When I was a child I was viscerally afraid of
I used to like to stay up as late as I could when I was a very small child, like, until I could hear my dad get up and get ready for work in the morning. Then I'd go to sleep and be woken up a few hours later for school.
So, when I was little (millennial checking in) I didn't have a TV in my room (never was allowed until I'd moved out tbh) I'd have to keep myself entertained while I stayed awake all night. I did have a gameboy advanced, but it was the version that didnβt have a back-lit screen, and my mom would take it from me before bedtime, anyway.
I did have, however, a ton of coloring/activity books (haunted house or revolutionary War themed [no fucking clue] and a pretty good selection of tiny hard-back kid's fiction. Little Golden Books, "novelizations" of movies like The Land Before Time, and a buttfuck of Dr Seuss books.
I also just remembered that on the back of my Land Before Time book, there was a tiny silhouette logo of E.T. (the extraterrestrial) flying across the moon in the basket of Eliott's bike. I remember looking at that and having an extremely vivid nightmare about E.T., and I've hated the little fucker ever since.
So, anyway, The Foot Book.
I'd heard/read it probably fifty times. And one night, my little seven year old brain, stressed from a day of school, being expected to parent my younger brothers, and manage my father's emotions while my mother pleaded me to stay nice and not be mean or angry because I'm older and should know better--running off of a self-inflicted 3 or 4 hour sleep a night, looked upon
and for this night, and for years after, I was filled with The Horror.
If you've never had the displeasure to read this particular Seuss, this gremlin is the one teaching you all about feet. What kind of feet there are. How they GO. He's in nearly every page, not to mention
The front and back. He's everywhere.
Here comes more and more andm oreandmo reandmoreandmoreandmOREANDMOREANDMOREFEET
I went to bed "early" after that, not bothering to wait until my dad left for work. I turned off my lamp and tried my best to calm down in the dark, the sheer horror I felt not making sense--it was the feet, the feet I was afraid of--the weird creepy feet the illustrator decided to give the gremlins, and all Dr Seuss gremlins of that species. I was exceptionally afraid of having a nightmare about the weird furry pointy brown feet, and I was so SURE that I would. Eventually I fell asleep, and, of course, had worked myself up into a hazy frightening dream where disembodied gremlin feet marched into my room, up my walls, perched on my ceiling. And oh wait, here comes FUCKING CLOWN FEET.
I absolutely could not keep this book in my room.
See, with the Land Before Time book, the fear-inducing E.T. was tiny and on the bottom of the back cover. Easy to avoid seeing, though a very vivid inner eye made that a moot point if E.T. ever wondered into my thoughts, a lΓ‘ "oh I'm so glad I'm not scaring myself rn by thinking about E.T."
The Foot Book though? This might surprise you, but it's largely about feet. That shitty little gremlin's feet in particular. The feet of my nightmares. Even glancing at the front of the book was enough to send me into a mild panic.
I'd hide it in my room, under my bed or rug, and then someone, my mom or a little brother, would find it and I'd be all "ohhhh haha awsome...." Obviously, I couldn't tell anyone my irrational fear. My dad already thought it was hysterical to jump out and scare me, or freak me out by pretending he got grabbed or whatever if I was saying I was afraid there was something in my closet/outside my window.
I couldn't even get the dog to chew on it like she chewed on my illustrated dinosaur encyclopedia. I had it in the 90's, and it was super outdated, and I wish I still had it because I love outdated paleo art like any decent person.
So I buried it in the yard one day. And I dragged/shoved/wobbled a landscaping rock over top of it.
And I was crying the ENTIRE TIME.
It never came up and it took years for my fear to subside. I was even a lil nervous about looking up the pages to the book for this post.
It still disturbs me but I think its,,,,,Dr Seuss art is kinda creepy. Like in a whimsical way. My brother was afraid of the pants story...you know, the one where the pants follow the guy?
Anyway. I still fucking do not like E.T.