Terror Alert

Although I fight fiercely for my kids and my causes, I’m basically a scaredy cat. Lots of things frighten me--earthquakes, serial killers, E coli, racism--and I spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things that will probably never happen. But one thing creeps me out more than the others: the dark. I am one hundred percent, bona fide, need a nightlight, can’t stand next to a bed while getting into it afraid of the dark. Even though I’m the mom now, whenever the electricity goes out, rather than confidently calling out to the kids that I will come get them (like my mother did and moms are supposed to do), I feel like curling up whimpering somewhere until someone with a flashlight finds me. Did I mention I can’t handle the dark? One particularly traumatic babysitting encounter forever sealed my fear into adulthood. Alone except for two sleeping children in a huge, dark, echoing house and getting a call from nature, I began groping around for the door to the downstairs bathroom. Finding a knob, I opened the door…to come snarling face to screaming in terror face with the German Shepherd family guard dog. It was one of the most profoundly frightening events in my memory, and I still experience the whole thing vividly on occasion. In Mercer Mayer’s There’s Something In My Attic, a brave little girl lassoes a pesky monster to get him out of her hair. I think I would have gone the fetal-position, whimpering route.

http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Something-My-Attic/dp/0140548130

http://www.littlecritter.com/about_mercer_mayer.html