Fear Farts

Remember when you were younger, and you'd watch a scary movie that you just couldn't get out of your head? Going into the basement without a companion became impossible after seeing that movie. Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom? No thanks! You'd just hold it until you gave yourself a bladder infection. That sweater hanging in your closet? It's a ghost. That branch scraping your outside wall? An escaped mental patient. That  phone call? It's coming from inside the house.

Last night I showed the movie "Watcher in the Woods" to the group of girls I work with at church. They are 12-13 years old, and therefore had never heard of the movie. And since it was made by Disney, they weren't at all nervous about the movie. The scoffed when I told them it was spooky, but they were in for a surprise. I wish you could have seen them during the movie. Huddled close together, pulling blankets up over their eyes, gasping, screaming... It was awesome.

At one point, during a particularly scary moment, we all heard a strange sound. We looked around and one girl said, "sorry. Fear fart."

Was a fear fart the best part of the movie? Possibly.

But even though an FF broke up the tension for awhile, the girls were still terrified. One girl said she's "never going to look in a mirror again and will look terrible the rest of her life" after watching this movie.

Am I a good youth leader or what? Terrorizing the bright young minds of the future. I'm beaming with pride.

 

Earlier this week I was in the same position as these girls though - watching a scary movie through the safety of my fingers covering my face, cuddled close to my friend, and screaming at the appropriate cues. After the movie was over we cleansed our pallets with a couple of comedies. I thought I was fine! It was just a movie! A movie based on a true story but still...  Mostly fiction... probably. It was just a movie. I was fine.

But I wasn't fine. I wasn't fine at all!

The last couple nights I have been a nervous nelly when the lights are off - turning on all the lights to go to the bathroom at night, shutting my closet door before getting into bed, avoiding looking at mirrors in the semi-darkness, and so on. As much as I love Halloween (and you know I do), I'm ready to be a little less scared after today.

After today it's time to focus on turkeys and pilgrims, gratitude and thankfulness (crap, those are the same thing. It's too late, I'm leaving it), and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. The only scary thing about the next holiday is the weight gain. Oh and Black Friday.

Black Friday is very scary.

But I digress. Happy Halloooweeeeeeeeen! May seeing the Great Pumpkin be the scariest thing you experience tonight!