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Strange Things That Scared You (But Aren't Obviously 'Scary')

When I was really little, I was terrified of hairbrushes and similar sized brushes for some reason (I very vaguely remember being afraid of them, but not why). This crazy fear stuck with me a while, or else I had a flashback of it one day in our back yard when I was 8 or 9--I saw a big cleaning brush that had been left laying out on the grass--and instantly raced back to the house screaming with fright, before I twigged to what it was. At first I thought it was a porcupine, which is a kind of wildlife not found in Appalachia.

I was also scared to death of my mother's childhood doll named Jackie, who I posted about in the Creepy Dolls thread.

More things I was afraid of as a tot: Cows. Bridges. The theme music of the Perry Mason TV show. Certain photographs in our house, including one of myself. Getting shots. The whoooosh! noise that our gas furnace made when it started up, and the roar of the pump in the bathroom when we flushed the commode or ran the water for very long.

I was an imaginative, overly anxious child, yes.
 
When I was really little, I was terrified of hairbrushes and similar sized brushes for some reason (I very vaguely remember being afraid of them, but not why). This crazy fear stuck with me a while, or else I had a flashback of it one day in our back yard when I was 8 or 9--I saw a big cleaning brush that had been left laying out on the grass--and instantly raced back to the house screaming with fright, before I twigged to what it was. At first I thought it was a porcupine, which is a kind of wildlife not found in Appalachia.

London Zoo 1953 Feeding the hungry hairbrush porcupine.

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I was read the 3 little pigs often as a young kid and in particular, the UK Ladybird version in the mid 70s. This particular edition was full of what I can only describe as utterly terrifying depictions of the wolf. It gives me the fear just searching the images on Google. I mean, come ON!!!!!

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And if this wasn't enough, researching to find the above picture dredged up another Ladybird horror, "The wolf and the 7 Little Kids". This lovely image is shortly after the billy-goat had performed some sort of Cronenbergian surgery on the wolf, placing rocks in it's abdomen. My mother actually used to read me this shit as I was about to go to sleep!!


Sleep tight folks!
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That wolf is in the sex offender registry, I am sure..:oops:
You're sure that wasn't the picture book version of Deliverance?
 
Just don't piss it off...

"I still see his beady eyes, his grey quiff. He was so bristly, so smelly! He seemed to want more than my Mint Imperials . . . " :eek:

Her Uncle Albert got off with a caution, pleading mistaken identity to the bitter end.

On the brighter side, that doggie looks remarkably cheerful, considering! Are we quite sure he hasn't just polished off a buffet and is shortly to sick-up a hundred pineapple cubes with a matching quantity of block cheddar? :gobs:
 
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Just don't piss it off...

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!!! My old doberman (now in dobie heaven, waiting for me) once tangled with a porcupine. He looked just like that - but the stench from the porcupine spray was appalling, much worse than skunk spray. But $50 to the vet took care of everything. My dog continued to chase and attempt to kill anything that moved. BTW, that is a Godzilla sized porcupine.
 
It seemed innocent enough.

It will help your skint knee get better.

It might, 'sting a wee bit'.

They lied....

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February 1997. Im travelling down to Brighton by train from Reading. Grey drizzly day. Look out of the window and see we're passing by a large old looking house. Train slows as we pass by the gardens of the house. The large gardens are on a slope and seem quite delapidated. Theres a path running down the centre of the gardens and walking down this path is a 'Lassie' type dog. The whole scene was absolutely terrifying. No idea why. Something in the slow deliberate pace of the dog. So relieved when the train speeded up and left the scene behind. No idea why it made feel so cold abd unsafe.
 
I just thought of one that spooked me as a little kid. I don't know where we were exactly (part of me thinks it may have been Virginia), I remember distinctly my dad and I driving around and we passed this weird looking water-tower. Now, I don't know if it's the same anywhere else, but towns in the U.S. like to have fun and paint weird things on them, etc.

This one for all the world, looked like a bowler hat and it just scared the bejebus out of me. Not sure why. Mayhap an instance of megalophobia?
 
I just thought of one that spooked me as a little kid. I don't know where we were exactly (part of me thinks it may have been Virginia), I remember distinctly my dad and I driving around and we passed this weird looking water-tower. Now, I don't know if it's the same anywhere else, but towns in the U.S. like to have fun and paint weird things on them, etc.

This one for all the world, looked like a bowler hat and it just scared the bejebus out of me. Not sure why. Mayhap an instance of megalophobia?
Or kapelaphobia
 
this weird looking water-tower.

Water-related weirdness has featured on here quite a lot. Large, still bodies of water, especially reservoirs, seem ominous. Canals can be the scenes of nightmares.

Human diversions of water via sluices, weirs, mills, races, tanks and locks seem to attract more hauntings than natural streams.

If we extend it to cisterns, we get all those toilet-ghosts, who chase you downstairs. Not to mention those imperfectly-closed valves, which mutter and hiss at you for ages after flushing!

In my primary school, there was a storeroom - it was mainly a repository for old desks - where I might, occasionally, have to venture. By choice? By instruction? Maybe the horror of it led me to step inside from time to time, just to confirm how evil it felt. Kids do that.

It was a long, windowless place, essentially just a slice off the adjacent classroom; its main purpose appeared to be to accommodate a large header-tank, which occupied the top part of one end of the space. Water-noises would accompany any visit. It did not seem to leak but a dank air hung over the room; it was dispelled when the door was shut. All just a step away from a noisy class of kids! :oops:
 
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Water-related weirdness has featured on here quite a lot. Large, still bodies of water, especially reservoirs, seem ominous. Canals can be the scenes of nightmares.

Human diversions of water via sluices, weirs, mills, races, tanks and locks seem to attract more hauntings than natural streams.

If we extend it to cisterns, we get all those toilet-ghosts, who chase you downstairs. Not to mention those imperfectly-closed valves, which mutter and hiss at you for ages after flushing!

In my primary school, there was a storeroom - it was mainly a repository for old desks - where I might, occasionally, have to venture. By choice? By instruction? Maybe the horror of it led me to step inside from time to time, just to confirm how evil it felt. Kids do that.

It was a long, windowless place, essentially just a slice off the adjacent classroom; its main purpose appeared to be to accommodate a large header-tank, which occupied the top part of one end of the space. Water-noises would accompany any visit. It did not seem to leak but a dank air hung over the room; it was dispelled when the door was shut. All just a step away from a noisy class of kids! :oops:

Aren't humans 70%+ water? Is this why I keep producing ectoplasm in my sleep?
 
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