Spoooooooky
There’s a new show on WFMU in the overnight hours called Night People.
Last night’s topic was ostensibly ghosts but the first hour experienced a little topic drift into what scared the crap out of you when you were a kid including one male caller who claimed to never have, er, sexual dreams because he was petrified by the scene in Ghostbusters where a guy was sleeping and a ghost (probably a succubus) floated above the bed and undid the guy’s fly.
Who knew that that movie could be so psychologically damaging? I mean sure, you may never want to eat marshmallows or green jello again but I would’ve thought that would be the end of it.
Anyway, it reminded me of some of the things that scared me as a kid and with Halloween approaching and me probably not having time to write much next week since I’m traveling on business to the most frightening and unreal place on Earth (Los Angeles) I figured I’d write about ‘em today.
One thing that sent me running from the room on a regular basis was the opening to Chiller Theater on WPIX in NY. Don’t know what it was but between the creepy stop-motion animation six- fingered hand, the psychotic music and the voice saying “Chil-lerrrrrrr” I would run cowering into the dining room where the bad hand in the TV couldn’t get me.
I was a real wimp as a kid. What can I say?
I was also, as many people who lived in older houses were I’m sure, afraid of the basement. Not only did we have an older house, we had an unfinished basement. One side was for laundry and extra food storage and the other was for my dad’s tool bench, the lawn mower, etc. It didn’t help that almost every summer bumblebees or wasps would build a nest just outside the door from the basement to the backyard under the back stairs, or the fact that there was a sixteen inch drop from the patio to the basement entrance that I doubtless fell into a few times as a kid.
If that wasn’t enough, one of the old books my parents had in the living room was a cheesy old ghost story anthology that included a story called “The Thing in the Cellar” about a kid who kept trying to tell his parents that there was a monster in the cellar. Of course, the parents didn’t believe the kid and the family doctor said the child had a phobia and he should be forced to confront the fear to overcome it. The parents, being reasonable sorts, decided to tie the kid to a pipe in the basement. You can guess the rest. They come back and find nothing but shredded remains. The monster is real.
I didn’t go in the basement alone after dark until I was roughly, oh, 25 years old.
Since it’s an instinct and not a rational response, fear doesn’t always work the way you think it would. For example, I was hit by a car when I was 7 and yet I have no particular memory of being afraid of cars or streets after that. You would think I would be, but there you go. I was too busy being terrified by the TV and the basement I guess. Or I’m not very bright which any regular reader has already discerned.
What were you afraid of? C’mon, you can admit it right in the comments section. I won’t make fun of you. Boo!
Last night’s topic was ostensibly ghosts but the first hour experienced a little topic drift into what scared the crap out of you when you were a kid including one male caller who claimed to never have, er, sexual dreams because he was petrified by the scene in Ghostbusters where a guy was sleeping and a ghost (probably a succubus) floated above the bed and undid the guy’s fly.
Who knew that that movie could be so psychologically damaging? I mean sure, you may never want to eat marshmallows or green jello again but I would’ve thought that would be the end of it.
Anyway, it reminded me of some of the things that scared me as a kid and with Halloween approaching and me probably not having time to write much next week since I’m traveling on business to the most frightening and unreal place on Earth (Los Angeles) I figured I’d write about ‘em today.
One thing that sent me running from the room on a regular basis was the opening to Chiller Theater on WPIX in NY. Don’t know what it was but between the creepy stop-motion animation six- fingered hand, the psychotic music and the voice saying “Chil-lerrrrrrr” I would run cowering into the dining room where the bad hand in the TV couldn’t get me.
I was a real wimp as a kid. What can I say?
I was also, as many people who lived in older houses were I’m sure, afraid of the basement. Not only did we have an older house, we had an unfinished basement. One side was for laundry and extra food storage and the other was for my dad’s tool bench, the lawn mower, etc. It didn’t help that almost every summer bumblebees or wasps would build a nest just outside the door from the basement to the backyard under the back stairs, or the fact that there was a sixteen inch drop from the patio to the basement entrance that I doubtless fell into a few times as a kid.
If that wasn’t enough, one of the old books my parents had in the living room was a cheesy old ghost story anthology that included a story called “The Thing in the Cellar” about a kid who kept trying to tell his parents that there was a monster in the cellar. Of course, the parents didn’t believe the kid and the family doctor said the child had a phobia and he should be forced to confront the fear to overcome it. The parents, being reasonable sorts, decided to tie the kid to a pipe in the basement. You can guess the rest. They come back and find nothing but shredded remains. The monster is real.
I didn’t go in the basement alone after dark until I was roughly, oh, 25 years old.
Since it’s an instinct and not a rational response, fear doesn’t always work the way you think it would. For example, I was hit by a car when I was 7 and yet I have no particular memory of being afraid of cars or streets after that. You would think I would be, but there you go. I was too busy being terrified by the TV and the basement I guess. Or I’m not very bright which any regular reader has already discerned.
What were you afraid of? C’mon, you can admit it right in the comments section. I won’t make fun of you. Boo!
Comments
This issue was later resolved past a point in my life where it would have offered me comfort or safety.
But the biggest thing I was afraid, and this is around 5th-7th grade, was my closet. It was one of those closets that was basically the width of the wall, and closed off by a sliding door. A cheap sliding door - this is importantly shortly.
I read a Stephen King short story called "The Boogeyman." There was one line in there that stuck with me: "The closet was open, but just a crack." That "just a crack" bit showed up many times in the story. And that cheap sliding door? Yeah, it would wobble at an angle so that when you closed it, the top portion of the door would hit the mark first, and then gently rock back parallel ... leaving "just a crack" open.
Of course, when I first started feeling uptight about this I would make damn sure I closed the closet. So now I knew, deep in my heart, that I had made myself all nice and safe.
But that door was cheap, and it liked to not stay closed. Waking up and catching a glimpse of that door open when I was certain I had closed it? Yeah, not fun in my confused, scaredy-cat mind.
-Dan