The Mosters in my Closet

I always empathised with Binkley, the kid in the Bloom County cartoon who had a monster in his closet, because until I was about 13 or so, I was convinced I had one too.
When I was 4 we moved to a small town and to a small little house in that town. It was built around 1920 so it was all little rooms, tiny closets and a dirt basement. At first I shared a room with my brother and he enjoyed scaring the bejeezus out of me whenever possible. We had walkie talkies and they were used to create monster voices under the bottom bunk (my bed) and the closet. The storm sewer was under the room. Glen convinced me that monsters hibernated there in the winter. It was a long first winter...A dripping tap in the kitchen sounded like someone was hitting a key on our living room piano over and over again...but noone was there! After I worked that one out, my brother entered his teen years. I adored my brother (still do really) and would idolize him and try and do everything he did. He's about 6 years older than me, so when he got into his teenage watching slasher/horror film phase I followed along and had nightmare fodder for years to come. Any noise at night was Jason/Freddy/Michael/aliens/zombies and those Fog creatures....well you get the idea. Lets just say I have a very active imagination.
I'd just begun to figure out that I was probably not on the monster lunch menu when my dad fixed up my bedroom after my brother left for college. Somehow he managed to mess with things so that the air pressure in the room was somehow released by a heat vent in the closet. Sounds boring, but to me, it meant that I'd go to bed in my dark room (no window), turn off the lights and a few minutes later my closet door would slam open for no reason...I would have screamed, but then the thing in the closet would have known where I was. Flashlights didn't help - what if it was invisible? A vampire? Who knows?? I slept with my neck covered well into highschool and it took a few weeks to get "used" to the closet. I never could quite convince myself that there was nothing in there. To this day I like to sleep with the closet door open...and until I met my husband I often covered my neck with the sheets when I slept. I mean, it's not a good idea to tempt the vampires you know...



This small look into the monsters in my closet and why I am as wierd as I am today was brought to you by Sunday Scribblings....