Who, me? Neurotic?

I'm not neurotic, I'm just greater than the sum of all my traumas. And, of course, as a good child of the 70s, a lot of my traumas revolve around low-budget horror movies.

The one that always scared me the most was Halloween -- to this day, the theme will give me chillbumps (and you should see what it does to Kathy!). I'm not sure what it was about that movie, but I think it had something to do with the silent implacability of Michael Myers. Jason's chainsaw was too loud, and Freddie was a bit over the top in his malevolence.

But Michael was just creepy. Michael is the thing that's in your room when you wake up in the middle of the night and it's pitch dark and you just know that someone, or something, is there...but you can't bring yourself to turn on the light and check, so you just lie there in the dark, terrified (and invariably having to pee) until you hear your Dad get up to make breakfast, and then you finally fall back asleep.

Not that that ever happened....

Anyway, so last night I had a very odd dream. I was in Halloween (the first one, the REAL one, the Jamie Lee Curtis without a date screaming at the top of her lungs one), but it was a week or two before actual-Halloween. I knew what was going to happen, but no one would believe me, and they all made fun of me (in fact, a stuffed Freddie doll figured into it, which is odd since Freddie's movies came out AFTER H'ween).

It wasn't too scary, though, because none of the horrible stuff had happened yet.

Then I woke up, and got up to take the dog for a walk.

Now, 6 am is dark. And I kept seeing Halloween-esque things. Like, for example, a teenage girl going out to get in her car -- I wanted to scream, "NO!! He's probably in there!" but I'm thinking that would not have gone over well.

And then, suddenly, there was a guy walking in front of me, about 10 feet ahead. Now, lots of people walk or run early in the morning (like me!). But this guy had no dog, and was in jeans, not sweats. And a hoodie that kind of obscured his face.

And he walked really quietly. And I hadn't seen where he came from.

Now, I'm sure (pretty sure, anyway) that he was just a normal guy, out for his morning excercise. But I stayed behind him, and kept my eye on him, anyway!

Which, of course, led to MORE macabre Halloween fantasies, like, "Oooh, what if I'm distracted for a moment, and when I look back, he's GONE!?!?!?!"

So, yeah, for the record I worked myself into a right state, to the point that, when our paths diverged and I was back on my own, I was still a little jumpy.

Like, jumpy enough that when sprinklers went on in the yard next to me, I about jumped out of my skin, which made Tucker jump and try to bolt...into the yard where the sprinklers were, which startled him even more!

Poor Tucky. But we made it home safe and sound, unbothered by ghosties or goulies...or homocidal, knife-weilding, un-dying, super-human MANIACS!