How I Met Cara Buono

Written by Kai Voorhees

When I awoke my dad was yelling upstairs. 

“Get up and get dressed! FAST!” 

What was going on? My head was filled with scary thoughts. Was the house on fire? I ran downstairs in my PJs.

But when I walked down the stairs, I was greeted by my dad smiling ear to ear.

I asked him what was going on and he told me that my Aunt had given him two tickets to Monster-Mania Con. 66. I had never been but it seemed like it’d be fun.

“Now go get ready! We should get there early so we can get in lines and meet people fast.”

I ran up to get ready. By the time we were ready, we rushed out the door (along with my little brother who could get in for free), and got in the car.

“Do you guys want to stop at Chick-Fil-A for some breakfast?” My dad asked us.

Was that even a question?

So with my Oreo milkshake and chicken biscuit I enjoyed the long ride. 

When we got there, the streets were packed. No parking spots in the parking lots, or on the streets surrounding the place. We parked maybe a half a mile away and started walking to Monster-Mania Con. While walking, we were behind a group of people that  were smoking so much they were blowing it into each other's faces. With that, the wind was catching perfectly that the smoke was blowing behind them to hit me and my little brother in the face. 

On the walk, we met a guy who seemed to have been to a Monster Mania Con. before. He explained to us that since they had huge stars from Stranger Things this year, the tickets were sold out in minutes. As we approached the entrance, we saw lines outside wrapping around the building.

“That’s probably the line for Gaten (he pronounced it like Gah-ten)” The guy told us as he pointed at the longest line that wrapped around the building. I shivered at the thought of waiting in this -1° weather (30 °F) for that long. 

“Okay, we will come back to this later,” my dad said. 

We walked inside and I was immediately extremely impressed. This hotel was filled with endless amounts of horror fans. People were dressed in such elaborate costumes that you couldn’t tell if they were actors or not. 

We walked to the first hall towards the back. There were a bunch of stands filled with everything from horror posters to pre-cut pumpkins. I saw a stand with flannels with vintage shirts sewn in a square on the back of it.

There was a sales rack where you could get three flannels for the price of two so me and my dad decided to look through them. I got a red flannel with Megan (from the movie Megan) in front of red text that said “RUN” on it. My dad got a black jean jacket with a picture of The Crow on the back and a red flannel with a picture of a newspaper with Micheal Myers.

The whole time we were shopping, I was secretly itching to meet some celebrities. After passing by a lot of amazing stands, we headed over to the main room of celebrities. Before entering, the lady outside the door stopped us.

“You can’t get in any lines in this room,” she informed us, “you must go to the lines outside to get a picture with any of them”.

My dad nodded, “We just want to have a look”. 

She nodded and let us in. 

Once we were in, we peaked around at all the celebrities in the room. We saw Gaten Matarazzo. 

We got a picture from a distance since the line was so long.

Then we took a peak at the other rooms of celebrities. The most famous ones include Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Gaten Matarazzo, Elisabeth Shue, and Edward Furlong.

We went in a big tent that was set up on the other side of the building. In it we saw many celebrities including Cara Buono. 

I proceeded to get in line for an autograph and picture with Cara Buono. There was a poster with her name and a few hits she has been in. I knew her as Karen from Stranger Things but there were lots of Mad Men fans there too. 

This is a picture I sent to my friends on the app Locket while I was in line.

‍ ‍The girl in front of me was dressed up as Cara’s role in Stranger Things (Karen Wheeler). When we were in the front of the line, she went up to the table to meet Cara. I remember distinctly that Cara pulled out her phone and took a picture of the girl in the costume. I picked out a picture of Cara holding an old-school camera. This was going to be where I got Cara’s autograph.

When me and my little brother approached the booth, Cara greeted us with a smile. I remember exactly how the encounter went. 

My brother asked if he could ask her a question. When she nodded he asked what her favorite thing about working on Stranger Things was, she responded with a smile.

“Probably the kids,” was her answer. 

She signed the picture and asked us what our favorite characters from the show were. We both responded with two characters. A common theme was in our answers. One of the two was Karen Wheeler.

We then took a picture with her. We thanked her and wished her a good day.

This is the picture me and my brother took with Cara.

Overall, this was a great experience. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to meet Cara Buono and I will forever be grateful.

Posted on April 16, 2026