- Spiders. Spiders in Wisconsin aren't even very big. Even the tiniest, dime-sized spider drove me to hysterics. "KILL IT! KILL IT! KILLITKILLITKILLIT!" This makes me laugh now: as an adult I lived in Australia for a little while and THOSE are some serious-ass spiders. Those spiders gave me PTSD. I'm not exaggerating. For two or three years after I got back from Australia, I would leap out of bed in the middle of the night, yelling and slapping at my pajamas.
This li'l guy is a Huntsman Spider. I lived in a house in Townsville, North Queensland, that was full of them. They would hang out in the basement, on the wall behind the washer. I would stand across the room and throw empty detergent boxes at them.
Here's one that thinks it's hiding behind a kitchen clock. Yuck! Makes my skin crawl, even after all these years.
2. Injun Joe. The one from the black and white film version of "Tom Sawyer". As I mentioned in a previous post, the scene in the old film where he kills the doctor in the graveyard with a shovel petrified me, and I became convinced that he lived in the attic crawl space near my bed.
3. The dark. No ordinary nightlight would do. I had to have a 60 watt bulb in my closet, and the closet door open all night.
4. Bozo the Clown. This is because I had a bad dream, and Bozo was in it. He chased me around Markesan United Methodist Church, finally cornering me in the church kitchen. And then, you know what he did? You know those nasty tufts of red hair he has on either side of his head? He pulled one off and touched me with it. And it was electric and electrocuted me! He still bugs me.
- He is undeniably creepy.
5. Mr. Hess. He was the father of the Hess boys, my childhood playmates. He was an alcoholic and when he was passed out drunk, he was harmless. But when he was sober, he'd yell at us in a low, hoarse voice. Part of the reason he was so scary is that he was only sober enough to yell at us once in a while. We never got the chance to get used to it.
6. Vampires. This was from another scary movie. (What is it with all the scary stuff I got to watch? Totally inappropriate. This is because I have older siblings, and was always sneaking out of bed at night to see what they were watching.) I can remember the scene as if it were yesterday. The coffin is standing, closed, in the parlor. The lady is alone in the room, walking past it, when suddenly the handle falls off! She bends down to pick it up (NO! Don't do it!!) and CRASH! the lid comes flying off and there, sitting up, is a vampiress, baring her fangs.
7. Mr. Shruck, the elementary school principal. There is nothing actually scary about this guy, but my big brother told me on the first day of Kindergarten, "You better look out for...THE SHRUCK." My spoon rattled in my cereal bowl as I shuddered in terror. "Mommy? Will The Shruck really tie me to the flagpole by my hair?" I wonder if Roald Dahl has consulted with my big brother?
8. Trampolines. My dad used to tell us at supper about interesting medical cases he'd seen that day. In my town, this was usually nothing more interesting than a carbuncle on George Ehlenfeldt's ass. But there was the occasional trampoline injury. Dad hated trampolines, chain saws and motorcycles. Although I grew to have a cordial relationship with chainsaws, I have never been much into trampolines or motorcycles.
Your turn! Time to share. What scared you when you were a kid?
16 comments:
Wow! What a cute spider. Sorry, Kate, but I just want to pet it.
As for clowns … Brrrr.
Great post. I'll add it to my to-do list.
hmmmm...that spider comes in a close first on my list too...wanna come to Japan? you havent seen big ass until you've come here....detergent boxes just wont do the trick honey.... hmmmmm....this druggie that lives next door....he's not actually harmful to anyone...just creepy... let me think some more....
i have always found clowns creepy. who has ever thought that they are even close to being funny?
umm yea... I think the spider pic had definitely made me decide not to live in Queensland... ever...
1. Sharks. I saw 'Jaws' and after that I was convinced they lived in our swimming pool. I bought a swimming mask so I could look out for them when I was under water.
2. Vampires. I slept with a scarf around my neck until I was 12. I'm not sure how the scarf would have protected me, but it was a comfort.
3. Robot-humans. I was sure that most people weren't in fact people, but were actually robots that just looked like people. They were biding their time to reveal their true identities and then they would TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!
The Sleestacks (sp?) from Land of the Lost. They were these humanoid creatures that lived in the caves, had fly-eyes, and made the most terrifying breathing noises. The worst thing was that when chasing the kids, they walked slowly with their arms out, kind of like zombies, I guess. It's that paradoxical freaky thing of how can something so SLOW actually CATCH you?! Ugh.... I still get goosebumps and my teeth hurt if I think about them.
I think thinking about these things can make us more sensitive to our own children's seemingly irrational fears.
I think EVERYONE who saw JAWS was scared shitless to go swimming after that. Although, I agree that those "Sleestaks" from Land of the Lost were a close second.
Heights have ALWAYS given me the willy's.
Snakes. Irrational, I know, but I hate snakes.
Doing things that can really f**k-up your day. I've just never been really good at living my life dangerously.
Dying violently. I don't mind the thought of peacefully going in my sleep or having a massive heart-attack during sex...it's events like watching airplanes fly into high rise buildings on TV and knowing that a whole bunch of humanity was just instantly snuffed out. I've also always been afraid of things like dying with a lot of physical pain like cancer or Lou Gehrig's Disease or Parkinson's. I've personally known people in each case.
Oh, yeah....and my mom has always been a little scary to me, but that's a different matter. :)
Anonymously, John
Great post! I will mull this over today...
Is that YOUR hand holding that icky, scary spider? The one behind the clock freaks me out. When I was little, I was deathly afraid of tornadoes. I lived in southern Arkansas, so we had them a lot. A couple even hit in my neighborhood. I was also compulsive about fires because our house caught on fire when I was a kid. I developed a bit of OCD then thinking I had to look at all these things (like the furnace, etc) three times to make sure there wasn't a fire.
I just died when I read your dream. It was hilarious. :)
@ Elizabeth: NO WAY is that my hand! I would die first.
I used to be terrified that I would have to get a leg amputated. I would lay in the dark and hope and pray that I wouldn't get cancer. I would sit Indian-style in the car in case there was a crash and the car crumpled so my legs would be spared.
This fear lasted well into adulthood. I remember waking up one morning, looking at my husband and my kids and thinking "If I lost a leg I think I'd be okay."
As a kid, the black and white version of "A Christmas Carol" scared the crap out of me! And the opening sequence for the tv show FBI, when the gun fires. Oh, and vampires, because I saw, then like a complete masochist READ 'Salem's Lot.
Clowns, too. And bugs, still. I scream like a little GIRL in the presence of anything with an exoskeleton.
Movies like "The Omen" or about murderers. I still do not like horror movies. ("When a Stranger Calls" REALLY creeped me out as a teenager!)
Um...the cellar at my grandmother's house. I was convinced there was a giant spider (speaking of spiders) down there.
Eating any sort of bug that might end up in my food--whether it was there to begin with or it flew in.
Heights. This is from my brother rocking the car at the top of a ferris wheel. NOW I have a pretty intense fear of heights. Gee, thanks, bro...
Getting lost/left behind somewhere.
Come to think of it, I was a pretty anxious kid!
What scared me when I was a kid?
*Going to the dentist. My teeth were always bad and the hygenist reminded me a lot of Cruella DeVil (101 Dalmations)
*Moths. I swallowed one once and it was many many years before I could stand to be around them.
*The monster in the back woods, which turned out to be the root ball of an overturned tree.
*Swimming underwater.
*I was not afraid of Vampires. On the contrary, I had a crush on Count Dracula and wanted to be a vampire when I grew up - might have been a bit afraid of VanHelsing ;)
yup. clowns are scary.
Good post!
When I was a kid I was scared of:
The monster who followed me to my bedroom every night.
Father Christmas realising I was still awake and therefore not leaving me any presents.
My mother finding out that I was always going to the places that she had forbidden me to go to.
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