- Fruity Pebbles
- Once upon a time, back when I was in kindergarten, during lunchtime, my friend Cece told me a story about a kid who ate Fruity Pebbles and then blew up. I full-on believed her, and it certainly didn't help when a couple weeks later, I threw a tantrum and my Mom, apparently ruing her decision of give sugared cereal for breakfast, angrily said "Ugh! You eat one bowl of sugary cereal and then you just explode!" I didn't touch a Fruity Pebble till 7th grade (although by that point, I'd come to realize that Fruity Pebbles weren't at all explosive).
- Flipped Eyelids
- My dad used to do that all the time, and it scared the shit out of me every time. I was always terrified that they were going to get stuck that way and I'd never be able to look my dad in the eye again.
- David Letterman
- When I was around 3, my Dad came home one day with an issue of Rolling Stone with David Letterman on the cover, in which his eyes were all wide and he just looked really manic and excited. For some reason, I saw him as having huge, swirling red eyes, and it reminded me of my dad when he'd flip his eyelids, so I was scared shitless of that magazine and spent a few of my earlier years feeling rather uneasy whenever Rolling Stone or David Letterman were mentioned.
- Shadows
- Pretty sure most kids are scared of that one.
- The Number 5 Button On TV Remotes
- Somehow when I was little, I got it into my head that if someone pointed a remote at me and pushed the 5 button, I would disappear into oblivion forever. My mom wasn't very comforting, as she kind of encouraged this fear by teasingly pointing the remote at me and saying in a singing sort of voice, "Kaaaaate, I'm gonna push the number fiiiiiive!"
- Lauren, A.K.A. "The Girl In The Closet"
- Lauren was my imaginary friend who lived in my closet from when I was 2 until I was 3 and we moved. All I really remember about her was that she was inspired by a girl who lived next door, whose name I'm pretty sure was Lauren, and we were friends for awhile until I started envisioning her with red eyes and a nowhere near friendly personality. I found some old journal entries my mom wrote during that time, in which she writes about me saying good-night to The Girl In The Closet and saying prayers for her, until a few entries later in which I started requesting my closet door be shut every night. Creeeeepy...
- Princess Caribou
- I don't know where the hell Princess Caribou came from, but I was terrified of her. I was 5 and I somehow got it into my head that that was the name of some movie my parents were watching one night, and that it was about an evil demon princess who lived in the Arctic and dressed in blue and lots of fur. She had blonde hair, enormous bulging blue eyes with catlike pupils, and long walrus-like teeth, and I'm quite positive that the ones on the bottom row actually went up through the roof of her mouth and came out through her cheeks.
- Are You Afraid Of The Dark?
- What kids in the 90's weren't frightened by that show?
- Puncturing My Throat In My Sleep
- When I was 7, my best friend, Lillian, told me about a kid who died because he punctured his windpipe. For some reason, I wound up believing that the same thing could happen to me while I was sleeping because I slept with my hand curled close to my neck and had some very long fingernails. For a few years after that, I kept my fingernails cut short and taught myself to sleep with my arms stretched out stiff as a board, clasped tightly at my sides.
may 11 2009 ∞
may 11 2009 +