Boo to You!

When I was a little girl, I used to think there were alligators under my bed.  My sister and I slept in matching antique twin iron beds, and they were far up off the ground, so you had to hop pretty high to get into them at night.  The alligators didn't live under there during the day, you know.  Only at night, when the lights were out and little girls were supposed to be asleep.

I don't know if our parents, or a mean babysitter put this thought into my head, but I was always convinced that if I put my foot down, or let it stray outside the covers and dangle over the side of the bed, it would be bitten off by an angry alligator and all I'd be left with was a bloody stump!

I remember too, that in the darkness, as I would lay there and think about the monsters under the bed, I would also see things flying through the air above me.  If you looked real hard into the pitch black dark, you could see these tiny little red things darting back and forth real fast and I just knew they were something sinister.  Like if you put your hand up into the blackness, these little red things would hit against your arms and hand with little stinging bites.  I don't know for sure what they were.  More than likely they were the result of extreme eye strain and an over-active imagination, but next time you're laying in bed in a totally dark room, try it and see if you can spot them.

And heaven forbid if the closet door should remain open at bedtime.  Don't even get me started there!  Have you ever stared long enough into a dark, open closet and imagined the contents manifesting themselves into the most gosh-awful monsters ever set forth upon the face of the earth?  Well, I have, and then some!  Hard to believe an innocent coat can become Dracula with fangs dripping blood, just waiting to come out and bite your neck.

As a kid and young adult, I watched all the most horrifying scary movies and read the most horrendously gory books.  I loved being scared and was thrilled when a new horror film came out and we got to go and see it at the theater.  I read every Stephen King and Dean Koontz book there was.  Now, you couldn't DRAG me to a horror movie.  And I can't even get two pages into a book by Stephen King these days without slamming it shut and throwing it out.  I just don't have the tolerance for any of that any more.  I have nightmares for days just watching one episode of the latest horror series on television.  And zombies?  Forget-about-it!  No way, no how!  I can't endure anything about zombies.  If one knocked on my door, I swear I'd just die dead away, right on the spot.  He wouldn't even have to kill me first, I'd just lay down and die before he had the chance!

An occasional ghost story, I can handle.  I watch a few on tv now and then, and they aren't so bad.  As long as there's no blood and guts, I can usually watch to the end.  I might be a little jumpy the rest of the night and sleep with the lights on, but I can usually endure it.

So, here's to another Happy Halloween!  Hopefully yours will be zombie-free and only as scary as you want it to be.  One tip though:  chocolate before bed gives you the most awful nightmares.  I'm speaking from experience here, so stick to the non-chocolate candies before you fall asleep on Halloween night!  You'll be glad you did!