Let's tell scary stories, because it's almost Halloween time! On the radio this morning, they were talking about childhood fears. Mostly the irrational, absurd ones. For example, one guy called in and said that when he was a kid and his dad put the car in park, but left it running, he was terrified it was going to roll away. Which is maybe not such a ridiculous fear.

Myself? I was terrified, TERRIFIED, of beaver faces in my quilt. I had this patchwork quilt on my bed, made up of different squares of patterned fabric. NOT ONE BEAVER, mind you, but one night, I was laying there in the semidark trying to fall asleep, staring at the quilt, and I imagined one of the squares had a beaver face in it.

Cue shitfit. I started screaming bloody murder. My parents came flying in the room thinking I was being abducted. I was hyperventilating, but eventually managed to make them understand that there was a beaver face in my quilt. RIGHT HERE.

They argued: there are no beavers on this quilt. There are no animals, period. No groundhogs, no muskrats, no gophers, no beavers. Beavers don't even have scary faces. I can see if it was like, a spider, or a shark face, but a beaver face is not remotely frightening.

In the end, my parents flipped the quilt around so the alleged "beaver face" was hidden and down by my feet. Great problem solving...so now it's down where I can't see it. And it's going to rip my feet off with those beaver teeth.


What were you afraid of?