Tomorrow is Friday the 13th. To me, that ominous day is more associated with scary things than Halloween. That association is the direct result of the movie franchise.
I used to love scary things. I read Stephen King religiously starting in junior high. He is such a good author: He is able to make things jump out at the reader from the page, and that is in addition to his talent of building up the suspense with words like directors do with music in horror movies.
When I was in high school, one of my neighbors asked me to watch her son in the afternoons. He was just starting junior high, but he was getting into trouble because of a “hoodlum” friend who also lived in our apartment complex. I stayed at their place in the afternoons, and I helped the son with homework, or we just goofed off. He really was a good kid.
Occasionally the parents would ask me to come over on a weekend night to watch him when they were going out. We had fun – playing games or watching their extended cable. One night, he asked if we could watch Nightmare on Elm Street.
He was 11, and I figured, “What could be the harm?” Famous last words!
The movie didn’t come on until 9. So in the meanwhile I made popcorn, and we settled down on the couch. Things were going great to start. We were joking about the film and mindlessly eating popcorn, and then the tension caught up with us. I don’t remember the exact scene, but suddenly something jumped out and I screamed.
The boy turned the television off. “Tammy, I think we’ve watched enough of the movie.”
“Are you sure? I know you wanted to see the ending.”
“That’s okay. It wasn’t that good.”
He was so kind to his freaked out babysitter!
That wasn’t the turning point where I moved away from scary films (that simply developed over time), but it is by far my favorite babysitting story.
What is your favorite babysitting story? or Scary movies: Love them or avoid them like the plague?
Grown Up, Now What? 