The Time I Was Ascared

Christmas, 1978.

I had just received my very first digital clock as a present.

As you can imagine, this is what every 10-year old always dreams of. Waking, bright eyed and wondrous...tearing into his presents with excitement and anticipation and then opening a fucking clock ARE YOU KIDDING ME, SANTA?!

But this was DIGITAL so of course I took it out of the box and plugged it in and fiddled with it for a little bit by pressing this and moving that and what does this button do? and OOH IT HAS RED LIGHTS and then kind of just threw it over on my bed because as every kid knows you can only play with a digital clock for a few hours straight before it starts to get boring.

On the bright side, I also got a book.

I'm just now coming to the realization that this was probablyl the worst. Christmas. Ever.

But the book I got from Santa was 'The Amityville Horror' in paperback. Because nothing says 'Merry Christmas' like the story of demonic possession in a house where an entire family was murdered by their son.

*angels sing*

Regardless, I remember being very excited to get this book because - as I'm sure you've realized - I'm kind of warped and at even age 10 I was a little effed in the melon. So of course I thumbed through it and got to the part where the house yells "GET OUT" and HOLY SHIT THAT WAS SPOOKY.

Being the responsible boy that I was, I immediately ran upstairs in our two-family house to get my cousin, Kim, to read her the whole passage because at age 7 this would probably freak the ever-loving SHIT out of her and what kind of cousin would I be if I didn't do that?

RIGHT.

So, there Kim and I sat on the edge of my bed as I read the passage in the creepiest voice I could muster while being a 10-year old boy with the voice of a squirrel. Please note that I'm paraphrasing here because I'm too cheap to buy the book for the actual quotes and Google was fairly useless.

Me (reading): "..the room filled with flies.."

Kim's eyes widened, as I continued...

Me (deepening my voice): "..Father Mancuso began to spread holy water..when suddenly..a voice.."

The room remained deathly quiet..

Me (in a booming voice): "..GET OUT!!.."

As I read these words, I could feel the fear growing in myself.

And as much as it was painfully obvious that my poor little cousin, Kim, was shitting her little pants, I was too.

For effect, I deepened my voice as low as I could muster.

Then I repeated the words again..deeper and louder:

Me: "GET....OUT!!!!!"

It was at this PRECISE moment that the digital alarm clock that I had received as a present and was fumbling around with earlier decided to have it's fucking alarm go off.

BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZ BZZZZZ

The last thing I remember was leaping from my bed and SCREAMING while running the full length of my house at roughly the speed of sound with my poor little cousin, Kim, right behind me and also screaming her lungs as well - but probably because she was trapped in the vacuum created by my draft as I made a beeline for my parents.

Sweating. Heart pounding. Scared shitless.

I could still hear my alarm clock buzzing it's evil little brain out in my room with me being too petrified to go back in there and try to figure out how to shut the goddamn thing off.

To this very day, I hate that sound.

And demons that yell at you to leave.

They suck, too.