As children with a limited understanding of life in general, it was easy for the world to look like a supernatural place with seemingly inexplicable events happening all around us. Dad left the room? Ahhhh! He must have been captured by Zombie Ninjas! Oh wait, he was just in the kitchen making a sandwich. What is that eery wailing coming from down the hall? I knew it, Poltergeists have come from the netherworld to terrorize us! Wait, it’s just the toilet running again. Today I’d like to share some of the childhood fears that gave me the willies in my formative years. Maybe you can relate.

Moving Shadows

Something about the darkness of my bedroom growing up really activated my imagination in a frightening way. I remember staring across the room at my open closet and swearing I saw my Teddy Ruxpin doll moving his mouth on his own. No words coming out, just a silent incantation to some evil demon that talking teddy bears worshiped, being summoned to burst through my window at any moment. I took to closing my closet door at night after that.

Sometimes the fear came from the simple act of staring the ceiling. Out of nowhere shapes and images would swirl around to form a dark spectre that slithered around the asbestos filled popcorn terrain above my head, slowly making its way down the wall to the foot of my bed. Often it would start out innocent, “Hey that looks like Scooby-Doo”, but the blurry black blob would soon morph into one of Zuhl’s terror dogs from Ghostbusters and I would have to hide under my covers. Of course this all could have been avoided if I just shut my eyes and went to sleep, but somehow that that didn’t always occur to me.

Hairs

This is kind of a weird one, but the thing that caused me to cringe as a kid was loose hairs. More specifically, hairs in the bathtub. I’d be happily playing with my Fisher-Price pontoon boat when a thin, snakelike shape would stealthily float towards me. I could see its slight shadow gliding beneath the water on the bottom of the tub and then I would just lose it.

Suddenly I was a helpless victim in a horror movie, squealing and screaming at my mom, “Get it away! Get it! Get it!” She would then have to try and grab the stray hair as I huddled in the corner of the tub to prevent any contact. Heaven help her, if it somehow attached itself to my skin in a lapsed moment of vigilance. Honestly I can’t think of any single incident that started this repulsion, but it was always my #1 fear at bath time.

Blinds

There’s nothing scary about mini-blinds, right? They are the most mundane part of the home. Maybe, but it’s what can be hiding between the blinds that terrified me. The dining room/living room/kitchen in my childhood home barely had any solid walls to speak of. Instead I was surrounded by giant windows with long rows of mini-blinds attached. It wasn’t so bad in the daytime, but once night fell, I had no idea who or what was out beyond the windows peering in. I always had this fear of turning my head away from a re-run of Happy Days to see a pair of crazed eyes staring in at me through the blinds. 

To me there is nothing so frightening as to realize that someone was watching you without your knowledge and that you have been vulnerable to attack by machete or chainsaw that whole time. Because of this, as I entered every room I always grabbed the little plastic wand and twirled it until the blinds were safely closed. But some rooms had bent or broken blinds from my childish moments of carelessness and now left me open to the dangerous leers of psychotic voyeurs. If some movie studio ever hires me to write a “Hithcockian” thriller a la’ Rear Window, it will definitely be titled, “Through The Blinds”.

So those were some of my fears of years past. What frightened you as child?

Tweet at me on Twitter @hojukoolander

Learn more about my new podcast at www.sequelquestpod.com