There is this sound that never, ever fails to make my head hurt – totally psychosomatically. Picture Wile E. Coyote (apologies to Chuck Jones if I misspelled) getting slapped on the nose. His nose vibrates up and down making that “fuh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh” sound.
Every time I hear it, it makes my head hurt like crazy. Not real pain, but I always honestly believe my head hurts. If anyone ever made that sound with a plastic ruler hanging off the edge of a desk at school, I’d almost puke!
I few years ago, I remembered why: I was a toddler – just barely able to walk (really tottery at it) – and my babysitter was overcome with a migraine and had to lie down. Unsupervised, I toddled to the top of the stairs and fell down the full flight like a sack of potatoes. At the bottom, was one of those spring-coil-type doorstops that’s about four inches long and that attach to the wall. I must’ve hit it when my little, toddler body came to an abrupt stop on the first floor. The sound of such a doorstop?
Mom used to have slip covers for the living room couch and chairs - nice velvety covers on a velvet chair, but the slipcovers had a foam backing so they would not slip (being slipcovers and all, they knew their assignment in life).
Problem was, whenever you sat down, the foam would rub on the chair’s velvet and make this little ‘eeek’ sound that would absolutely set my teeth on edge. Same sound as dragging your teeth over an ice-covered popsicle.
Major <Brrrrrrrrr> and not from the cold. Just thinking of that sound gives me the willies.
One episode of Fawlty Towers has a particularly good example of this sound, when Basil (john Cleese) is whacking Manuel around the head with a frying pan - apparently, Cleese slipped, and actually hit him, and the noise heard on TV is no sound effect, but the actual sound made…
I can’t stand squeaky/high-pitched vibration noises, such as squeaky green beans in my teeth, or fingernails on chalkboards, or styrofoam, or the way forks sometimes scrape across plates wrong. Sends shivers up my spine every time! [shudders]
I have never heard of squeaky green beans. I know some bean-based foods will talk to me after I eat them, but I’ve never heard of them chatting with me before.
Ok, MSK, your mission, should you choose to accept it…
Can ya please find the noise, similar the the fuh-duh-duh one, which cartoon characters make when they shake their heads violently in order to stave off confusion. It’s a sort of ultra-fast “yeidey-yeidey-yeidey” noise.
The Hanna Barbera cartoons also had a very cool chomping “cchrrt” sound effect for such things as dogs sinking their fangs into people’s arms.
Balloons make me cringe, but only as a result of Early CHildhood Balloon Trauma. You all know it, the first time you blow up a balloon… a little too much… and it goes kerplow in your face!
I always squirm when people inflate balloons.
Similarly, the sound of someone tuning a guitar freaks me out! I keep waiting for it to go from “dom, dom, dom, dom…dum, dum, dum, dum… dem, dem,dem… deem, deem,deem…dim, dim, dim, dim…” to a loud “DOINK!” and the see the string take out someone’s eye!
