In the most general sense of the word, I would call myself a pretty sensible person. I can’t bring myself to buy lottery tickets; my only concession to my desire to make foolish wishes is when I drive under yellow lights. Even my bad habit of always assuming the worst case scenario is about to come true stems from a mildly sensible place--at least when things
do go my way, I’m pleasantly surprised.
But ever since I was a kid, I’ve had some pretty ridiculous irrational fears.
Like how I used to be afraid of stormtroopers. I’m not talking about the kind of fear where you think to yourself, “Hey, those dudes are kinda creepy.” I mean heart-pounding apprehension. I think it all began at the Star Tours ride at Disney World that featured lifesize models of stormtroopers and Vader, looming over my pint-sized self, threatening to harm me with their steely, expressionless masks.
I’m not afraid of stormtroopers anymore. I mean it; I watched all three
Star Wars movies in a row with my family on Christmas Day. Any rise in my heart rate was completely unrelated to those armored white beasts.
But that fear was replaced by one that makes even less sense: feral children. I know, right—what? But somewhere along the way,
I developed an actual fear of feral children, the raised-by-wolves, language-less, walk-on-all-fours kind. In my daily life I have little to no interaction with feral children--
thank god. I’m not entirely sure from whence this irrational fear came, but if I had to venture a guess, it would bring me to my next unholy terror.
Anybody remember
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? From around 3rd grade probably up through early middle school, these iconic black-and-white-and-red volumes were a staple of classroom bookshelves everywhere,
and if they didn’t inspire sheer terror in the hearts of children, I’m not sure what would. It was Stephen Gammell's illustrations that did the trick, though. The stories were your typical urban legends--men with hooks for hands; dead people rising from freshly-dug graves; a girl raised by wolves (see?). But those detailed, gruesome images will haunt me forever. Incidentally, it seems the current editions of these tomes are illustrated by a different, tamer artist. Probably for the best. Nightmares about spiders hatching from a young girl’s cheek aren’t the most pleasant of dreams for a 9-year-old to have.
If the
Scary Stories books weren’t your style, you might have gotten your spooky jollies with a little show called
Are You Afraid of the Dark? on Nickelodeon. Once I was old enough to stay up late and catch this one, I loved the thrill of the fear.
But oh, there
was fear. A secret door that led to nothing; an old man with a shovel; a boyfriend who’s unknowingly dead--these stories don’t still fill my head with the terrifying imagery that the books did, but I remember burrowing under the covers once my 9:30 p.m. bedtime hit, hoping that the creepy clown from the magic shop stayed far, far away from my bedroom. For a kids’ show, they sure weren't kidding around.
None of these fears affect my daily life. I can watch
Star Wars marathons with ease, read about the origins of the Roman empire without Remus and Romulus making me a little nervous. Occasionally a picture from the
Scary Stories books will pop into my head and I’m not saying I like it, but I can keep calm.
Are You Afraid of the Dark?, lacking a presence in my DVD collection, is but a distant memory. But you know that feeling you get when you stand atop something very high, that feeling in the pit of your stomach like you’re sure to fall in spite of the two thick layers of gates and glass protecting you from just that? These things can still inspire that jolt of adrenaline, that prickling of the spine, that dizzy certainty that doom is imminent.
I said I was sensible. I never claimed to be rational.
We’d happily trade the latest Babysitters’ Club for a pepperoni, or the spookiest Goosebumps for extra cheese, please. For me, it was a reward for something I enjoyed doing, anyway. For others, maybe it took a little effort, or a little cajoling on behalf of their teachers. But come Friday night, when your parents took you to Pizza Hut all because you’d plowed through a couple of quick chapter books? Well worth the effort.
let alone leisure reading. But why not? Why do the incentives for good behavior—pizza for books, prizes for good grades, crisp $1 bills for lost teeth—end at childhood? It is, as they say, not fair.
And it doesn’t all have to be food. I’d happily accept incentives in the form of beer, material goods, or even better, cash money. Sure, we get paid to do our jobs, but who’s rewarding us for getting up when our alarm clocks go off or cleaning errant hairs out of the sink or checking the oil in our cars? This grown-up stuff is tough, and a little encouragement would be greatly appreciated.
