine was giving a Q&A Panel which was an event that I immediately knew I could not miss. I credit R.L. Stine with being the man who changed my childhood and made me love reading. When I was younger, there was nothing more exciting to me than acquiring a new Goosebumps book. My grandmother lived within walking distance of an independent bookstore called The Oaktree Bookstore (sadly, it's no longer there), and every time I would visit her, we would walk there together and she would buy me a new Goosebumps book. I'll never forget how overcome with happiness I had felt in those pre-internet days when I would walk into Oaktree, hurry over to the Goosebumps section and see that a new book had been released and added to R.L.'s shelf. After carefully choosing my next read, my Grandma and I would also buy candy from the card store, and then run back to her house where I would immediately begin my next horrific adventure. Whether it was a Halloween mask that adhered to it's wearer, a ventriloquist dummy named Slappy who plays ill hearted pranks on his owners, a hamster named Cuddles who ingests Monster Blood, or a pair of lawn gnomes who wreak havoc while everyone sleeps, I could not get enough of Goosebumps. I owned and read all 62 of the original Goosebumps books in the series multiple times, took out all of the television adaptation VHS tapes from the library for multiple viewings, and collected every last Goosebumps trading card available. It's been a long time since I was a child and experienced Goosebumps, but in that moment, at Spooky Empire, everything came flooding back to me as I shoved Kristin and yelled to her that R.L. Stine had just strolled past us on the show floor!
