Pinecones. I thought they were little creatures that were sharp, like porcupines. I’d start crying whenever one was near me; I’m sure my parents were glad when I turned four and realized that pinecones aren’t animals!
When my sister was two, she was afraid of a two inch loose strip of carpet. It was a “filler” piece against the wall, and I guess she stepped on it and it moved, so it freaked her out. I used to chase her around the house with it.
I was afraid of feathers. The feather duster and my toy Indian headdress terrified me.
For Halloween my mother would hang an articulated paper skeleton on the front door to decorate our living room. I was terrified of the thing. Before going to bed I would make her cross its arms and legs so it couldn’t jump off the door and get me.
I was also terrified of alligators. To keep me from going down into the back woods in our yard my parents told me that the woods were full of alligators. My dad used to chase me around the house yelling RAAHHRR, RAAHHRR! This worked until I realized that there are no alligators in Pennsylvania. I was 8 years old before this revelation hit me.
When I was small, someone gave me a book of “unsolved mysteries,” with stuff about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, etc. It freaked me right the hell out. Not just the creatures described in the book, but the actual book itself. I couldn’t sleep with it in my room. I eventually hid it under the couch.
We also had a garden gnome by the back door. I wasn’t sacred of it, but at some point, I told my little brother that the gnome climbed the drainpipe and watched him while he slept. I had completely forgotten about this, until as an adult, my brother confessed that he had always been terrified of the gnome. I’m sorry, little bro! 
Back in the early 1960’s my grandmother had a doll about 3 feet tall that was made to look like Emmett Kelly, a once famous clown. I was terrified of that doll, which “lived” in the spare bedroom of her house…the room where I had to sleep when I stayed over. Decades later, when I saw Poltergeist at the theater, the sinister clown doll in that movie brought unwelcome memories of Emmett kelly rushing back.
Here’s a picture of the bastard.
I was terrified of my dad’s stereo. It was one of those do-it-your-self kits from the 50s and I think he has failed to solder some wire completely so it would screech wildly if it came loose. So, one day while walking past it I stepped on a loose board that caused the wire to come loose and the wailing began. I was rooted to the spot for fear of making it worse. Dunno how much worse I thought it would get…
My mother, however, is still afraid of vacuum cleaners and escalators.
Thinking about it, I was terrified I was going to be killed by a snake coming throught the air vent and landing in my mouth. (Courtesy of a TV show about someone being killed by a snake coming though an air vent, etc…)
To prevent this from happening, I would gather some of the sheet in my mouth to keep the snakes out. Over the course of the night I also chewed on the sheet making holes. Decades later my mom wondered out loud about mysterious holes in some of the sheets…
Yes, I confessed.
Sweet Cecil!!! Your grandma kept that in her house??? Dear, Og. I’d have buried it in the backyard. The neighbour’s backyard!
The one I remember the most is Bigfoot. I thought he lived in the woods behind my house :eek:
Mannequins
I have a vague memory of going to the washroom at a department store as a young child and opening the wrong door… the door to the room with all the dismembered mannequins. This vague memory also includes running screaming down a (what seemed to be) endless pink corridor, positive that the mannequins were hot on my heels.
Heh. While I’m still an ophidiophobe, as a small child I was half convinced that snakes lived in my bed, in the little pocket where the top sheet tucks under the mattress.
This brought up memories I thought I’d repressed. Thanks! My friend’s grandfather took us for a walk in the woods once and showed us a low, wide tree stump that happened to be right next to a large, flat rock. He told us it was Bigfoot’s table and chair. Not long after that day, we heard screech owls in the woods and he told us that was Bigfoot yelling because we’d disturbed his hiding place. Needless to say, I didn’t go outside much that summer!
1. Frog.
Frog was a model kit produced by Aurora in the early sixties. It was a goofy looking thing, vaguely froglike in a Muppety kind of way, with a little sign: Kiss me and you’ll live forever. You’ll be a frog, but you’ll live forever.
I did not have this particular model kit. I did, however, have a comic book with an ad for Aurora model kits on the back, and the picture of the kit scared the bejesus out of me. I tore the cover off and threw it away. Later, I threw away the comic book because it reminded me of the damn thing.
In my own defense, I was perhaps four years old at the time.
2. Christopher Lee.
I do not remember the circumstances under which I saw an old Dracula movie starring this distinguished British actor on television. I do remember that at age five or so, I thought HE was Dracula, and therefore tended to creep out whenever I saw him in a Dracula movie… or any OTHER kind of movie, for that matter.
As an adult, I rather enjoyed rewatching all his old Dracula movies.
3. The Blob.
I saw *Beware! The Blob * on TV when I was nine or so. Utterly terrified me. A semiliquid monster that could ooze under doors and dissolve you where you stood, and nothing would stop it. Had nightmares for YEARS about that.
I saw the movie again when I was in college and laughed myself sick. It had cameos by Shelley Berman, Godfrey Cambridge, Cindy Williams, Burgess Merideth, and Larry Hagman, and was in fact DIRECTED by Larry Hagman, who, I suspect, wasn’t taking the whole thing too seriously. It was a comedy. A bad comedy. A so-bad-it’s-good comedy. I couldn’t believe this was the same movie that had terrified me nine years earlier…
*Sloth from “The Goonies”. And the Toxic Avenger. It’s a good thing I never saw “The Elephant Man” as a child or I would have never gone to sleep again.
*A weird late 1970s Jack-in-the-Box by Mattel. It was painted like a clown and it always popped out of the box when it wasn’t supposed to. Normally those toys pop out when the song ends. But mine did it in the middle of the song, or the end, or the begining. My parents later got me a Mickey Mouse one that didn’t scare me because it followed the rules.
*Second “The Return to Oz”.
*The opening sequence to the 80s revival of “The Twilight Zone”. With the fetus and the eye.
*Lady Elaine Fairchild on “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood”.
*An old ballerina doll my mom used to have as a child. The red dress was old and nasty, and it was just a creepy doll. I hid it in the closet underneath blankets and I don’t know whatever happened to it. I assume it crawled away to torture another child.
Both of these were at my Grandma’s house. I’m surprised I didn’t throw a tantrum when we went to visit.
- Elephant Ear plants by the front door. I just knew they were going to get me.
- A giant Sunflower in the back yard. That thing was over 6 feet tall.
Still don’t care for the Elephant Ears. I just think they’re ugly, not scary.
To be fair, that movie is scary as hell when you’re a little kid. I should watch it again.
I saw that when I was little! I still have nightmares from it. I’m planning on seeing it again, I just gotta work up to it.
Sinks. I saw Stephen King’s It and I watched the part were Beverly was in the bathroom and the voices came up from the sink then the blood ballon came up and popped. I was terrified of sinks for days. I still won’t use a sink if it is just a hole and doesn’t have that stopper thingy in the center. I read the book over the summer and now clowns creep me out. shudder
there was this stupid book in my elementary school library that I read about ghost stories from the wild west. there was this one about some ape-like creature called the “burr lady” who would latch onto people’s backs and whisper in their ear and jab her fingers in their sides if they disobeyed. and she would threaten to kill her host if anyone tried to kill her. pretty ridiculous now, but it scared me in second grade.