It's Coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!!

I was once forced to watch The Ring, practically at gunpoint. Well. Except there wasn't a gun, and my parents said, "It's your sister's birthday, so we'll see the movie SHE wants to see."

One reason I don't watch scary movies is that I will often re-enact them in my head, with me as the victim. After watching that horrible movie, I had to go back to my house, where I live BY MYSELF, and reconcile myself to not answering phones or looking in the corners of my closet. [Note: I would post YouTube clips here, to demonstrate exactly WHY I've made those life decisions, except then I would have to watch them myself, and that would be five years of psychiatric help RIGHT out the window.]

I also don't like ghost stories or urban legends. I have a hard time believing that I'm not going to be targeted by a particularly vicious spirit; also, I do NOT like driving through the woods at night, because I firmly believe that I could be attacked by an asylum escapee who has A HOOK FOR A HAND.

So last week, I was sitting downstairs, reading a book, enjoying the summer day and basking in the slightly higher thermostat setting that I've adopted in order to save money, when I got a text message from an unidentified caller:

it is hot in here! does the air work or what?

I bolted straight up. My heart started to beat, loud and fast. I think I passed out for a minute.

When I came to, I was clutching my phone with white-knuckled fingers and staring at the ceiling, listening with bat ears for any sounds of movement. I began a mental search of the first floor, trying to come up with something that I could use as a weapon. Nothing. I took a moment to be disgusted with myself, for being so unprepared, and got right back to being pee-in-my-pants scared.

Now, I'm not a typical movie heroine, in that I refuse to investigate any strange noises, anything out of the ordinary, any moving shadows. I adopt the attitude of I DON'T WANT TO KNOW. I tend to just curl up into a ball and try to ignore the whole thing.

I walked through the upstairs in my mind, and I knew right away the most logical place for a killer to hide. He'd be in the shower. See, I recently--after the umpteenth time I cleaned the creases in the shower curtain of mold--started closing the curtain after my showers (in order to abort the mold process in the first place). And EVERY SINGLE TIME I go in the bathroom, I am always positive that there's something behind that curtain.

I determinedly did NOT go upstairs and fling back the curtain. Instead, shaking, I called my dad.

"What are you doing?" I asked calmly.

And just as I was about to demand that he get to my house straightaway before I was heinously murdered, I got another text.

It was my sister, complaining about the heat in the movie theater. For some reason, my phone didn't show her as the original caller/texter.

"Um, never mind," I said to my dad.

And I lay back on the couch, picked up my book, and happily resumed my reading.