October 20, 2004

• The Incubi and Succubi
• Who was it that would tell scary political stories at bedtime about Ronald Reagan, etc? Was that from Bloom County?
• I had a cousin about a year older than me who one October evening on the porch of my Grandma's house told me and another younger cousin a story about an old hag who would creep into your bedroom at night by crawling under the floorboards. You would hear a "creeeeeeeek" just before she burst up through the wood, decapitated you, and took your head away in an old sack. This was just something she was making up on the spot, no regionalism or anything, but need I saw the creak of a floorboard was a sure-fire incontinence-starter for me and my younger cousin for months years afterwards?
• All I know is this halloween I'm coming dressed as Tampon man. This is a web sites "By the Tampon-man, For the Tampon-man, Of the Tampon-man"
• The great, long, red-legged Scissorman.
• George W. Bush. Oh, okay. All of them. Can't stand the whole "hey let's be afraid!" thing. Don't watch those movies, don't like those . . other . . . fear-mongering events. Give me the grotto, Hef. Cheers!
• La Llorana as seen on the US tv ads for milk. Not creepy, just lame-ass. Actually, I think the proverbial monster-under-the-bed is what kept me awake at nights as a kid, and even now I'll very occasionally lie in bed at 4am, still mostly asleep, and think there's something below me waiting for an appendage to come into view.
• A perosn of LOVE, MENSES and TRUTH!
• Clever slam on the existence of God in 3..2..1..
• I think Santa Claus would have to be my least favorite.
• The toilet monster. Hands down. That fucker had my number.
• moneyjane-- You had a toilet monster too?? Mine could only come out after flushing which necessitated a sprint from the room once the toilet was flushed.
• When I was a little kid, my dad would sometimes tuck me in, saying "Say goodnight to the witch that lives under your bed!" He thought he was hilarious. My mom wanted to kill him when I slept in their bed for a week.
• saw / say
• You're alone at home. It's dark outside. You glance at a window, and suddenly, out of the blackness, a face is staring in at you! That's mine.
• even as a fairly young child I loved "scary" things. thunderstorms, ghost stories etc., needless to say halloween was my fav holiday and is still my fav "traditional" holiday (I also love dressing up) I have always been fascinated by witches, vampires, werewolves, ghosts, you name it! I loved to watch scary movies and read scary books. I still do (thank you Clive Barker!) my sisters & I did have a strange legend about the "banana monster" (really!) who would begin growing in the back of the basement once the light was turned off, necessitating a quick exit from the basement!
• The only horror flick I have ever seen was in the form of a nightmare. I dreamed there was a bloke running about killing people. He had brown and green mottled skin, and one long fang, which he sank into the tops of his victims' heads, killing them. At the time I had the dream, I shared a bedroom with my little brother. For literally years afterwards, I turned the lights on at least once a night, checking to see if my brother was breathing.
• When I was a little kid, I was a precocious reader and I read Discover magazine. My bogeymen? What I read about AIDS and nuclear winter in the early '80's. * shivers *
• PoiDog--does the reflection look just like you? OMG that happens to me all the time! ;) Seriously, though, I have a similar phobia--seeing someone or something in a mirror or other reflective surface that isn't there in the room with you. Like Bloody Mary or what have you. *shudder* I never had a monster under the bed, but I did sprint by dark doorways in our hall for fear of someone/thing reaching out and grabbing me. I tried not to look inside as I passed, terrified of seeing some monster with outstretched claws, but I couldn't help it. Every now and then a trick of the light would have me pissing down both legs. Figuratively.
• Ooh, that's a good one, PoiDog... I also have that same fear, but with mirrors. Have you seen the movie Carnival of Souls? Or Poltergeist III? Both of those have scary faces in the mirror. (Not to mention Candyman. *shudder*)
• I am with Medusa, I love the traditional scarey stuff and Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year for having fun at my house. What scares me is people in general, because you just never know what someone will do.
• That little fucker that would enter the room at night, and stand over your so you can't move, you can't scream. I enjoyed its' visits a couple times in my youth. I've read it explained as some kind of apnea disorder; your brain wakes up, but your body doesn't, so you try to stand up, to move, to wake yourslef up, no dice. Quite terryifing to experience, whatever the cause.
• Mark me down in the "Halloween is my favorite holiday" column. Not only because I love horror movies and dressing up, but because it's the last official pagan holiday celebrated by most Americans. Though there have been disturbing efforts to de-fang the holiday, make it cartoonish and harmless. I remember being scared to walk up to houses on Halloween night b/c of the spooky music and likelihood of a masked hooligan jumping out and scaring the bejeezus out of you, and that's as it should be. The scariness is part of the fun. That's why I never dress up as something not-scary (no scooby doos or pirates at my house--only bloody zombies and ghosts). My son's gonna be Superman, though. I'm so disappointed. Still, he's only 4. There's time.
• When I was 8 and my brother was 6, we had a bad babysitter who rented "The Thing", plopped us down in front of the television, and went off to make-out with her boyfriend. I had nightmares for about a month straight, and my brother had to have a night-light on for years. I think the babysitter ended up with nightmares of my mom yelling at her.
• PoiDog, a few years ago I was working in the Yukon for a mining company. The mine had recently shut down and the few of us who were left wound up manning the security gate. This entailed spending a 12 hour shift alone at the spooky old abandoned minesite, on the side of a mountain, miles from nowhere. One night I was sitting in the guard-house, reading, and just about to go out and make my rounds. Something made me look up from my book and staring in the window at me was a huge, beady-eyed, long faced hairy monster with horns. It was a moose.
• tracicle: What TV ads are you referring to? I don't think I've seen them, what are they like?
• TenaciousPettle - We had the best trick-or-treat house down the street from me. You'd walk up to the front door past a series of rock-n-roll zombie scarecrows with electric guitars and there was creeeeeepy scratchy music playing. You'd get your candy and think you were in the clear, but as you leave the house, one of the zombies would jump out in front of you and wail on the guitar. I lost a lot of candy, and didn't go back for it, the first year I lived in the neighborhood. Then I grew up and developed a crush on the cool guitarist. But they moved :(
• The mirror face thing doesn't bother me, just the idea of a person/entity watching from outside. I had a dream once that it was an evil alien. Islander - great story! I'll bet you jumped several feet!
• Nickdanger, they were on in California when I was there two years ago: in the ad, she goes to the fridge, finds the empty milk carton, and starts crying harder than ever. Here's a quick rundown of the legend - I spelled her name wrong though, she's la llorona. Here's a rundown of the ad itself - it won an award!? Oh, and it's a California-only ad.
• I had a problem with mirrors as a kid. Too many friends telling me the story of Bloody Mary (or a popular variation at my school, the story of Mary Worth), and next thing I knew, I could not have a mirror in my bedroom. That went on for years. There were also the creatures that lived in the deep shadows at night under the orange tree in my grandmother's back yard, which would wait until your back was turned, and start creeping up on you. You just knew that they were almost on you by the time you were getting close to the house, and what began as a normal walking speed was a flat-out run by the time you had crossed most of the yard.
• The toilet monster I thought I was the only one afraid of the Toilet Monster. I'm still afraid of the Toilet Monster. Just last week, it made sounds like it was going to back up, and I was out the door before I even knew what I was doing.
• I had forgotten all about the Toilet Monster. Thanks a lot guys. And I just drank all that coffee, too.
• For whatever reason, whoever it was that told me the Bloody Mary story told me that it worked with toilets as well as mirrors, so Bloody Mary was my toilet monster. The oddest part though was that as long as there was something on top of the toilet lid once it was closed, I felt perfectly safe. It was often a tissue. Yes I know, a tissue isn't going to do a thing against an evil supernatural being. But as long as there was something, I was okay. My parents were completly mystified as to why I kept putting tissues on the toilet, until I finally told them. Then they were just amused, and later annoyed when they realized how much money I was costing them.
• My hands down favorite is 'The Whistler' Have you ever been on a cold stretch of rocky beach when all the colors have gone flat and the raw wind at your back cuts right through you? You pull the hood of your parka over your head and shove your chapped hands deep into your pockets and hunch your shoulders. The wind presses you forward faster than you want to go and you stumble on feet that are like stumps in your boots. You feel unease beneath the cold and suddenly you are convinced that someone is right behind you. You spin around and the full force of the wind brings instant tears, still, you can see well enough that there's no one on the beach but you. You turn back and wipe your nose across the stiff arm of your parka and wish you didn't have so far to go. But now the feeling is back again, something's behind you, its a certainty and it is very, very close. That thing behind you? That's the Whistler, according to coastal Alaska Natives. The Athabascan who told me this said that no matter how many times you turn around, or how far the beach stretches behind you, you'll never see anything because the Whistler is very, very fast.
• Suomynona, Dude...totally, because flushing the toilet WOKE HIM UP! So it went like this...pee, wipe, get in sprint position, flush! Run like hell because he could get you UNTIL YOU WERE BACK IN BED! Kind of like that PJ Harvey song, only "Flush and Run" instead. Dedicated to all Toilet Monster Alumni...
• You had a toilet monster too?? Mine could only come out after flushing which necessitated a sprint from the room once the toilet was flushed. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee!!!!!!! You idiots! You've woken him up again! It'd good to know that I wasn't alone, though. Not only was the desperate sprint from the bathroom needed, but for a long time my Dad had to stand at the bottom of the stairs as well. Just, you know, in case. *shudders in horror*
• Also, Senator Helms...
• I *still* don't flush the toilet at night because I don't want to wake the toilet monster (or the witch that lives under my bed, see above). I tell friends that I'm just following the old environmental saying "if it's yellow, let it mellow..." (Don't tell them on me. Thanks.)
• You're just a bunch of wimps! That toilet monster is NOTHING compared to the evil, dreaded THING that lives in the basement. I still hate basements.
• It's not that the flushing would wake the monster up it's that the swirling of the toilet water caused by the act of flushing permitted it to escape it's lair/prison. Which is why i was never afraid of the toilet until you hit the flusher. I also had a psychotic killer that lurked near the staircase till just as you were about to go up the stairs. I can't tell you how many times i've run up those steps and then hid just around the corner to see if anything was following me. Of course then i have to make it down the hall to the bedroom.
• Can anyone give me a good source for haunted houses, preferably in Philadelphia or NJ? Basements are definately the worst, I still run up the stairs some times once the lights are out and I'm supposed to be 20 or something. Though the stretchy guy from the X-Files eventually made me afraid of the toilet...I am also afraid of swimming pools and the bay.
• Also, thanks to monkeyfilter, I have a fear of sleep fucking pineapples.
• For me it was Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. Initially intrigued by the story, I made my mother buy me the Disney record and book. Then I developed an unreasoning fear of it when it appeared one night in a nightmare with me starring in Ichabod's role. I woke up screaming in terror, and when my mother arrived to see what was wrong, she was laughing. To say I was a bitter seven-year-old is something of an understatement. It took me years to forgive her. Turns out she wasn't laughing at me. My father had heard my scream, and had leapt out of bed so quickly to run to my aid, he had laid himself out flat on the floor by running into their closed bedroom door. As an adult, I get a big grin on my face every time I think of it. The image of my dad laying himself out like that has such a classic slapstick feel to it, like some screwball comedy from the 1930s. Needless to say, I long ago forgave my mother's inappropriate laughter. Between her giggle-fits she was genuinely concerned for me. I'd have been laughing too in her situation. But I have to say, for years afterward, my brother and sister could send me into a blind panic by rapping their knuckles on my bedroom door in imitation of hoofbeats. For that I have yet to forgive them.
• For me nothing was scarier than waking up in the middle of the night hearing strange animalistic noises coming from outside my room. It took me some time to realise it was my parents....
• I used to be afraid that while I was laying in bed I'd feel somebody sitting on my legs, only to look up and nobody would be there. So I slept fetal style, with my legs tucked up. (that's what I get for reading those true ghost stories in the National Enquirer)
• Kind of like that PJ Harvey song, only "Flush and Run" instead. I'm not sure, but I think you might mean Liz Phair. *lusts loves Liz*
• Yeah, tracicle , I don't know what to think about those ads. Kind of clever, but I don't like that every aspect of culture is grist for the pop-irony mill. They had La llarona (I don't know how to spell it) in NM too, and people were very serious about it. The state capitol building itself is supposed to be haunted by her. douggles : Glad to see I'm not the only one who was haunted by the Headless Horseman. He came to my window when I was five years old and knocked. I said "wh-who is there?" and demonic laughter answered. I leapt out of bed and tried to scream, but my voice had gone dry. One of the most terrifying nightmares I've ever had. I was afraid of that particular bogeyman for far too many years.
• That toilet monster is NOTHING compared to the evil, dreaded THING that lives in the basement. I must concur. The worst part about the basement monster is that you know he's RIGHT BY THE DOOR and that one of these days, when your hand is groping for the light switch, you'll feel something cold and clammy close on it like a steel trap and yank you down into the gaping maw of the darkness.
• Maybe, but you can avoid going into the basement you can't avoid using a toilet. Unless you use a hole in the ground. I haven't had enough experience with non flushing toilets when i was haunted by the toilet monster to determine if the toilet monster also haunted those devices.
• Oh, come on, the Outhouse Monster must be worse by at least a factor of ten.
• When I was a kid, I used to have regular nightmares in which I was in the library (I was a bookworm from the age of 4), looking downstairs from the kids' section to the adult section and watching my Mum and Nana looking at books. Very slowly they'd turn into skeletons with nothing left but their hair. Then, of course, they'd chase me around the library.
• Oh, and my grandparents had an outhouse at the bottom of the hill below their house. I never, ever went out there at night. My nana had a chamberpot in my room instead. Luckily they actually got a real bathroom when I was about 5.
• hunger she sits aside nods off in dozing pale as his curls as their grandda's whiskers he tells the tale in later days back then an oven was a thing of clay wedged moistly in the hearth and lucky hansel wriggled through a crack seized his sister by one wrist whipped through the door leaving the crumble-face witch to rage only gretal ever speaks of how their father took them by their chubby hands to lead and lose them deep among the clustering trees
• Very nice, bees, thank you.