Thursday, October 31, 2024

I'm Scared!!!

 RHYS BOWEN

It’s Halloween today so what else can we talk about other than being scared? My kids used to love to dress up as scary things.. witches, ghosts, fangs, fake blood. My granddaughter just attended an awesome haunted house, with actors playing parts in every room. Aliens who grab you to suck out your brains, mad scientists doing experiments, ghosts and ghouls.  She loved it. You would not catch me going to it.

Some people love to be scared. My granddaughters will go on the most insane roller coasters that twist you around and plunge you down. My daughter Anne loves horror movies. Me?  I’m a great big chicken.

I won’t go on roller coasters.  I was tricked into going on Space Mountain once. My kids went on earlier in the day at Disneyland and Clare said “You’d love it. It was like gliding through space.”  She wanted to take me on but it was shown as out of service.  I should have known.  It came back on before we left so I agreed to ride it with her.  When we went up the second gradient I decided it was not going to be good. Then we plunged down. Pitch blackness, twisting, turning… and the child behind me kept saying, “Isn’t this fun dad, huh dad?”  I thought if I could let go of this rail I’d kill him.  We get to the bottom and Clare says, sweet smile on her face, “it went much faster tonight.”  So that was why it was taken out of service earlier… because it went too slowly. Grrr.

Never again.

I hate scary movies. I remember watching The Invasion of the Body Snatchers when I was young. It freaked me out for decades. One of my good friends directed a movie and invited me to a private screening, in George Lucas’s private screening room.  With George Lucas!  Big soft couches. Only a dozen people. The movie starts. It’s about a drug that can make soldiers aggressive. Only it goes wrong in the lab and makes the lab workers homicidal. They are trapped in this dystopian building. People come around corners and hands grab them. I want to leave but I can’t. It’s my friend’s movie. I want to scream, but I can’t. So I sit there with shut eyes for ninety minutes.


When I wrote YA novels I was asked to write a scary series…vampires, ghosts..  Kids love that stuff, the publisher said. You’d make a fortune. uh, no thank you.  I said “I’m sorry. I believe in that stuff too much.” I suppose it’s because I grew up in a big old house that I’m sure was haunted.  My brother and I had bedrooms on the top floor. Rugs flapped by themselves. Windows blew open. And I used to dream (?) about a procession of hooded figures coming up the stairs toward me. I once asked my brother, who was only a small child at the time, about the house. “Do you think Britomart was haunted?” I asked. He looked amused. “Of course it was,” he said.

So I’m afraid of the dark.  I have to sleep with enough light. I don’t like going downstairs in my perfectly modern house until the light down below is on.

I’m afraid of spiders. But I have to say that I’m very good about it.  If I find one in the bath I get a glass and a piece of paper and rescue it, dropping it outside. After the same one,( I swear) came back three times, I took it to the far end of our property before releasing it.  Find your way back from there! My worst spider incident happened in Australia. I was visiting my parents. We went to a state park. I went to the toilet. It had one of those door where you can see over the top.  As I closed the door with me inside a huge, hairy Huntsman spider crawled up and sat on top of the door. I mean huge… four or five inches of spider sitting just above the door latch.  My first thought was that I could never leave. I’d have to spend my life in this toilet because if I touched that door latch it would leap down on my hand. I stood there, watching it.  It watched me. I took a pen out of my purse and, centimeter at a time, I raised the latch. With my foot I inched the door open. The spider didn’t move. When It was open enough I ran. As I ran I pictured that Huntsman sitting on my back, laughing.

Strangely enough I was once in a loo in Northern Australia when a six foot lizard planted itself outside my door.  Not at all afraid of that.  Nor of snakes. Certainly not of lions and tigers.

I know it doesn’t make sense. So confession time. What scares you?

55 comments:

  1. I'm in total agreement with you, Rhys . . . absolutely no roller coasters. Also, no rock climbing, bungee-jumping, or zip-lining . . . .

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  2. That's some spider! I don't mind a fast carnival ride, but no hanging upside down for me. Or bungee jumping over sail gliding.

    Frankly, what scares me the worst is the thought that something bad might happen to a member of my immediate family.

    And also snakes. And big worms. They just completely creep me out.

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    1. Also, happy halloween! I get to go to downtown party later with the cutest 1-year-old puffin in the world.

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    2. Aw, what a great idea for a baby Halloween costume! Have a fun day with Ida Rose!

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    3. A puffin! Brilliant. Clare took one year old Sam as Dobby with a sick pinned to him

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    4. And my daughter-in-law made the costume herself, adapted an orange footed pjs and a black hood with wings, a white tummy, a beak, and eyes!

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  3. Roller coasters scare me for sure. Never been on one, never will. I avoid scary movies ever since I saw "The Thing," when I was twelve. I actually would like to stay in a haunted house - I don't think ghosts are necessarily ill-willed. Spiders give me the creeps but only poisonous ones actually scare me. Although, I have to say the spider you described would, Rhys. What a horrible experience, even though it made me laugh (shakily).

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  4. I can't go on rollercoasters anymore because of my neck, but Disney's Space Mountain and The Matterhorn were two of my favorites. I chose my rollercoaster rides very carefully, never did the upside down ones.
    I did zipline in Alaska and it was breathtaking. I like to sleep in complete darkness and I have been rehoming spiders to the garden, using a tennis ball can and a piece of cardboard, forever.
    I don't care for reptiles but don't usually freak out over snakes or lizards as long as I am not threatened by them. Sharks, alligators and crocodiles are my nightmare animals, but I mostly avoid places where I might encounter them. I don't hike alone anymore because of the proliferation of bears, but I have been in close proximity frequently when with others. Our last vacation was to see the enormous grizzly bears on the Katmai Penninsula in Alaska. Awesome.

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  5. I am pretty much with you Rhys. No rollercoasters, no scary movies – Poseidon was scary enough, The Exorcist was silly, no to Rosemary’s Baby. No Matrix series – maybe just too loud, no war explosive things. Absolutely no to snakes – how can they sneak up on you every time – but spiders are no issue. Even so, Australia is not high on my visiting card. Maybe spiders give no issue because #1 son had a colony of them on the ceiling at the top of his bunk bed – he slept with them. Heaven forbid if I suggested ‘cleaning them’! Don’t like vampire or fantasy books – getting boring, aren’t I.
    No kids for Halloween here. Bought some small chocolate bars for himself yesterday – he was whining he needed them, and I will throw them out this time next year. I realized this morning that in this small area (15 houses) no one has kids. Our kids were the only ones and the last ones – youngest is 34.
    Happy Birthday to the celebrators today!

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    1. We live on a cul de sac and only have one set of kids but I buy lots of KitKat anyway for you know who

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  6. I have enough anxiety and worry in my life, no horror for me, thank you. I tried to read Stephen King almost 40 years ago, but after It and Misery, I decided I didn't need that in my life. I don't watch horror movies. I don't even like really gory and scary Halloween decorations, which seem to be proliferating. There are many gargantuan skeletons in my neighborhood, and skeleton tableaux. Skeletons in a kayak, skeletons sitting at a table, skeletons on the second story crawling in a window. Those aren't so bad, though I don't get the appeal. One neighbor has a plethora of decor crowding the sidewalk from both sides. I heard water trickling and looked--and it was a picture frame of a creepy doll's head with red liquid coming out of the mouth. Too gross. Another neighbor has creepy clown's heads with bloody fangs. What happened to happy Jack O'Lanterns?

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    1. Ever since I had a child (almost three decades ago, so not recently), I think about the littlest ones when I see these gory and scary decorations people are putting in their yards. Remember how fun it was taking your child trick or treating the first time? I think they must freak out when facing who knows what kinds of creatures before they can get to the door. — Pat S

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    2. My kids would have been freaked out by these

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  7. SPIDERS, big or small, frighten me. I would have totally freaked out if I encountered such a huge one as you did.

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  8. I used to like roller coasters, but now they bother me. I do not like spiders or snakes. I do not like scary movies or haunted houses. I do not like dark caves. I think I am a big Fraidy Cat.

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  9. I like roller coasters. The old wooden ones. Those new steel ones give me whiplash. Then again, I haven't been on one of the old coasters in many many years, so they might wreck my spine now, too.

    Spiders and snakes creep me out. Nope nope nope. I can't tell the poisonous ones from the benign ones, so I'm taking no chances.

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  10. Rhys, we are totally in sync here, including about rollercoasters, and EEEK!!!!, Invasion of the Body Snatchers! I would not go down to the basement at night for decades, and even now I have to have a light on. Permanent psychic scars from that one.

    When the two youngest were 10 and 7 we took them to Disneyland on a family Christmas visit to Marin. We ended up on Space Mountain, and the gods were with me: they had to stop the ride for about ten minutes, while we were midway down the biggest and steepest part.

    My biggest fear is "that" phone call. And these days, our country getting turned into all our worst nightmares.

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  11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers--terrified me as a child! I don't do scary haunted houses this time of year or books or movies. I think my imagination is too vivid. No to snakes and spiders--and I read that if you capture a spider in the house and put it outside, it's going to die because the environment is too different. That makes sense, unless the spider has come into the house from outside. (Flora)

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    1. So how do they get into my bath all the time? It must be from outside

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    2. Yes, there's the whole "interfering" dilemma. but I'd rather carry a spider away than stomp it.

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  13. No on roller coasters or any whirly-swirly rides!

    I went to a horror night at Warner Brothers and realized nothing there (IT, chainsaw massacre-ers, etc.) scared me. Issues related to my stressful job were what frightened me then.

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  14. Reptiles! I hate reptiles! I'll even change the channel if they show up on TV and slide past them if they show up on Facebook. I hate reptiles! I also avoid all amusement park rides that go too high, too fast, too twisty.... Maybe I can handle an old-fashioned merry-go-round. But I really hate reptiles.

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    1. A friend in Canada goes white if you even say the "s" word. She and her mother used to say, with a shudder, "tubular animals".

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  15. Thank you for the chuckle, Rhys! I am laughing at the image of the Huntsman spider laughing like in a cartoon movie.

    Surprised because you wrote Royal Blood and it was more like a mix of funny and scary. Love to read about Lady Georgie at Dracula's castle in Transylvania

    To answer your question, I cannot recall what scares me!

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    1. That sort of scary doesn’t bother me, especially funny and scary. I wrote Royal Blood because vampires were big at the time

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    2. My favorite kind of scary 🎃👻🧛‍♀️

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  16. Aah! Scarier, the better. Took my girls to Halloween Horror Nights at universal a few years ago. We screamed and laughed all night. Love roller coasters but a spider will stop me in my tracks. I can’t even look at those nasty spider decorations. We all fear something,don’t we?

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  17. I really have never understood why folks find being frightened entertaining. My life is enough of a ride without deliberately terrifying myself. I can tolerate the darkness if there is exterior ambient light. When we have power failures, I'm okay as long as a flashlight is in reach. I once lived where power failures were a regular event, so I put a flashlight in most rooms.

    When I lived in Florida, I was visiting a friend and walked into her bathroom to find a Wolf spider looking back at me. Those suckers are as big as your hand and so I bravely backed out and slammed the door shut. I had a house in Georgia that backed up on a drainage area. There was a lot of ripraf lining the hillside and it was a lovely place for Copperhead snakes to nest. I had a cat at the time who would venture down there and bring back baby Copperheads to play with. She tossed them about - sometimes right at me - as cats will do. It is possible that helped my fear of snakes a bit. Not a lot, but I didn't run terrified into the house and lock the door. For me, that is progress. -- Victoria

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    1. We lived in piney woods in Texas once and I killed four copperheads in my front porch. I had a 2 year old and was terrified he’d touch one of them

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  18. My biggest fear is spiders, ever since I had an allergic reaction to spider bites when I was five years old. But nobody can top your spider experience, Rhys!!

    DebRo

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  19. I'm with you, Rhys--I hate scary movies. But I'm not afraid of spiders, snakes, or mice (except that I wouldn't want any of them crawling on me in the dark, but then, who would?) However, the 150-plus-year-old house we lived in in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was full of giant cockroaches, which (unlike some snakes and spiders) couldn't possibly harm me. Still, I couldn't stand looking at them, let alone touching them or stepping on them, even with my shoe on. My little sister, who was fearless, would periodically capture one and confront me with it unexpectedly. (I'm sure I did something to deserve that; in any case, I've long ago forgiven her.) Luckily, Switzerland doesn't have huge cockroaches, but with the climate warming up, I'm expecting them to arrive any day now.

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    1. Mice used to scare me until I adopted an indoor/outdoor cat who would regularly capture and behead them - leaving the head at my doorstep. Had to laugh one day when a neighbor came to the front door (rarely used by anyone other than visitors) and looked at me saying, "I think that is a head of a mouse on your doormat." I calmly kicked it over into the flower bed and said, "That is why you don't have a mouse problem any longer."

      Used to be terrified of roaches, especially the ones that fly at you. Now, if I can't catch them, I've learned to use Press N Seal plastic food wrap to plaster those suckers in place so I can kill them. Amazing how creative I can get when roaches are concerned. Ick. --Victoria

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    2. Kim, I hadn’t thought about cockroaches! We have an access point to some city pipes/wires/something-or-other in a corner of our front yard that has big metal doors that lay flush with the sidewalk. One time a city crew had to come out after dark to get in there and fix something. My husband was hanging out to watch what was going on and said when they opened those doors and shone a light inside, thousands of cockroaches scrambled away! Now that creeps my out!! — Pat S

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    3. Since we live in what could be described as a woods, we get those feathery-looking centipedes. They really creep me out, although not as much as they used to.

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    4. We had giant cockroaches when we lived in south Texas. I hated them.

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  20. I don’t like horror in any form - movies, books, politics. I used to tolerate roller coasters, but was never a fan. I have tried to rehabilitate my karma from all the years of my father and then my husband killing spiders for me so I now “bravely” capture them and relocate them outside. I hope what Flora said about that ensuring their deaths is not always true. I find the small lizards we have around our neighborhood cute, but don’t want to encounter a snake - ever. The more graphic a mystery show, the more likely I am to incorporate it into my dreams. — Pat S

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    1. Me too. I can’t watch anything stressful before bed!

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  21. I like fast rides that spin you all over, but not roller coasters - it's that feeling that it's flying off into nowhere. And I'm with you, Rhys, on the spiders - they terrify me. Lizards I'm okay with, but not snakes. I also don't do scary movies, but if they're campy I'm okay with it. And it depends on what it's about-vampires and werewolves are okay, but not zombies; slash and gore is a no go for me, and if it's something that could happen, I'm out - like Cujo (a rabid dog). I did see a few terrifying movies, like The Exorcist, The Shining, and Jaws - after reading the books - whatever made me think I could watch them? My eyes were either closed or I was screaming the whole time. I decided never again - I am a giant scaredy cat. Funnily enough, the book I am currently writing is about zombies.

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  22. Love scary movies. Halloween is on deck tonight (tradition)! Am petrified of sharks. Ridiculous, I know.

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    1. I know what you mean about sharks Jenn. Someone told me once that more people kill and eat sharks than sharks kill people so not sure that is any consolation :) I remember talking with a group of people while at the Y's hot tub. I don't how the subject of sharks came up but one woman said why can't sharks leave the beaches alone and go elsewhere. After all the beach shores are for humans. Everyone looked at her like she was nuts and had no words.

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  23. I like Halloween and all the costumes. But no scary movies, ghosts, fangs, banshees, fake blood...UGG!
    We live in a city where there are lots of Mexicans who celebrate Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead which falls around the end of Oct usually. It's a celebration at home or the cemetery to remember the loved ones who have died. Families recall stories, favorite foods, activities, etc of their ancestors, friends, family and pass on the memories to the newer generations.

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  24. Happy Halloween! I used to love roller coasters. Well, I still do. They don't love me back, though. All that up and down and whipping around is not good when you have vertigo.

    Don't like spiders or snakes or insects with many legs. I'm not scared of them as much as I don't want to look at them.

    But ix-nay on the horror films. Nope, nope, nope.

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  25. Happy Halloween, everyone! Not afraid of snakes or spiders. One year we had a gorgeous orb spider spin a web on our front porch and we guarded it carefully through Halloween! Cockroaches, however, will make me shriek and jump on chairs...

    Rhys, so funny, I'm still traumatized by Invasion of the Body Snatchers all these many decades later!!

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  26. Oooh. Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Kevin McCarthy. I hate how no one listens to warnings in the movies. How about The Tingler? I'm scared of snakes. If I see one and I'm within six feet of it I do a snake dance you could never replicate. Dancing and teleporting combined.

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  27. Hmmm--I don't love spiders, but I am kind of fascinated by them. As long as they stay on their own turf. Oh, and Body Snatchers, certainly, that was traumatizing. Roller coasters, fine. Sharks I hardly think about, but I would not be happy to be in the water with one, that's for sure. Centipedes. Yes. HORRIBLE. I'm not afraid of them, though, just would rather not be surprised by one. I'd rather be scared than sad, though.

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  28. Everyone, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

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  29. No roller coasters! I've been on maybe three in my life, and I can actually choose not to have that certain terror in my life. My fifteen-year-old granddaughter and her father love all roller coasters. I will gladly be the holder of jackets or purses or backpacks while others indulge in that insanity. I guess I'm more the Lazy River rides. I do think the major theme parks do a great job with Halloween. A friend took me to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA when they had their Halloween activities in full swing, and it was so much fun. I still didn't go on any roller coasters, but I did go into three different haunted houses, which was brave for me. Also in the scary realm, I do like some scary and suspenseful movies--Misery, Get Out, The Haunting (adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House), The Others, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Birds, Psycho, The 1980 Jack Nicholson The Shining (probably my favorite of all), the Johnny Depp Sleep Hollow, Tremors (yes, I like it, so sue me), The Sixth Sense, Dolores Claiborne, Rear Window, and some other suspense movies. I don't want blood and gore or stupid people going in the basement when they know they should just leave the house.

    Spiders don't disturb me much, but then I haven't been to Australia where I would be scared that every spider could kill me. I have a healthy respect, bordering on love and fear of lions and tigers and bears, oh my. However, a couple of friends have suggested a trip to South Africa in February, during which we would do an open air vehicle safari. I'm torn. I would love so much to see the lions and other wildlife, but I don't like those vehicles with no sides, which most of them seem to be. After we arrive in Cape Town, we begin a cruise to different locations. It really sounds interesting, and my husband would rather do this trip than go to England with me, which means I'll probably be looking for a traveling companion to England. I plan on staying there for probably a month.

    Sharks, you can have the water. I won't be challenging your space at all. My daughter and her family swim in the ocean, but my fear of sharks will continue to keep me out of the ocean. In my earlier years, I wasn't quite as fearful, but then I believed my husband when he told me there weren't any snakes in North Carolina when we were fishing for trout (I was only 23).

    Oh, mice, I'm terrified of, as one ran across my foot years ago when I was making coffee in the morning. Also, hopping bugs, especially grasshoppers. I owe that phobia to my brother who used to catch grasshoppers and try to put them down the back of my shirt. Where the hell was my mother? Well, as mothers did in the late 50s and early 60s, she was doing house stuff and letting us work out our own battles.

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  30. Not being a fan of any type of horror, real or imagined, I am getting progressively more ticked off with how that genre has overtaken my birth month, darn it. In my younger days, Halloween was more the 'jolly jack'o lantern' variety and not the dripping corpses of today - and the season was certainly not all month long, or is it starting in September now? The holiday creep syndrome...

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