All my life, I’ve felt a strong bond with cats. You know — sly, sleek, well groomed, naturally in their primitive way. Always a bitch. But, even more closely related, I am also quite the “scaredy cat.”
Get that scary story out of my head, and don’t send me your stupid Halloween links. I will scream, and likely cry.
Though I adore fall weather, the transition from the comforting warmth to the unfamiliar cold can be a trial for me in more ways than one. There’s something intangibly and utterly frightening about the unknown, but especially when the weather is frightful. I cannot ever place my finger on the specific source, but at 19 years of age, the desire to check all of my closets and underneath my bed during the Halloween season is slightly ridiculous.
The few experiences I have had with the “paranormal,” or just plain strangeness, have turned me into this paranoid android. Without the massive amounts of So Weird and Unsolved Mysteries that scared the crap out of me as a small child, I actually might be normal, able to walk into my house alone without thinking a man was standing in the hallway, waiting, with a knife.
The Garage Sale Murderer
My mother’s favorite story, and, essentially, the foundation of most of my childhood embarrassment, is a product of my youthful obsession over scary cinema, as previously mentioned. My mother loved to host annual garage sales with her six closest friends at the time. From dawn until dusk, she worked away as I got to explore with my childhood friend Carlee. My mother was very strict about me going outside as a child, so, as you could imagine, I was thrilled to venture into the great unknown.
As a small child, I had a crazy imagination. In the span of the single day, Carlee and I conceived the thought, which seemed quite real to us at the time, that my neighbor was a murderer.
Looking back, this obviously held no truth, but at the time, we were enthralled in the fantasy. This neighbor, who my family saw a grand total of five times after living next to him for 19 years, had full trash bags in his backyard. They had to contain bodies, right? The chainsaw near his door didn’t add any light to our suspicion. We were certain we had a killer on our hands.
After lunch, the lone time my mother noticed my existence, Carlee and I decided we would catch his evil acts while the adults were too busy to be worried about us. Sneaking into his backyard was relatively easy; there was no dog or even a gate to deter us.
Article comments
1 - John Lake
You were a strange child indeed!