Scary Movies Aren't My Thing, But I Watch Them Anyway

Paranormal Activity 2

I need to learn my lesson and stop watching horror movies. I say this over and over to myself after every scary movie I watch, and I still manage to watch another. It's as if the mere fact that I mention that I won't watch another one increases my likelihood to do so.

Case in point? I watched Paranormal Activity 2 twice in the last week.

The first time, I was with my students. My college-aged students. It was part of a conference experience. It was also an intiation right of passage for one of our newbies. We called it the "BIBO" initiation. Blood in. Blood out. But we're not a gang, I promise. We did cause the newbie in question to almost wet his pants, though. There may have been some hiding and jumping out at an appropriate scary moment.

I am still laughing to this day. Priceless.

The second time I watched, it was with the hubs. We had been talking about how we wanted to see it - primarily because we weren't too thrilled with the first - and I felt I'd betrayed our pact by seeing it on my own. Thus, we watched it a second time last night.

Can I tell you something? It was a bad idea. A really bad idea. I had nightmares all night. I kept waking up expecting to see someone standing over my bed staring and rocking. Bad news.

So why would I put myself through it? The nervousness. The paranoia. The inexplicable feeling of being eight-years-old and afraid of the dark. I have no idea.

But I know that in a few weeks Shannon will say something about how he wants to see such and such scary movie, and I'll ultimately say "sure" without a second thought.

I think I have a problem.