Kindergarten Vampires

I admit it. I am scared of the dark at age 34. I am scared of monsters in my closet, scared of something reaching up and out the toilet when I am peeing in the middle of the night, scared of zombie children/babies- pretty much anything a typical 5-9 year old fears. I know this irrational fear that has followed me my whole life is thanks to my father and older cousins and friends. I can remember at about age 4 or 5, sitting in our trashy single wide trailer in Odessa, Texas with my father watching a vampire movie late at night. I remember all the lights being out, with only the TV glow illuminating the room. It was about a young boy who became a vampire. The only part that I remember that still haunts me to this day was the younger brother who woke up to tapping on his window (let me tell, you I am scared right now. My heart is beating faster. I am on the second story of my own house and am about to abandon this blog now because I am scared being up here in the dark) and when he opened the curtains his vampire brother was floating outside. Good Lord, I am scared now!!! So, thanks, Dad, for thinking a 5 year old could handle that! I had older cousins that would tell me the Bloody Mary story every summer. They had one of those old creaky houses in the slums of San Angelo. I just knew I was going to die there. I remember being at one of my mom's friend's house and they had kids around my age and older. They kept talking about hands that might reach out of the walls and grab me. I can still feel that uneasiness where you cannot relax. I was about 7 when that happened. I know all of that early trauma scarred me for life. I am trying to be very careful with what my kids watch and what they believe. However, I found out my attempts were failing one night when Ray was gone. So, my son has started refusing to turn the bathroom light on by himself. He always wants us to do it now. The bathroom that he has a problem with is right off the living room (what a stupid place for a bathroom) and you can see into it from one of our chairs when the door is open (who designed this house?). Well, this night when Ray was gone, my son could not be coaxed to turn the light on by himself. He would walk over, glance around the corner into the laundry room (another joke of a room. If only I had known that a big laundry room was important before I bought this house), pause, and then sprint back to me. After he slammed the laundry room door shut and did the walk, glance, pause sprint routing about three times, I decided that in order to quit getting interrupted during Celebrity Rehab, I would turn the light on for him. So, he does his business and I start trying to find out why he was so scared. He finally told me that there was something in the laundry room (again, my heart rate is going up now). As soon as he said this, I could feel my chest tighten with fear. I calmly asked him what was in there. He said, it was a little thing that had big ears and big feet. I started to breathe more rapidly when he said that. I imagined some sort of Gremlin (capitalized because it was from the movie Gremlins). I imagined it attacking me as soon as the door cracked. Perhaps it would reach it's bony little Gremlin arms with its long creaky fingers through the small crack in the door and grab my ankle. Perhaps, like on Pet Semetery, it would take a razor blade like evil zombie kid (Gage) and slice my achilles tendon in half. Perhaps it would jump out of the door and attack my face like The Blob. With all of this running through my head, I managed to blurt out crap like, "There is nothing scary in our house. You are safe here. There is nothing in there. Come on and we will look." With my son on my heels, I bravely strode to the laundry room door. Though not really in slow motion, I imagined the my hand moving as if through honey toward the knob. I heard intensity building scary music in my head that would more than likely culminate in a loud crash as I was attacked by the monster/Gremlin/vampire/zombie. I opened the door and thankfully I lived. My son pointed at his monster, and it was a paint can on the floor with a pair of my husband's shoes perched appropriately in front of it. That is what is all came down to. Us leaving our crap in the floor (once again).