at home: around the house

When I was younger, I had a fascination with the light switch. I would flick the lights on and off as fast as I could until my mother got fed up and would tell me to stop. After a while of suffering through this pattern, my mom told me that if I continued, the electric company would get confused -- not knowing if we wanted our lights on or off. She claimed that they would then cut off our power. I immediately stopped my personal light show because I thought I would be the one responsible for our house not having any more electricity.

I thought that monsters lived in my bedroom walls and would come and kidnap me.

The only way I could escape them was by being very loud whenever I walked into my bedroom as they were scared by loud noises and only came out during the day as they slept at night

When I was about 5 years old (I think), our air conditioner had a loud rattle
when it ran. My family told me that it had a jar in it, I suppose meaning that it was
jolting in the window. The more they tried to tell me it was o.k, the less o.k. it was
with me, because all I could think of was, that with all that rattling, that jar is going to
break and the glass is going to come out and fly all over and hurt anyone near
by. Finally, Dad fixed the "jar in the air conditioner". Days or weeks later, I was playing in the
garage, I saw an old peanut butter jar with some dirty water in it. Knowing of course
that dirty water dripped out of the air conditioner, I figured it was the "jar" that was
in the air conditioner. All in one piece, no less.

Whenever I left the refridgerator door open, my parents would say, "The penguins are coming," meaning that they were attracted to all of the cold air I was letting into the house. I thought they meant that penguins tried to escape from the Artic through refridgerator doors. I was terrified.

When i was little, i used to have a childrens Bible and i used to read it until one day, i saw a picture of Jesus on a cross. For some reason this really scared me and i thought that if i went to the bathroom late at nigt, i would see that picture in the mirror and then it would happen to me...pretty weird...

My grandmother had antimacassars on her chairs, but I thought they were just called Chair Covers. When I heard the real word for them, I thought it meant they had belonged to Auntie Macassar - mercifully I never asked who she was.

My dad once belived, ~1937 or so, that there was an operator for electricity just as there was an operator for the telephone. So, ne day he decided to play a trick on the electricity-operator by screwing a coin into a lamp socket. Not only did it blow a fuse, but he got a bit of a shock too. Turns out the operator had a trick for him too.

I used to believe the cracks in the ceiling were out to get you and that if you kept really still and didn't make a sound, they wouldn't be able to find you. I often fell asleep beneath the covers holding my breath when I was little because of this.

We used to have a really old, really loud tumble dryer. It used to shake violently when my mum turned it on and my sister and I used to think that it would shake itself free and start chasing after us. It was so loud and menacing we really did think it had a mind of it's own and wanted to 'get' us. We used to run and hide on the sofa every time it was on!

When I was little, and I was very upset at times, I believed that if the walls could have feelings, they would laugh or mock me. But, when I wanted to escape them, I would look up--towards the cieling, because if it had feelings, it would like me and comfort me.

I used to think everytime you switch on or off the light, there was a little man somewhere who made the light come on or off

When my Mum bought a new vacuum cleaner, the salesman told me that if she left it on for too long it would suck up the carpet and everything on it (including people) and so whenever it was used I'd always scream to my Mum to turn it off after a little while

I used to believe that the bright red linoleum which showed through the tear in the lino which covered it in my Gran's hallway was actually fire and that if I touched it it would burn my hand.

i used to see things a lot around my house. things the most certainly weren't there. and of course these visions happened at night. for several months when i was around 5 i could have sworn that i saw the head of abe lincoln through my bedroom window. it was always sitting there on the pavement glowing...now i realize that it looked like the silhouette of lincoln on the american penny.

My grandmother would watch us when my parents wanted to go out, and often we would stay at her house. She told us that she had a tape recorder hidden and would play the tape back for our parents if we misbehaved. My cousin and I tore her house apart looking for the tape recorder. I even fell from a high shelf I had climbed looking for it. I didn't realize it was a scam for years.

This is one from my daughter, I used to make her stand in the corner if she missbehaved, OOOOOh I hear you all say!

anyway she always said that when she grew up and owned her own house it would be round - with NO corners!