More Childhood Fears

When I was a child, my parents got a new house. They were able to pick their own carpet colors and for some reason that I am still unable to figure out, they let my sister and I choose the color of our bedroom carpet.

Now you have to understand that I was only about three or four at the time, so that needs to factor into this. The color I chose was blood red. A red so shocking that the common concensus upon seeing it for the first time was "Oh My!"

Add to that my charming lavender gingham bedspread and my darling yellow Holly Hobby quilt (Wonder what ever happened to that quilt....)

Now I am not sure if it was the color of the carpet, but it makes sense to me somehow. Anyway... a lot of my childhood fears involved blood, large quantities of it.

Most children believe there is a monster in the closet. Not me! I believed, and you could not convince me otherwise, that Dracula, and an alligator, lived under my bed. I believed this with all my heart, and not just in the dark of night. They were under there in the daytime as well.

I never just sat on my bed. I would get a running start and then LEAP through the air to land on my bed, because DUH, if I just walked up either Dracula would reach out and grab my ankle, or the alligator would bite my leg off.

My mom was always telling me not to jump on the furniture. She just didn't understand about Dracula and tried though she might, she never convinced me that he wasn't really under there.

I would lie awake at night and I would have to have every inch of me, up to my nose, covered with my magical purple bedspread. Even when I was hot, I couldn't peak a toe out of the blankets because that just made aligator food. And I absolutely could not uncover my neck for obvious reasons.

During the day, I would shove toys under my bed, effectively block Dracula and the gator up against the wall underneath. That much harder for them to reach out and grab or nibble. To this day my mom believes the toys were under the bed because I was too lazy to clean my room the right way.

Saturday was room cleaning day. We were relegated to our rooms until they met mom's level of cleanliness. My sister would be done in a flash and on the couch with a book in her face in 15 minutes flat.

Me.... I would be in there ALL DAY because NO WAY was I going to reach under the freakin bed to get the toys out!

After a while my mom would come in, get ticked, and haul everything out into a huge pile in the middle of my floor, then make me clean it up.

I am convinced that this is the #1 reason my parents bought me a waterbed age eight

Sadly, here I sit, roughly 20 years later and even now, if I have to stick my foot out from under the covers to cool off at night, the first thought in my head is "Who will get me first, Dracula, or the alligator?"

I need mental help I tell ya!