The Shit That Scares Me Part 4 - All the Rest

            So what have we covered in this little trip down my personal terror lane?

            Movies, yeah we did that one looking back at the scary movies I have been willingly subjected to for so many years, it was a hoot.

            Books, of yeah we delved into the book that made me afraid to close my eyes at night, good times.

            Television … again I ask you who the fuck was the person that made that damn show FOR CHILDREN???

            Alright then, moving on.

            There are thing which have made me want to fudge my boxers over the years that have nothing, or nearly nothing, to do with my former essays. I don’t think I am particularly squeamish or easy to scare but I am honest about what scares me. There a handful of these things which have impacted me when I was a child and stay with me to this day.

            So here we go, I’m ending this one with one of my ultra famous bullet pointed or numbered lists, I think I’m going with numbers on this one.

            What, did you think you were getting out of this one without a list?

            Shame on you …

1.  Clowns, I know I told you about the incident with the Scooby Doo episode and that is indeed the basis for my fear of clowns. But as the years went on I became more convinced that clowns are really a front for demons. This belief was solidified when I read one of my mom’s murder books.

(Side Note: My mother may have read nearly every true murder book published over the last 25 years. If I ever need to deal with a dead body I will probably as my mom.)

This particular book was about John Wayne Gacy and there was a picture inside of him dressed up in his clown getup. I took one look at that picture and knew there was nothing good or descent of bout the clownish species.

2. Ants, bet you didn’t see that one coming. This particular fear comes from an episode of MacGyver of all things. In one episode Mac was in the Amazon rainforest and there were many ant mounds. I’m not sure why he was there or if those were even a real species of ants. In the episode the people were using a make shift moat to keep this army of ants away. I shit you not it was played like the ants were organized and intent on seizing Paris before the Brits could react. The key to Mac’s awesome defense strategy was this sluice gate that allowed the water to be diverted from the river and encircle them as the ants passed by. Well as these things do the gate got jammed and the poor bastard who’d been the stupid white men’s guide volunteered to open it manually. As he opened the gate and saved the dumbasses who didn’t now better than that the only reason he rainforest exists is to kill white folk the ants overran and devoured him. It was fucking gruesome and served to cement my fear of ants.

Seriously … fucking ants.

3. The Dark, yeah I know everyone is afraid of the dark. Well you know what? Fuck you that’s what, the dark is scary. There are lions, serial killers, and clowns hidden in the dark. I grew up in many places and most of them were well lit. Even on the dirt road in Augusta Michigan we were really close to the township building and fire department so the exterior lights served to keep the out of doors dimly illuminated. But when we moved in with my pseudo step father, mom never married Steve but he did a good job taking care of me and my unnamed brother. Steve lived on an honest to god farm, he didn’t work the farm but instead leased his fields out to neighboring farm while he loved on the home place. There was a massive green farmhouse and two barns one large and one medium sized. There were also a few out buildings and some massive tees. I fucking loved the two years we lived on the farm.

Except for the dark.

There were no lights. None on the street, none on the buildings (well there were but they weren’t kept on), none from the time city many miles away. Except for the front and back porch lights the farm was black as the devils armpit (bet you thought I’d say asshole). I would be in bed, hear a noise outside, pull back the curtain and see a macabre landscape cloaked in nothing but moonlight, and there was no telling what my adrenaline fueled imagination would see. There was many a night I was sure we were moments away from being eaten by the monster living in the barn.

Also my mom swears up and down she saw a UFO over the farm one night. So yeah there’s that … fuck the dark!

4. Horses, we are going to end this one with the murderous, deceitful, evil quadrupeds that’ve been trying to kill me since I was a wee little fat boy. I am not shitting you, horses fucking hate me. When I was five we were at my Grandfather’s (the bio one) farm. He and his wife had horses. They stabled them for other people and took care of them. One of the things they did was teach kids to ride. One day one of my family members decided it would be just a swell idea to teach Josh how to ride a gods damned horse. They put me on this massive black beast that then took off back into the barn and dumped me in her stall.  People tried to tell me that she must have liked me so much that she wanted me to come live in her stall, but I knew the truth. That animal wanted to eat me.

My feelings towards horses were set when I went to summer camp. Between fourth and fifth grade I went to summer camp, the shit that went down there is a tale worthy of its own series of entries but today we are going to talk about one incident. They had … you guessed it, horses there. I didn’t want to ride them but I allowed myself to be convinced to give it a try.

Wanna know what happened?

We went out on a ride, brought the horses up to a slow gallop, I was thrown from the hell beast, and was nearly trampled by the horse behind me. The horse actually did clip me with one hoof which left a wicked bruise on my side and a hairline fracture that eventually broke after I’d returned home to the dark and scary farm that attracts UFOs!

Interesting side note, I got back on the damn horse one time after that and they gave me a fucking ribbon at the end of camp for it. Sometimes this world confuses the shit out of me.

            Okay that’s it, the end of the stuff that scared me as a kid and shaped my personality. I am sure there are things I left out, some of them intentionally because they have their own charming tale I need to tell. Now get out of here I am tired of hearing you laugh at me in my mind.

            -Josh