Nightmares of the Nursery

Our most primal fears are supposed to lurk in the pre-memory years, back when we were four feet of blubbering bed-wetter. Chairs transform into hobgoblins, closets are teeming with demons, and even your normally benign rocking horse has a homicidal D.H. Lawrence-style gleam in his eye. The big people, who are likely using you to get back at their own parents, dislike your constant disruption of their sleeping patterns and you are forced to brave the bugbears alone. The following terrors, admittedly esoteric ones, scarred my tender young psyche forever. Even now, so many years later, I tremble as I try to type an account of these abominations.

1. The Bumble

Why the hell would Santa locate his workshop in the vicinity of a hulking, fanged man-beast? It’s bad enough he ridicules Donner for having a special needs child and sends all the imperfect playthings into exile on the Island of Unwanted Toys. Far from making me feel festive, the quintessential holiday special “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” caused me to feel the metallic taste of fear. And yes, I know the Bumble is toothless, reformed, and Christian at the end, but I think he’s just trying to rope them all in.

2. Snuffalupagus

When I was a kid, nobody on Sesame Street believed in Snuffalupagus. They all thought that Big Bird was on the junk. Where exactly do you hide an 800-lb wooly mammoth in a slum? This made me suspect that sometimes parents wouldn’t believe you even when you told them the truth about things, like the fact that “D” had replaced “A” as the highest grade at your school. When the adults of Sesame Street did find out about Snuffalupagus, they apologized to Big Bird and allowed him to punch them all in the stomach. A few episodes later, Snuffalupagus was harvested for his ivory.

3. The Headless Horseman

Why the hell does Disney show this every Halloween? They must know that thousands of children are going fetal in front of their TV screens. It’s bad enough having to go out trick-or-treating in that cheap Fonzie mask without expecting a decapitated highwayman to lob a molotov pumpkin at you. The Horseman isn’t even defeated or punished at the end of Sleepy Hollow. He just buggers off. For some reason, I was convinced he was hiding it the laundry room of my apartment building. Hey, he’s a headless horseman, not a shirtless horseman.

4. The Lizard

Spider-man villain The Lizard is a biochemist. My father is a biochemist. The Lizard wears a lab coat. My father wears a lab coat. Therefore, although he has always denied it, my father is The Lizard. Knowing my dad was giving Spider-man a hard time was pretty hard to take. There was a little consolation, however, in knowing that, if necessary, he could regenerate a new limb. I’ve always been conscious of the fact that I was one peculiar pup, but this frappe of Freud and Stan Lee is beyond the pale even for me.

5. Airport Landing Lights

Having read one too many books on UFO’s and living in an apartment that faced the airport, I got to thinking that the lights they use to guide planes on foggy evenings were actually emanating from alien assault vehicles filled with hostile, green, tentacled things. My parents quickly cleared it up when I ran into their bedroom hyper-ventilating with panic. Boy, did I feel stupid. They told me I was stupid too.

6. Proto-Chucky

Everybody had that one doll, right? That doll that really shouldn’t have been given to you because it had a pervert’s leer, or it had a deformed face, or it moved around at night when you didn’t want it to. I had this absolutely bizarre doll that was a cross between Howdy Doody and Ed Asner. Worst of all, it hung out with my sister’s creepy flip-eyed doll babies and tried to exploit them. I didn’t even give it a name because a name would give it more power. Finally, I passed off this plush gargoyle to a kid who lived down the block. Apparently, the doll tried to crawl back to my house but was run over – or maybe it’s still trying to crawl to where I live now. They can’t crawl very fast, but they are patient – oh, so patient…

7. Pennywise

We didn’t have Harry Potter in my day! If you wanted to read a book you had to choose between “Charlotte’s Web,” “Watership Down,” or the Stephen King catalog. Reading “It” when you are ten equates to being put on a haunted house ride when you are two: it’s going to mess you up and mess you up good! I could never walk past a sewer grate without checking for Pennywise the Clown, and all other clowns became guilty by association. A lousy balloon animal is not worth the blood-curdling terror conjured up by these begwigged, red-nosed freaks.

8. Old Ladies

First of all, is there a bylaw somewhere that all old ladies have to have the same hair-style? And why do they always want your cheeks? I remember delivering a paper to an old lady who looked just like an apple doll. I ran away screaming and didn’t wait around for shortbread. I don’t know whether it’s the mustaches, or the varicose veins, or what, but any old biddy that wasn’t one of my Grannies sent shivers down my spine. It seems like there’s a dozen cobwebby old Miss Havershams in every apartment complex.

9. Barry The Bully

Barry was a real budding sociopath: he’d do things like make you open up your legs so he could kick you in the balls. In our Grade Three class photo, he looks like Sean Penn does now! If I’m not mistaken, I think he even drove himself to school. Barry gave a geological welcome to a Japanese boy who was new to our school and to Canada – he threw a rock at his head! One day he looked at a kid’s thumb and said, “I don’t like your thumb” and then he snapped it right off! Grown men used to come down to the school to fight Barry over gambling debts he had racked up. The teacher told us that Barry was going through some problems at home, and that we needed to be supportive of him. Empathy would have been a lot easier if we weren’t all in traction!

10. Gym Teachers

Being a rather plump lad, I dreaded gym class and the solid hour of spirit-killing humiliation that it would entail. Remember the flexed arm hang? I could do that for about a tenth of a second. Remember shirts and skins? My perky young boy boobs were sure to be bouncing up and down the basketball court. I invented a case of asthma just to get these whistle-wearing assholes off my back!

I was a rather timid child, easily startled by loud noises and unexpected blows. I’d like to think that I’ve grown up and found courage, but, soon after my attempts at self reassurance, my frightening thoughts redouble. What if Barry grew up and became a clown? What if the Headless Horseman rode a Snuffalupagus? Is there such a thing as an elderly female Bumble? I think of my mind and the part of me that’s still a child and can only say: My God, it’s scary in here…