"The dead won't hurt you. It's the living you have to watch out for."
"You know how many dead people are buried in that cemetery?"
"All of them."
Yeah, my dad, lanky as Old Abe, was a real joker. I really wasn't afraid of the ghosts in the cemetery across the street. Although Dad could sure tell some great ghost stories, spell binding stories with amazing sound effects, it was the THING under my bed I feared most. I just knew that thing would grab my foot. That THING made me shiver on the hottest days of summer and tuck my feet under a blanket. That was before air conditioning. In the daylight, I looked under the bed. I knew there was nothing there. But still, that primal fear raged in my terrifed body each night.
My former brother-in-law used to wake up during the night when he was a little boy and scream bloody murder at the THING in the bathroom...which was actually laundry his mom hung on the shower curtain rod. Night after night, he awoke terrified. Night after night, I went to bed terrified.
Even to this day, I have a slight unrealistic fear of hanging my feet off the bed.
What makes you jump with fright? BOO!
"You know how many dead people are buried in that cemetery?"
"All of them."
Yeah, my dad, lanky as Old Abe, was a real joker. I really wasn't afraid of the ghosts in the cemetery across the street. Although Dad could sure tell some great ghost stories, spell binding stories with amazing sound effects, it was the THING under my bed I feared most. I just knew that thing would grab my foot. That THING made me shiver on the hottest days of summer and tuck my feet under a blanket. That was before air conditioning. In the daylight, I looked under the bed. I knew there was nothing there. But still, that primal fear raged in my terrifed body each night.
My former brother-in-law used to wake up during the night when he was a little boy and scream bloody murder at the THING in the bathroom...which was actually laundry his mom hung on the shower curtain rod. Night after night, he awoke terrified. Night after night, I went to bed terrified.
Even to this day, I have a slight unrealistic fear of hanging my feet off the bed.
What makes you jump with fright? BOO!
12 comments:
The other night (without the light on) I walked across our basement (concrete floor) and stepped (barefoot) on a wadded-up washcloth. It felt almost exactly like I was stepping on dead mouse (even though I've never stepped on a dead mouse).
I admit it: I jumped a little...
Big, dark, empty buildings at night. And the feeling that something is watching me.
Bugs. Flying ones.
Jump with fright? Not much.
People sneaking up behind me and suddenly speaking or touching me make me jump a little and a couple of months ago I was sitting at my table which is pushed up against the wall and usually I don't notice the wall at all, but this time very suddenly a large hairy legged spider was right beside my temple and I jumped sideways right out of my chair. It was just so unexpected. I must have frightened him too because he scuttled away behind the curtain.
Late one night, after watching "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" when I was babysitting, my adolescent mind was sure I was going to find a pod under my bed.
And during the Reagan administration, I was sure that we'd end up in a nuclear war.
In real life, loud noises make me jump (and curse), day or night.
Standing out on my deck at night, I've been frightened by my own shadow a couple of times...I think I need Xanax. :)
Most of the time I'm OK at night unless my husband is out of town. Then my imagination takes over sometimes. Ha! :)
Checking the mail terrifies me. More Bills (AHHH!!!)? Oh, and the local news. : )
Hi Linda...
Love that Chinese proverb on your sidebar. It's so true, too.
Well, I cannot remember being afraid of anything in my bedroom as a kid or as an adult.
I do NOT like thunderstorms, though, and if I'm alone when one comes, it wigs me out. Don't know why.
Also, I cannot be in enclosed spaces, like caves, etc. I hyperventilate. I think maybe that could go back to birth when I was pulled out with forceps. Have a mark in my forehead to this day.
Okay, well, hope you have a good day and evening and that "the thing" stays under the bed or, at least, just tickles your toesies. Susan
As a kid, I thought alligators were by my bed at night. So like you, I am still not crazy about my feet hanging out!
The walnuts falling out of the tree hitting the copper roof. Earlier it sounded like a machine gun going off and I jumped out of my desk chair. You'd think I'd be used to it by now as it's been going on for about 3 weeks now.
As a child, we lived a few miles from a small airport. There was a searchlight, like a lighthouse beacon that used to hit my bedroom window at regular intervals as it turned. So my windowshade would light up for a second, go dark, then light up again. I thought it was aliens. It was torture.
Something about the dark makes my skin prickle. My imagination conjures up way too many creepy things.
Pat
Critter Alley
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