"The Tale of the Shiny Red Bicycle"

Today's Blogtember topic is a toughie - a story about a time you were very afraid. I'm sure I could tell you all 179 stories involving snakes (whether they be real or plastic - yes I'm also scared of plastic snakes), but I feel like I've kinda exhausted that topic. I'm sure I've talked about that irrational fear in at least 7 other posts so I've thought long and hard to come up with a more interesting story to share. This one is also fairly irrational, but it scared the living daylights out of me when I was younger.

Let me preface this story by telling you when I was younger we did not have cable at my house which means no Disney Channel and no Nickelodeon. I was strictly a Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street kinda girl so when I went to sleepovers at my friends' houses I thought watching Nickelodeon was the coolest thing ever.

I will never forget the first (and last time) I watched an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark." I was at my friend Stephanie's house, and we spent a good majority of the evening crafting animals out of Model Magic and Floam. Do you remember MM and Floam? Oh my gosh. That stuff entertained me for hours. I probably ruined countless packages of markers trying to dye Model Magic the perfect shade of grey to make cats. This was one of my favorite past times as a child, but I've digressed. Stephanie had the genius idea to take a break to watch her new favorite show, "Are You Afraid of the Dark". The episode we watched was about a little boy who rode his bike into some sort of river and drowned. He then came back as a ghost. This particular episode happens to be #6 on this list of  The 20 Scariest Episodes of "Are You Afraid of the Dark" so obviously I was terrified. Of course I had to appear cool and couldn't let me friend know how much of a scaredy cat I was being so I watched the entire episode. Here it is if you want to terrify yourself and have nightmares for months (because I'm sure it is just as scary now haha):

I swear I saw that little boy's ghost for months. Sleeping in my own bed was out of the question. Most terrifying show for children ever. I'll stick with Mr. Roger's where it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood thank you very much.