In honor of Friday the 13th, I thought I'd share a story from my past. It's a spook story, just so you know. And it was told to me & Band Camp by our Grandma when we were just wee, little sprouts. Why she was trying to scare the crap out of us when we were wee, little sprouts, I'm not sure. Probably because it was like 35 years ago and the whole "politically correct" atmosphere was non-existent. You could scare the crap out of kidlets and people thought it was funny. Now you'll get your ass thrown in jail. But let's get back to the story shall we?
This is a true story. Or at least that's what my Grandma told me. We're going to call her Gram from this point on, ok? The person involved in this was a friend of my Gram's friend, Marcella. Don't you love a good "friend of a friend" story? I know I do. Marcella has been dead for about 30 years so it's ok that I discuss her in the blog. One of my earliest memories of Marcella was her sucking on chicken bones in my Gram's kitchen. She brought over a bucket o' chicken from Kentucky Fried Chicken and devoured that sucker in about 5 minutes. I still gag when I think of her throwing down on that chicken. And I think I was about 5 years old when I witnessed the deed. I'm pretty sure it scarred me. Anyway, the following true event happened to Marcella the chicken bone sucker's friend...
Marcella's friend - let's call her Eunice had a recurring dream. Notice I say "recurring" and not "reocurring" since "reoccur" is not a word. That's one of my pet peeves, just so ya know. So Eunice keeps having this dream. It's not a particularly scary dream. Nobody's chasing her or trying to dismember her. She doesn't think she can fly and at the last minute discovers she can't. She's not walking through the halls of her high school, naked, trying to remember her locker combination. Or am I the only one that has the naked, locker dream? Don't answer that. No, Eunice's dream was fairly mundane. She was at a parade in downtown Detroit. That right there should scare the crap out of you. Attending a parade in Detroit? That's like a death wish. But this was back in the day before people felt compelled to murder each other on a minute by minute basis.
So Eunice is at the parade (in her dream) and bands are playing songs and floats are going by. Balloons are everywhere and children are laughing. Sounds pleasant enough, no? Then all of a sudden, a man who is standing in front of Eunice (in her dream) turns around and stares at her. He's not gross or disfigured. He doesn't have boogers hanging out of his nose or nasty ass teeth. He's pretty average looking. But he scares the crap out of Eunice and she sits up in bed, drenched in sweat. Maybe urine & feces too - just sayin'. Now having this dream once would have been bad enough. But poor Eunice was stalked by this dream. Night after night, she would go to sleep only to have the crap scared out of her over and over again. Too bad they didn't have Ambien or one of those other uber-powerful sleeping pills for Eunice. I think she could have used it, big time.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. Eunice has to make a visit to downtown Detroit. Not for a parade though. She had some important business at the David Whitney Building. The David Whitney Building is this cool ass skyscraper that has umpteen floors. My dentist used to have his office in the DWB so we would venture out of suburbia every 6 months to have our teeth cleaned and then eat caramel corn & fudge. Remember that Band Camp? Those were the days! Back to Eunice. Eunice had business at the DWB and entered the lobby and walked toward the huge bank of elevators that would take you to floor umpteen. Eunice pressed the button to summon the elevator.
It took a little bit of time for the elevator to leave floor umpteen and make its way to the lobby. So quite a crowd had built up before the doors opened. The people on the elevator got off and the large crowd engulfing Eunice made their way on. Somehow Eunice was the last one to step into the elevator. Which sucks since she was the first one there. What the hell, Eunice? Don't let people push you around. Stand up for yourself, woman. But Eunice was meek & mild and let everyone plow over her ass to get into the elevator. As I mentioned, this was back in the day - when women were meek & mild and elevators had elevator operators. That's right - you didn't have to push your own button. Somebody got paid to do it for you. Can you imagine?
So Eunice finally makes her way onto the elevator and the voice says, "What floor, ma'am?" Eunice looks up. And I'll be damned if the elevator operator isn't the freaky guy from her dream! Do you have goosebumps right now? I do - and I know the story. Eunice damn near crapped down both legs on the elevator. Elevator Operator/Freaky Guy asked her again - "What floor, please?" Eunice just stared at him and the other passengers started to get a little pissed because they had places to go and people to see and mute Eunice couldn't decide what floor she wanted.
The doors began to close and Eunice bolted. As in, stuck her foot in between those two huge metal doors, triggered the auto open feature and got her ass off of the elevator, pronto. The rest of the passengers were happy as hell to have this kook off of their elevator, thanks very much. As the doors closed, Eunice locked eyes with Elevator Operator/Freaky Guy. She watched the elevator begin to rise, floor by floor. Then all of a sudden, the numbers started to drop like a rock. Screams could be heard throughout the entire lobby as the elevator plunged to the basement level of the DWB. The cable for the elevator had snapped and the elevator and its passengers plummeted umpteen floors to their deaths. There were no survivors. Except for Eunice who had barely escaped the clutches of the Grim Reaper.
Eunice died eventually - but not before she passed along the story to Marcella, who passed it along to my Gram. Then she passed it along to me and now I'm passing it along to you. It's like that old Fabrege commerical.
So on this Friday the 13th, be sure to pay attention to your dreams. You never know what they're trying to tell you. For example, what exactly does it mean when I'm naked in high school? Don't answer that...
