The Grudge I will never forget

In the 25 years that I have been alive on this earth, I have only had my own room for six of those years. I have shared a room with my little brother Nelson since he was born. Which, for some reasons that I can't think of right now, were great. But there were also a lot of reasons that I could not stand sharing a room.

I think a lot of it had to do with the five year difference between us. When I was 15 he was 10. With that big of a difference in age we clashed every now and again. For example, when I got into my teens, I wanted my room to look like this...

I also wanted to paint the walls black at one point.

But, instead my room actually looked like...

When he was little Nelson liked to have pictures of pigs...they were his favorite animal. Don't ask me.

It drove me nuts. I liked to stay up late to play video games at night, but in order to do so I had to turn the volume all the way down so my brother could sleep. Now, I'm not really complaining. I had a great life growing up. But, it eventually got to the point when my parents realized that I needed my own room.

So they found me one... the family camping trailer.

This was my summer home from the age of 15 til 19.

It had a microwave and built in overhead speakers that I could plug my awesome mp3 player into and listen to  music. I also took out a small television and my Play Station 2 -- it was heaven.

The only problem was having to run through the field to my parents house if I had to go see a man about a horse in the middle of the night. Benson is creepy in the dark. It’s quiet and since there are no lights or street lamps the darkness is consuming.

There was one instance when I was 15 years old, I road my four-wheeler a couple miles to my friend’s house where we watched a horror movie called The Grudge. Now, I don’t care how scary you thought this movie was. It scared the crap out of me. I hated every second that I watched that dumb movie. 

I've actually never reacted well to scary movies. When I was 11 I watched The Sixth Sense with my mom and I became physically ill while watching it. It made me break out in a fever and feel so incredibly nauseous that my mom had to put a cool rag on my forehead and I watched Winny the Pooh until I fell asleep. There was also the time that I watched The Ring, and seven days later I woke up at the same time I had finished watching the movie the week before. It was back when VHS tapes were still in use. My VCR automatically ejected the tape when there was no more to play. Then the t.v. would do this...

And that static sound would come on

 If anyone has seen The Ring...that's exactly how it all starts before that freaky little girl comes crawlin' out your television set to kill you. I was home all alone, and I was so scared that I called my grandma at midnight and asked if I could come stay at her house for the night.

So yeah, not the best track record with scary movies. 

Anyway... 

The worst part after watching The Grudge at my friends house was the ride home.

It was late, and dark and dark and dark. I said goodbye to my friends, and in the darkness strapped on my helmet. I turned on the lights and my journey of terror began. The singular light coming from my four-wheeler bounced off the bulrushes, trees and fences lining the road, and cast eerie shadows that seemed to move all around me. Beyond the light of my four-wheeler was total darkness. Also, did I mention it was dark?

 Almost immediately my imagination began messing with my mind. I imagined the bad girl from the movie crawling out onto the road in front of me, or the housekeeper who’s bottom jaw was torn off appearing in he middle of the road to kill me.

It wasn’t long before I was in tears, pushing the throttle as far down as it would go. 

"Don't you dare appear in front of me! (Gulp) I will just run you over!" endless sobbing.

On a typical day it was a rule to park the four-wheeler in the shed and make sure everything was locked up before going inside the house. Not this night. I pulled into the front lawn of my home and jumped off of the four-wheeler while simultaneously switching it off. I didn't care where it rolled to, I was not going to stop moving closer to the door of my home.

I un-clipped my helmet as I ran for the side door (which my parents left unlocked for us when we stayed out) and dropped it on the lawn. Then I heard them... foot-steps running behind me and they were gaining. I ran faster, but not fast enough. I heard panting. I felt something soft, cold and wet make contact with my hand. I let out a gasp of air that would have been a scream if I was capable of making a noise. 

Something small and strong crashed into my legs and jumped onto my body.

It was then I knew I was a goner. I saw my life flash before my eyes, and then a bright light. Ope, wait that was just the porch light. And the horrible jaw-less and crawly Asian women that were about to kill me... well, they were just the family dog excited to see me. 

I was so doggone scared! 

Frustrated, scared and embarrassed I shoved the dog off me and yelled at her, telling her to go to bed. That night I did not go back outside to my trailer. I stayed inside relieved for the first time ever to share a room with my brother.  

Unfortunately, this stupid movie did not only get best of me once, but twice times. It was the next night and I had completely forgotten about the movie throughout the nice, bright and sunny-summer day. So that night I stayed in my trailer--and the Grudge came back.

Side note, in order to keep my trailer somewhat cool in the summer, I sometimes left the door open so it would cool down before I slept in there.

Like I said, I had completely forgotten about The Grudge…that was, until my head hit the pillow. Then those freaky images began to flood my head. I sat there terrified for a good half hour--and then the meowing began -- and it was coming from inside my trailer.

Does anyone remember the grudge…uh, yeah. There’s this part.

I was so frightened I couldn't move. As the meowing persisted, I decided I could either die lying there like a scaredy cat, or I could fight. Slowly, I inched my fingers towards the baseball bat I kept at the end of my bed. I still couldn't see the source of the meowing.

Then, as I enclosed my fingers around the bat I saw a pair of eyes staring at me. They were just a few inches above the ground, just a few feet away from me. The meowing began again and the eyes inched forward. It was now or never. I jumped out of my blankets with a cry of defiance and switched on the light and turned around to face my attacker. 

Seeing as I’m still alive and The Grudge is just a movie, I'm sure it is pretty obvious what was in my trailer meowing at me. It was a turkey. Not. 

Once again, scared, embarrassed and angered I picked up the cat,opened the screen door of my trailer and punted the poor thing out into the night.  

Although, potentially catastrophic, my actions caused no permanent harm to the kitty

   

 I'm never cruel to animals. In fact, I felt terrible about my actions the next day and payed the cat special attention. Needless to say, I never found her in my trailer again.

To this day I hate that movie. I tried watching it recently to overcome my fear. I made it to the part when the causes of the curse are written on the screen in order to preface the movie. I read that, and then I turned it off.

Especially me...