I can admit it, I sometimes allow myself to get a bit spooked by the dark. As a kid I used to flick off my light switch and then take a running leap into bed, afraid that witches underneath it were going to snap at my feet and ankles. What makes that memory so absurd is that growing up, I had a waterbed (it was the early 80s) and anyone who’s familiar with a waterbed knows that there is no “underneath” to them.
As an adult, things have improved, but I’m still a little jumpy at night. Friends of ours have a long dark, narrow path between their home and the neighbors’ that we have to walk through to get to their main door (the front entrance is a work in progress) – and visions of witches have been replaced with raccoons, skunks and the odd irrational fear of Heath Ledger’s Joker (yes, I’m weird).
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