I Also Once Had Nightmares After An Episode Of The Facts Of Life

So on Saturday I decided to go to a party with one of my teacher friends and was pretty sure I'd be home and in bed by nine because the thing started at 4:30. Becky went out of town for the night but before she did she said, "You are not gonna be in bed by 9, when you hang out with her its for like four days straight, and you come back eventually all hung over and talking about this zoo you broke into and that it's quite possible one or both of you is pregnant."

"That's totally not true."

"What happened last time you guys hung out?"

"Fun happened."

"Exactly."

And despite my best efforts to keep it normal, at the end of the night (which to be fair was only like 11pm) my teacher friend and I were sitting on the floor, having a tea party with the host's four year old son, and were pissed when we were told it was his bedtime because we knew that meant tea party was over. Apparently we were together enough to know if we continued to have the tea party with just the two of us, things would get weird.

Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that Sunday I was a little out of it. I'm too old to drink til 11 apparently and then try to be functional the next day. (My 21 year-old self is shaking her head in disgrace at my now-self, but that's ok, because my 21 year-old self also thought Justin Timberlake was the un-cutest of the boy band boys . . . oh my gosh if only she knew what Chris Kirkpatrick would end up like.)




He's not terrible. But he's not this either.




(Hi Justin. Just kidding about when I was 21. Here, let me make it up to you. By that I mean with sexy stuff, you know that right? Ok, just so we're clear.)

Anyway, I was couch-bound on Sunday and spent the entire day reading this book In The Woods, and it was so (dork alert) nice to be reading! Like actually wanting to spend hours reading because I liked the book so much, I haven't had that since. . . well, probably since the last Harry Potter came out. (Gabi, I swear to god if you finish the Twilights and don't read any of the Harry Potters we're gonna have to rethink our friendship.)(Ok, not really, but I am gonna start making more fun of Britney.)(Consider yourself warned!)

So, I was totally thrilled with this book, and it's a mystery so I was trying to figure out what happened, and I'm always wrong - always - because I usually end up thinking it's the best friend, or the supporting character, even though there's been nothing but awesome from them, because in my head that's the scariest thing that can happen. Your best friend turns on you and stabs you in the woods and then leaves your body in some hollow somewhere even though you have no idea what a hollow is, and you're all, 'Oh this is neat, thanks for showing me this hollow' and secretly your best friend is pulling out a serrated hunting knife, and you just keep blabbering, 'I wonder if this would be considered a sleepy hollow', and your bff rolls her eyes because she knows she's about to stab you and leave you there, probably for reasons not far off from the fact that you just wondered about the identity of this hollow, and then you're all 'It's sorta dark in here, I'm hungry' and then she says, 'Not for long' and then bam! you're stabbed to death. But since it was a stabbing and not something fast like a gun shot to the eye, you have time to process everything that's happening, and that's the scary part - not the actual stabbing, that just hurts, the scary part is when you see the murder creep into the eyes of the person you just told that you had a burrito for breakfast, lunch, and dinner yesterday and watched fourteen episodes of Say Yes To The Dress and thought she understood, and suddenly that all vanishes because she's not, she's not the person you thought she was. She's the one who kills you in a hollow, sleepy or otherwise.

So, yeah, I guess wrong, and mysteries scare the living daylights out of me. I was reading this book for hours on end, and it was REALLY captivating, but it started to get really twisted and really creepy, and before I knew it, it was dark and I was so scared and skittish that not only could I not move from the couch, but then the dog sneezed and I screamed so loud my neighbor came over and asked if I was ok.

"Oh yeah, the dog scared me."

She looked down at my deaf, fourteen year old, snoring dog.

"Well she didn't scare me now. Now she's harmless, but earlier she sneezed."

The walking away without saying goodbye was probably totally deserved.

I could not shake the freaked-out-ness though, and when Becky got home, I heard her jangling her keys in the door, I heard her open it, and saw her face through the crack, in all real-life senses I knew it was her, but I still screamed (in a freakishly mannish voice) when she came in (sisters are the 2nd on my list of scary secret murderers). My only solution to such terror was to finish the book immediately so I would know what happened and could return to a normal life.

Once I finished I breathed a sigh of relief, and Becky breathed a sigh of relief because she was sick of me shrieking at her in terror at inappropriate moments.

But then yesterday, this happened:

"Becky guess what?"

"What?"

"I just found the sequel to my scary book."

"Oh Jesus, Amy no."

"But I have to-"

"No."

"But I want to know what hap-"

"No."

"What if it's not as ba-"

"No."

"I already bought it."

"Shit."

"I'm gonna start reading it right now."

"Thanks for warning me. I'm gonna call you as I'm walking up to the house so you don't throw something at me when I walk in."

"Don't call me! Have you heard my ringtone? It's like Satan's siren."

"Goodbye."

"Don't call me!"



I'm so excited.