A Trip Down Memory Lane

When I was younger I watched too many movies. Well, not too many movies per se; just the same movies too often.

One Christmas Eve, I watched Dr. Seuss's "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" (the cartoon version) nine, I repeat: nine times in a row. ALONE! After the ninth time, I went and asked my mother how the deuce the narrator had so much stamina to repeat the same story to me over and over again. How did he do it so perfectly and with such consistency? I was legitimately impressed. This was a large part of the reason why I watched it so many times in a row. I was waiting for him to mess up. (Then what, I don't know.)

How is this "woman" not HORRIFYING?

Well, Mom told me that the narrator had merely read a script. Once. ONCE! And that I was simply replaying the same prerecorded story over and over. Suddenly, the world of film became way less magical to me.

When I was even younger than that, circa three or four, (back when film was still magical) I watched The Little Mermaid every single day for at least a year. This is not an exaggeration. Consequently, I developed a deep fear of the antagonist, Ursula aka "The Sea Witch." Every night before going to bed, I would beg my parents to thoroughly check my closet to make sure she wasn't lurking around in there. For some reason, unbeknownst to me to this day, they decided to tell me:

"Carst, don't be afraid of the Sea Witch. She is a sea creature. She can't come into your room. She has to stay in water!"

Great... so.... now instead of telling me the truth (that she was fictional) you've just given me cause for concern when approaching water. Awesome.

The murderous Mr. McGregor
chasing sweet and innocent Peter Cottontail.

Similarly, I really enjoyed the cartoon version of "Peter Cottontail"-- the story about the rabbits who lived in the garden of a grouchy old man named Mr. McGregor. I was terrified- I'm talking scared shitless- of Mr. McGregor. I was convinced that he was going to attempt to murder me with a garden hoe in the middle of the night while I slept. Mom would tell me I had nothing to be afraid of, for Mr. McGregor only chased rabbits around with garden hoes in attempts to murder them. But he wouldn't do that to me, because I'm not a rabbit.

SWEET, MOM! Why couldn't you have just told me that Mr. McGregor was FICTIONAL instead of verifying that I'm NOT a rabbit?

So that is the story of why I suffered traumatic years of avoidable anxiety surrounding visiting large bodies of water or becoming a rabbit.