Buried Under the Bed

In a recent question of the day on Facebook we asked what scared you when you were younger.  My fear was that someone was buried under my bed.  I didn't go into the reasoning behind that but I thought my blog would be a perfect place to explain it. 

Here's where that fear came from.

One New Year's Eve I was babysitting for some neighbors and once the boy I was watching was in bed  I turned the television on.  It was late at night and there had been a horror movie on the channel that came up.  I only saw the ending and here's how it went:

Creepy music playing in the background and an image of a grave on the screen.  The dirt starts moving, and fingers slowly start to emerge from the grave - fingers all bent as if reaching for something.  The movie ended like that, with just the hand sticking out of the grave.

At that time I had a bed with a really high frame so my bed sat high off the floor. It was an old-fashioned bed from my grandmother's house.   From the time I saw the end of that moving until I was a young teenager I was convinced that someone was buried under my bed  - and I was pretty sure that hand was going to grab my leg when I climbed into bed.

So, for safety's sake, I would stand in the hallway outside my bedroom, get a running start.....

and LEAP into bed so that hand could not reach out and grab me.

It made perfect sense to me!



Forty years later I can still see that hand. 

I no longer think someone is buried under my bed



(although I know there are dust bunnies under there)



after all - I AM a grown up now :)

BUT

When my feet get warm during the night I will stick one foot out from under the covers to cool off a bit, but I NEVER let that foot dangle off the side of the bed.

.....Because you just never know.