Scary stuff

Back seats scare me.

Or more accurately what could be lurking in the dark in those back seats. I trace this fear back to elementary school and reading one of the those scary story books that are commonplace at school book fairs.

The particular story was about how the protagonist had purchased a classic car and gotten it fixed up but there were mysterious things that would happen when driving it. One wet and rainy evening he was driving alone in the car and glanced in the rear view mirror to see a pair of glowing eyes from the ghost of the gangster who was killed in the car.

As scary stories go, it is no “Psycho” or “Nightmare on Elm Street,” but it was spooky enough to have made an impact on my then 9-year-old self that now even more than 40 years later, I remember it.

When I get in a vehicle, especially later at night, I find myself involuntarily tightening the muscles in my neck and hunching my shoulders. I had read something long ago that your should do this if someone it attempting to garrote you so that you can breathe when you relax.

As I tried to look it up to confirm ahead of writing this column, but my search results ranged from attempting to connect me to help with domestic abuse support (several pages of these) to tips on what to do if you are alone and choking on something. I would think that if I was choking and had a phone I would call or text for help rather than scroll through Youtube videos — and wait through unskippable commercials from extremist political action committees — to find out what to do to keep from dying. But then again, I grew up in a pre-cellphone world where parents had to be reminded at 10 p.m. to wonder where their children were. If you got hurt somewhere along the way, you were expeced to deal with it with whatever poor advice your friends gave you.

Failed internet searching aside, I cannot swear by the tightening move, because I have yet to have anyone actually lurking in my back seat waiting to murder me or even force me to go to a secondary location.

Of course, this could just be a benefit from the amount of stuff I have in my back seat. My family would likely use a different word that starts with s that would be inappropriate in a family publication. It is summer, so my back seat is covered with supplies for the Kiwanis Summer Concert series, including a large box of foam glow-lights that we will be distributing as a surprise gift to people attending the final concert of the season on August 28. Also taking up the space and making it more challenging for any would-be deranged axe murderer is my son’s golf bag, a random box full of Christmas lights and a concession- ready box of chips including a single bag of Funions.

I point out to people that suggest I should clean out my car, that my pack rat tendencies have kept me from being murdered on the mean streets of Medford.

Although describing Medford’s streets as being “mean” is generally a wild exaggeration, while there have been notable exceptions, Medford’s neighborhoods are more mild than wild, which is one of the reasons people choose to live here.

A well-meaning friend noted that while an adult person might have trouble hiding in my back seat, a rabid, murderous three-toed sloth could be lurking there at this very moment biding his time before slowly reaching out and ripping my throat out with his razor sharp, six-inch claws. On a trip to Texas a few years ago, this friend also took us on a side trip to a random exotic pet store because he had researched that they had a sloth at their location and he knows I have a wariness when it comes to them. I don’t trust that they are as stupid or as slow as they appear to be. For the record, I also think that loons are pretty creepy birds with calls that sound like the wailing souls of their victims and their blood red eyes.

While, rationally, I know there is a better chance of me winning the Powerball Lottery than in being attacked by wildlife or be garroted in my car in my office parking lot, it doesn’t stop me from taking a quick glance to check out the back seat before I get in.

Brian Wilson is News Editor at The Star News. Contact Brian at BrianWilson@centralwinews.com.