Blow me down
Just one of the many reasons why it's difficult being me is that I'm very easily scared. I'm not ashamed to admit it. I have an imagination that could transfigure a Donald Duck balloon into a werewolf-inducing moon, given the right light, and mood.
Take this morning, for example. I greatly enjoy a good horror film, though they are exceptionally rare. But one such film was "Candyman." The film was so good because you couldn't quite figure out whether Candyman was just a paranoid urban legend or a good old-fashioned hammy slasher. The idea was that if you looked into a mirror and said his name out loud five times, he would suddenly appear beside you. "Candyman, candyman, candyman, candyman..." Ooh. Most people stopped at four, just in case. Me, I stopped at two.
So back to this morning. There I was shaving in front of my bathroom mirror, when I accidentally nicked my nose with the razor. "F**k," I said loudly. "F**k, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k, f**k." I suddenly froze. "Oh f**k," I said. "What have I gone and done?" I fearfully imagined that I'd accidentally invoked my very own Candyman, a sort of Latvian or Russian version, who'd accidentally fallen into the toilet and drowned while drunk, and who now reaped revenge on whoever summoned him. But fortunately, I quickly realized how utterly preposterous this idea was and went back to cursing, albeit a little more quietly.
Or take the other night. I was walking home along a quiet street when I saw two men amiably chatting on the sidewalk. One of them had a Rottweiler that gave me a very strange look indeed as we stared into each other's eyes in passing. What a satanic-looking beast, I thought to myself, and then I suddenly recalled "The Omen," and the evil, drooling Rottweiler that was no less than the canine sidekick to the infant Prince of Darkness. Oh f**k, I thought, and quickly hurried home, bolting my door behind me.
Or what about the other day. There I was, peacefully touching upon certain profound issues on my sofa, when my doorbell unexpectedly rang. "Oh f**k," I thought. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and tiptoed over to my peephole, fully expecting to see, I don't really know what, but nothing good. Happily, it was just my elderly Russian neighbor asking me if I needed any potatoes. Perhaps, I thought with some relief, I just exaggerate things too much, as I triple bolted my doors behind me just in case the old woman turned psycho and came at me with a potato.
