What was the most random thing you were scared of as a child?

[ClassicStripe]

Me and DP are watching Mr McMahon on Netflix and it reminded me that when I was a child me and my sister were really scared of Hulk Hogan. We didn't have a clue about wrestling he was just on a poster at our cousin's house.

Ello little old lady.

Stigmata 😬I believed that if I thought about it, I would get it.

Goggles. My brother told me that if I dived in with goggles in it would create a vacuum and my eyes might pop out.

My aunt had a diy draft excluder at her living room door. A black stocking stuffed with whatever. I was terrified of it. My mum had to carry me past it.

Playdoh

I was scared to go in to the back room at my nanas that her mum, my great gran stayed in when she visited because I thought she haunted it, she wasn't dead yet. I was also scared of the programme 999s theme tune and as a teenager when they said at the end of crime watch don't have nightmares, do sleep well or whatever it was.

The Elves and The Shoemaker.

I made my mum hide it from me.

Also the saying “goodnight, don’t let the bed bugs bite”

@AppleDumplingWithCustard I was scared of the draught excluders or "brushes" on letter boxes, especially when I used to help my parents with leafleting.

Clothing mannequins, especially if they were headless.

Here's the Munch painting I didn't like.

In the Ladybird book of the Secret Garden, a picture of an angry Mrs Medlock finding Mary where she shouldn't be.

Stag beetles. Still not keen.

Closing my eyes while I was in the bath, then opening them and finding myself in the sea miles from land in shark infested water. I blame the film Jaws.

The theme music from the Encarta 95 CD (encyclopedia)

Up thread someone mentioned the wheelers in return to OZ.
My brother was terrified of mombi in that movie especially when the heads wake up.

Did she put it in the freezer?

I have no idea… why?

I went through quite a long phase of being utterly terrified of stone fish and refused to enter the sea without shoes for a good two or three years.

I grew up in Glasgow and the chances of encountering one on the mean shores of Troon or (for most exotic days out) St Andrews were minimal, but you never know...

It's a Friends reference. When Joey reads The Shining, if he gets scared, he puts it in the freezer. 😂

Me too. We had a covered "walk through" sideway between the house and garage, there was a stag beetle between me and the kitchen door - I remember being trapped until my dad got rid of it and I could get into the house.

Similar but with spontaneous human combustion..... I thought if I fell asleep I would catch fire.

(Parents had a book of mysterious events and that picture of a charred foot in a carpet slipper still gives me the willies).

Vincent Price on the start of the Thriller LP and arcade claw machine games.

Grew up in mining area where a House for knocked down because of subsidence. It was explained as “the house falling into the mine!” I was convinced I was going to be swallowed up by the mine!

@henlake7 it wasn't "Strange Stories, Amazing Facts" was it? A big, purply book. I mentioned it upthread - my brother and I used to scare ourselves shitless with it.

My son was frightened of the spring when he was very little. He would come running in from the garden, bury his head in my lap then look up and say, seriously, "It's the spring", and cry. I couldn't work out at first what he meant but gradually realised people were saying things like, "Spring is coming", or "Spring will be here soon". I explained to him in simple detail about weather and he was all right after that. Years later he said he had had visions of a giant metal spring bouncing towards him.

When he was a teenager and in a bit of a mood, husband and I used to look at each other and say, "It must be the spring". That always made him laugh.

Going down the bath plug hole. The Horse head Nebula 🤣