a Bit of a Fright

A Bit of a Fright ©

By Michael Casey

They say a bit of a fright is good because it gets your pulse going and helps your heart and its circulation. We were watching Don’t Breath on the telly tonight, it was given 4 stars and I agree with it. Very scary and very violent with lots of twists, it was only out last year 2016. Some of it you will say was just too sick, but there is a happy ending of sorts, its a 15 I believe.

So tonight’s question is do you like Frights? The Labour Party here in England do not as they are not even debating Brexit which is the biggest thing in 50 years in the UK. But I’ll leave the political jokes to my heroes the Political Journalists, yes they are my heroes, I’ve been watching all this for 50 years, me and my dad and Robin Day.

So what frightens you? The gas bill and the electric bill frightens me, and they both came this week, the week our fridge gave up the ghost after 6 years,my story Fridge Family Casey explained it all. I don’t like surprises, as they are nearly always bad, or people think they are doing you a favour when you’d rather be left alone. Look what happened to Thomas a Becket, somebody thought they were doing Edward the Confessor a favour. It all ended nastily. Maybe that was the inspiration for the first slasher movie, or the Medieval equivalent.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail had the knight that was dismembered, and still fighting on. This is the stock in trade of horror movies, just when you think they are dead they blink and get up and attack you again. The creak on the stairs is always there, or just the buckets of blood, though my wife is more scared by the creaks on the stairs.

We all love to hide and jump out and frighten people, its what we all enjoy doing as children, parents pretend to be shocked and scared. I used to pretend to be dead and lie on the floor so when the kids came home I was dead. They in turn used to jump up and down on me, and pull my nasal hair to make sure I was really dead, or force open my eyelids, the usual kid stuff. Thankfully they never tried the rectal thermometer.

Now post unplanned quadruple heart bypass and with the state of my Arthur my arthritis I cannot pretend to be dead on the floor any more. Which in a way is sad as it means their childhood is ending and teenager attitudes are taking over, me I think you should always stay a child in your heart. It’s sheer coincidence that my big daughter wants be be a doctor, Pathologist is her target, at least you won’t kill anybody I say. My small daughter finished watching Don’t Breath with me, so I suggested she did a PhD in the Horror Genre, after she gets her degree. Something for her to aim for.

Imagine she’d be forever covered in popcorn as a result of all these films she’d see at the cinema, I wonder can you get a horror pass to get discount? Or if you say I’m doing a horrible PhD you get in free. I’ll have to find out for her.

As I said earlier we all enjoy pranking our friends. We had a roller cupboard in the office, 30 years ago and we said it would be funny  if somebody hid in it and then just reached out and grabbed somebody’s leg while the rollers were down. So Neil hid in it and we waited for the next Sunday shift to arrive. Only the temptation was too much for me, so I pressed the close button, and Neil was trapped inside the cupboard.

I should have pissed myself laughing but I was scared he’d be scared of being trapped in the semi dark inside the roller shuttered cupboard. In fact I kind of panicked. So he had to calm me down while he was still trapped inside. He got out in the end by kind of limbo dancing wriggling his way out of the bottom of the cupboard. He was very red faced after it. But I suppose it was his reward for once calling me a burnt out has been. I went on to write 13 more books and get married and have a Chinese Irish family. He got divorced and years later I’m sure the last time I saw him he was scavenging from a dustbin in Saint Philips Churchyard.

That is the worst kind of horror story there is, so thank your lucky stars for the nice life you have. But do look under your bed, just in case there is more than the pussy hiding there.