The Horror

Although it may not look like it, I am actually a pretty brave individual. Until it comes to clowns. For some reason, the mere sight of a clown sends me into a panic stricken spiral into nightmare land.

Well, I say for some reason, but there is actually a very specific reason. A very sick, twisted, hilarious reason that happened when I was a very young child.

I have ALWAYS loved scary movies, even as a small child. So, it naturally followed that when my mother was watching "It" by Stephen King, I wanted to watch it. Although Stephen King is now my favorite author, a part of me will never forgive him for that movie.

Sick bastard.

Although now this movie isn't really scary at all, to a seven year old little girl it was fairly terrifying. After all, this absolutely awful looking clown does eat kids.

At any rate, I was afraid. My mother was unsympathetic, and simply said "I told you so" and sent me to bed after I kept whining to sleep with her. Apparently, whining infuriates my mother, and after sitting around for a while, decided to seek our  her revenge.

I awoke to a small clown doll at the foot of my bed which I had, previous to tonight of course, been very fond of. It had cymbals in its hands and played circus music while it moved back and forth. Of course, I was completely and utterly terrified, as I had hid this monstrosity on my closet before I attempted to sleep.

I immediately jumped out of bed to run to mommy, and as soon as my feet hit the floor, I felt hands wrapped around my ankles.

So this is how it ends...

After screaming and trying to fight my way out of my attackers grip, I heard laughing. At first I was terrified. I though "Good sweet Lord this thing is going to laugh while it eats me..."

Then I recognized the laughter. It was my dear, sick, twisted mother.

Needless to say, I haven't been a fan of clowns since. Which is why at the ripe age of 20, and in my second haunted house ever, I almost killed someone.

My (now ex, obviously) boyfriend and I went to the bustling town of Branson, MO for a small getaway, and as it was his birthday trip, I agreed to walk through a haunted house with him. I'm not OK with haunted houses on a good day, so I was pretty upset. After specifically asking for NO live actors, we went inside. Little did I know, he had gone back to the front desk and begged for every live actor they had.

After entering and walking about 100 feet in this huge haunted house, I heard banging behind us. I turned around to see a mental institution patient running at me. All I could do was scream "I said NO!!!" like a resistant sorority girl and run. After catching his breath after laughing, Chris caught up with me and tried to calm me down. That wasn't going to happen.

I proceeded to have a panic attack, stuck inside a maze of horror with a man that couldn't stop laughing to save me. After fighting through the first three quarters of that horrible place, I saw a sign that stopped me in my tracks. "You are now entering the hallway of clowns."

AAAAAWWWWW YEEEEEEAAAA

That's right. A full, terrifying hallway of clowns. Terrifying life-size clowns. And, after genius decided he wanted live actors, some of those clowns moved. In a very small hallway. Towards a terrified, pissed off woman.

All I could think to do is yell "IF ANY OF YOU JUMP AT ME I WILL PUNCH YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD" and run. Full out run out of the haunted house. I heard more than one person laughing hysterically behind me, and I'm pretty sure a few clowns broke character.

Needless to say, 'ol Chris and I didn't work out. Anyone who would subject me to murderous painted faces obviously deserves none of my affection.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Grace

As you've probably noticed, the name of this ol' blog contains the word Grace. This happens to be my middle name (surprise!) and as painfully ironic as this is, sometimes it allows a bit of humor to an otherwise painful situation.

I am currently in college, and today whilst walking up the stairs I fell. Up the stairs. How I did this, I will probably never know, but I somehow managed to trip over absolutely nothing, fall up about three steps, then come sliding back down to where I was originally standing. I was almost tempted to just lay there (it was actually fairly painful), but I jumped up and said "Never gonna keep me down" and took off to my class.

Why that was my wording choice, I have no idea. All I know is that when I looked behind me at the stairs, a small group of spectators were either staring at the ground (I assume trying to figure out what the hell I tripped over) or staring at me with a horrified/sympathetic "how do you breathe on your own" expression.

Way to start off my day.

Although this was one of the worse experiences, it is definitely not the first, and I'm positive it will not be the last.


When I was in high school, I was a bit of a hippie. I loved wearing long, flowing skirts and flip flops to class. Unfortunately, if a fellow student snags the back of your flowing skirt, there isn't very much there to keep it from falling to your ankles.

Not a very pleasant experience.

The only thing I could think to say after this happened to me in a crowded stairwell was "At least I wasn't wearing a thong!" I then pulled up my skirt and fled.

Maybe I'm just not meant for stairwells.

Once while in the hospital for my step-father's life saving surgery, my grandmother and I decided to walk downstairs for some fresh air since we had been stuck in the depressing, stuffy waiting room for hours. While walking down the stairs, my grandmother slipped on a wet patch, started falling down the stairs and grabbed my leg. I fell with her until we reached a slight plateau where I grabbed the handrail and my grandmother to keep from falling another story.

And that's how my mother ended up having her three closest family members as patients in the same hospital.

I told my mother once that I thought my middle name was a cruel joke, as I'm probably the LEAST graceful person on the planet.

I guess I was just intended to be a walking example of irony. Or more accurately, a falling example.


As always, thanks for reading.

Vacation

Vacation is a time where most are able to relax, unwind and forget about the woes of their day-to-day lives. For me, this has never been a possibility, as my horribly hilarious luck tends to follow me wherever I go.

The events in this story are no different.

This all took place when I was at the ripe age of fourteen. I was with my mother, my step-father and one of my (at the time) best friends, Tonia. We were visiting Eureka Springs, which is a small Arkansan town filled with small, quaint shops, a haunted hotel and a few novelty stores. After shopping for a while, we decided to check out one novelty store in particular: Judge Roy Bean's.

Judge Roy Bean's is a photography studio where families or friends can dress in costumes and take pictures against interesting sets. The photos end up looking vintage and (usually) pretty hilarious. For our picture, the photographer decided I would make a good prostitute, dressed me as such, and stuck me on the bar. My friend Tonia was in a more modest dress, and looked like she could have been my mother.

After placing my on the bar with a skimpy dress, heels, fishnet hose, a gun in one hand and an empty bottle of Jack in the other, the photographer proceeded to position my feet for the sluttiest photograph possible. Unfortunately, as Murphy's Law has and will always rule my life, she pushed just a little too hard.

I fell right behind the bar on to a giant iron sculpture. Why the hell a huge, heavy, painful wrought iron monstrosity was behind the fake bar of a southern scene, I guess I'll never know. At any rate, it banged me up pretty good. In one hand I still had a fake gun. In the other, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. My floppy hat covered my face and my dress covered my shame. After I finally recovered, I asked how many other times that had happened.

Apparently, I was the only one. Of course.

After recovering from my fall and collecting our picture, I ran to the nearest public restroom. Eureka is a old, small town, and pretty low on public restrooms so I had to settle for a giant, hot line of toilets just inside an open doorway on the street. Without looking, I sat down. And on to the waiting stinger of a fat bumble bee.

I'm sure you don't know this, but I have a horrible phobia of bees. They are what my nightmares are made of, so this was quite the horrific experience. I walked out of the restroom, white as a ghost with sweat on my upper lip. My mother asked what was wrong, and after I told her I had literally sat right on my worst nightmare, she couldn't control her laughter.

Lovely.

Just as I was recovering and talking with my parents, fate decided to add insult to injury. Also, she decided to add a little more injury as well. I got a little too into my conversation with Tonia, and with no warning whatsoever from my family, I walked straight into a pole and almost knocked myself out. Perfect ending to a perfect day.

I don't know exactly where the original photo I'm referencing has run off to, but I will continue to search for it, and when I find it, it will be here! I also ended up going back to this establishment with my (now ex) boyfriend. They recognized me, and after making a few jokes were extremely careful in my foot placement on the bar.

As always, thank you for reading.

Creepy Crawlies

Although I try to keep the majority of the things I write light and humorous, I've discovered that this blog is actually quite cathartic. So, I decided to get a little more serious and tell a story that probably won't register as too funny, but is still worth reading. Before I get into anything too serious, however, I would like to say this is what I want for my birthday:Isn't it glorious? I don't know if I want to sit in it or just snuggle...

Wow.

Now down to some seriousness. I've decided that this blog will be a bit of a canvas for life stories, a mini history of myself. Of course, like anyone else, all of my life stories aren't funny or pleasant, this being one of them.

The following story is from when I was nine years old. My mother and I were living with my Uncle Larry in Russellville Arkansas in a very small, very run down trailer down the street from my grandparents. The water heater was hanging out of the side of the trailer, and every once-in-a-while warranted a rough push back into the lining of the house. We could live with the fact that it wasn't the nicest home in the world, it was fairly temporary. I could also live with the blood stain still on my carpet from where my previous pet cat had murdered and eaten my poor guinea pig fluffy. What we had a hard time handling were the insects.

The first encounter with an unwanted housemate was discovered by my uncle Larry. I returned from school one day to find a jar with a scorpion on the kitchen counter, and a note that said "Look what I found in the living room!" As a fairly normal 9 year old girl, I had visions of this creature let loose in my home, and ending up below my unsuspecting foot.

I didn't even know Arkansas had scorpions.

A few weeks later, Larry (poor guy) was walking out of the bathroom, and a rather large centipede fell from nowhere directly on to his head. He screamed louder and in a higher octave than I thought possible for a fully grown man. Then again, I would have too.

Shortly after that Larry (once again) walked outside of our front door, and was promptly greeted with a giant nest of granddaddy longlegs to the head. Although I'm usually not frightened by insects, there's something about the image of thousands of tiny, spindly spiders crawling all over someone's face that stuck with me.

Although most of this did, in fact, happen to poor Uncle Larry, my room was a topic of interest for local insects as well. Except for mine were all giant, disgusting wolf spiders. If you've never seen a wolf spider, here is a picture for reference:

Good God.

In the floor of my closet was a giant, gaping hole through which one could view the outside world. Unfortunately, this was basically an open invitation for giant, terrifying spiders during the cold winter months. On one particular incident, my mother had suggested we make a pallet on the floor of our living room as a type of slumber party. Although this seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, issues my mother was facing led to her passed out on our pallet which consisted of my entire mattress and no place for me to sleep. Not to mention she is an extremely violent snorer.

I walked back to my room which was rather cold at this point and picked up my pillow on the box spring to try to curl up and fall asleep. Underneath my pillow was a gigantic, hairy wolf spider just waiting for me to fall asleep. It ran off of my bed, and was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the night. Terrified, cold and lonely, I eventually fell asleep curled up in a ball on my box spring, covered with a towel as a blanket. Needless to say, not so great a night.

Ever since then, I always check my bed before I go to sleep. Just to make sure, I guess, that I don't have any unwelcome bedmates. Surprisingly enough, though, I'm not the least bit afraid of spiders. I guess going to sleep with absolute certainty that my room was full had something to do with it.

Until next time, thanks for reading.