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.

In a hospital in Dublin run by Catholic nuns ( who also ran the infamous Mother and Baby home in Tuam ) there was a statue of the Archangel Michael fighting a serpent, the devil.
As a child it scared the bejaysus out of me.
I never told anyone but I absolutely hated visiting in that hospital.

Bears. I lived in a very safe town in Suffolk

I used to do this, but not because of the flushing sound itself but because the noise would alert any lurking ghosts, vampires or serial killers that I was alone upstairs and they would obviously come and get me!

Anyone dressed up in character costumes. You used to go to McDonald's birthday parties and someone came out dressed as the Hamburgerler!

Terrified me.

The Skips advert where everyone was rigid and sharp then went all flowy when they had a skip.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7GgowuQ7Es

My brother was terrified of the soft mint man who was made of pillows.

Totally illogical now of course 😂

The wolves that the older children said were in the shed at the end of the nursery school yard. In Nottinghamshire 😁

Tortoises

@selly90 Even worse than someone dressed as the hamburger was someone dressed as Ronald McDonald himself.

I used to be scared of wearing closed toe sandals: I remember my mum buckling them on to my bare feet in summer, I could catch glimpses of my feet locked inside them through the little holes, and I couldn't get them off myself. I didn't mind ordinary shoes though. I couldn't understand how other children happily ran around in their jelly sandals.

Seeing other children being smacked in public, as you often saw in the 1980s; it actually made me want to run and hide. Seeing it was even worse than it happening to me. (Sorry to bring this up on a fun thread!)

Falling down a hole or well: another thing that happens in lots of stories.

@scalt I always thought it was a bit of a myth that McDonald's stopped using Ronald McDonald as a mascot because children were scared of him - but all their 50th Anniversary decor they've just had up in their branches it had all the other old characters (Hamburglar, Grimace etc) but absolutely no Ronald himself anywhere 😂

Being locked in a cage, as suddenly happens to Hansel, and Pinocchio.

There was a time that the school caretaker showed us his budgies: he stood inside the cage-like aviary, while we looked in, and I kept thinking that he was locked in, and the same could happen to me.

Crocodiles

I honestly don't know what they were thinking having him as a mascot in the first place. He's not exactly the epitome of a jolly old clown that kids would love, is he? He's more the creep into your bedroom at night to steal your soul kind.

For those who are brave....
The original Ronald McDonald 😱😂

Our local train station. A big ereie early Victorian building with lots of dark shadows and a poorly lit main staircase. Used to terrify me coming home there at nights even though DM was with me.

Quicksand. Have never come across it in my 55 years 😆.

The neighbour who told me cats climbed up the walls of my house to eat me. I was about 4 years old.

I can't for the life of me remember the name of it but a murder/mystery/drama series that had horrible scary music.

Nuclear war.

The Esso tiger. I was truly terrified.

Also the hologram in a children’s TV programme called Chocky, and later on, Chocky’s Children. Terrified.

The plug hole end of the bath and having my toenails cut

Mosaic patterns in the centre of swimming pools, usually round the sump. Always thought a shark would come out of it.
Sea sponges. Unfortunately they were quite common in bathrooms in the 70s and 80s.

Threads
Invasion of the body snatchers
The tomorrow people
Charlie says

Books with pictures of snakes, crocodiles and spiders

The Russians

Being locked in a fridge

Gordon the Express in ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’. Just hearing the music worried me.

Emu
Quicksand
Escalators; in fact anything that was on a public information film.
Rabies (the posters were terrifying in the ‘80s).
Hairdryers (hated the noise)

Quicksand, spontaneous human combustion and the railway crossing on the way to school.

My DF and I had long, long reassuring chats about the first two and for the final one he walked me to the crossing and back and forth several times so I got the hang of it.

I spent aaaages convinced that everybody in the world could hear my thoughts but didn’t want to tell me because they felt bad about it.

Trying to keep my thoughts clean and feeling mortified about whatever mucky thing had slipped past was a full time occupation!!

I'm not a fan of clowns at all but jesus that original Ronald McDonald is the stuff of nightmares! I think my DF would have decked him if he came anywhere near me.