funny blogs – Veronica Leigh

I’m always making fun of people in horror movies.

“Don’t go in the basement! Everyone knows that!”

“That noise was OBVIOUSLY NOT the cat!”

“Why would you go out in the woods by yourself!?!?”

“PUT THE OUIJA BOARD AWAY!”

How could anyone have such horrible decision-making skills? Do the writers really think people are this stupid?

But then I thought about it a little more. Maybe it was after opening a cupboard that I heard close behind me when I was alone and the cupboards were already closed. Or maybe it was after I went down into the basement alone to investigate a strange sound. Once these things happened, I started noticing, and remembering, other behaviors as well. This made me stop and think.

Are the decisions people make in horror movies unusually bad? Ok, yeah. Some of them REALLY are.

But without the scary music telling us something’s about to happen, without the ominous lighting or unnerving camera angles, without knowing we’re in a horror movie — how many terrible decisions would the average person make?

Let’s take a look at some things I personally have done that are probably going to get me killed if we find out this thing we call “life” is actually a horror movie. I’ll start with 25, but I’m sure there are more.

Investigated sounds that came from other rooms, basements, and attics.
Talked to strangers.
Ignored a sound because I assumed it was just a cat or the wind.
Read something out loud in a language I wasn’t fluent in.
Had sex.
Used a Ouija board.
Played a ‘paranormal’ games, like Bloody Mary and Light as a Feather.
Walked or ran in the woods alone.
Walked through a dark parking lot to my car by myself.
Got drunk.
Walked down an alley at night.
Walked around a big city alone.
Hung out with my friends without telling anyone exactly where we’d be.
Went into a building that had a reputation for being haunted.
Attempted to talk to ghosts in the haunted building.
Went to a medium, psychic, or tarot card reader.
Ignored advice from a weird old stranger.
Said “that was weird,” when something strange happened, then promptly ignored it.
Didn’t get rid of the electronic toy that regularly turned on by itself.
Said, “I’ll be right back.”
Bought old things at a garage sales and antique stores.
Went back to sleep without checking to see why the pile of clothes in my room looked like a person or monster.
Listened to music loud enough that I couldn’t tell if someone (or something) was behind me.
Started talking to someone who came in the door without checking to make sure it was the person I assumed had come in.
Ignored the creepy feeling that someone was watching me.

So, hopefully this isn’t the beginning of a horror movie. But if it is, I hope the audience isn’t making fun of me too much. Because I can’t hear the music, or see the creepy lighting, or feel off balance from the camera angles. Everything seems normal, just like it would have to the victims in the movies until whatever was terrorizing them actually showed up.

What about you? How many things have you done that would have had the audience screaming “Don’t do that!”? Let me know in the comments.

IMG_0499 (2) — I also put spiders outside when I find them in the house, even though I know that didn’t end well for the people in Arachnophobia.

This is a post I’ve copied over from my now defunct blog on blogger. It’s not about creepy things like most of my new posts (unless you really think about the history), but it was one of my more popular pieces on the old blog, so I figured I’d share it anyway since it’s that time of year.

Just a note for my international readers. This probably only makes sense if you spend a lot of time, or have a lot of friends, in the USA.

A More-or-Less True-ish Tale of St. Patrick

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, even though he was never formally made a saint by the church. He also drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Of course, there weren’t any snakes there to begin with. It seems to me he should be the patron saint of ‘work smart, not hard’.

Unless of course we’re going with the generally accepted metaphor of ‘snakes’ being pagans. Then he likely worked pretty hard. No one really knows how much actual driving out of pagans he did versus just converting them, but I’m going to guess at least some violence ensued, as it usually does when you try to destroy an entire religion.

So, what are we celebrating? His death of course. It makes sense if you think about it. Here’s a guy whose life mission was to force his religion on those who disagreed with him. So, now we celebrate his death in honor of all those souls who died, were driven from their homes, or were forced to live without their gods until death came naturally. We drink in honor of these souls.

All of them.

We must honor the snakes who were needlessly driven from their homes. Some were driven from their physical homes. Others had their home driven from their hearts. But we must honor them.

Every. Last. One.

And that, my friends, is the reason we get completely smashed on St. Patrick’s Day.