On an otherwise undistinguished day, I found myself in an engaging encounter with the affable Bill at our local haven of healthy nibbles, the Good Food Store. Bill is an endearing character, whom I hold in high regard. He was ensconced in the quieter corner of the store, engrossed in conversation with a stranger. An invisible wall of reluctance stood between us, because I didn’t want to interrupt. But they saw me – and called me to come over.

Bill introduced the stranger as Geoff. We quickly delved into the usual topics – space-traveling billionaires with Freudian rockets, to the harsh realities of incarceration.

Buoyed by the quick camaraderie, I ventured a proposition.

“How about we catch the new ‘Boogeyman’ movie? It’s an adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Nightshift’. You know, the one with that scary book cover of a hand with eyeballs?”

I studied Bill as he seemed to juggle the question between raised eyebrows.

“Oh no, I can’t do that,” Bill replied. A shadow of trepidation crossed his face. “I can’t stomach those images inside my head. They’d mess up my whole day.”

I couldn’t resist a playful jibe at Bill’s expense. “Such a big wuss!” I teased. But keen not to overstep boundaries in today’s sensitive times, I quickly added, “Of course, I validate and empathize with your fears.”

“BUT…! BUT…!” he exclaimed, insisting I finish my thought.

But before I could, Geoff chimed in, aligning with Bill’s terror. “Yeah, I can’t let those images in my head either,” he echoed.

“Okay, I understand,” I acknowledged. “There’s nothing scarier than concepts like ‘The Truman Show’. You know this idea that everyone around you is role-playing. For example – aliens. If aliens are real, which they probably are, then they’d probably already be among us. They’d just take over one of our bodies, and how fun would that be? From their perspective, it would be like an interactive zoo. Maybe there would be pods of them. You go into a certain bar and that’s an alien pod. And everybody there is in on it except for you.”

“Please, stop,” Geoff said, covering his ears. “That’s exactly why I don’t go see certain movies. I stick to non-fiction only. Non­-fiction. I can’t even recall the last time I read a novel.”

“But I’ll do real things,” Bill then said. “Like go camping. The other night I was out there in the middle of the Bob Marshall and Ellis, you know Ellis – he pretended he was a bear in the middle of the night. I was so scared I grabbed the tent and ran to the car!”

“Ah, now that’s scary,” I agreed. “Did you know the bear’s choice of meat when it attacks you? It’s your butt. They eat out your backside region. And it takes an hour just to kill you.”

“You’re joking. You mean they’re going to eat out my asshole?”

“This is not a joke. It must be a nutrient hub, I can only assume. They pin you down with one paw whereas a cougar or lion at least goes for the jugular.”

At this, Bill spoke up. “Would you like to go camping with me, sometime?”

“No – we’re big wusses at my house,” I admitted. “We’d rather watch a horror movie than venture out into the woods.”

“Geez,” Bill exclaimed.

“I know. It makes no sense. But I honestly believe horror movies have therapeutic value. They’re like a small dose of poison, beneficial in their own way. You know how a small dose of poison can actually make you stronger?”

“Interesting,” Bill observed.

“I go way out into the woods all the time,” Geoff then interjected. “By myself.”

“Whoa,” I responded. “You guys will do this, risk your lives with bears out there in the middle of the woods, but you won’t go and see a movie?”

“But what are the odds that a bear could kill you,” Bill then posed. “1 in a million?”

“Well, where do you get those statistics? How do you calculate those?” I queried, challenging him. “The people who compile these look at the whole population, people who live in Walmart! Most people don’t even go into the woods. Instead, they should focus on the few people who are backpacking into the Bob Marshall with nothing but a package of bacon strapped to their behind.”

“Most people think that planes are scary but cars are not when really it’s the other way around,” Geoff mused, drifting in his own thoughts.

“Right! There’s another example,” I concurred, eager to play along. “What are the odds that you were even born?”

“I don’t know,” Bill confessed.

“It’s 1 in 400 trillion,” I said. “Now stack that with what are the odds that you have your daughter and that you get to be with her and play with her all day? The most important person and thing in your life! How lucky you are! How lucky we are to be parents!”

“We are,” Bill said.

“So why risk it with a bear?” I reiterated. “1 in a million is negligible when you compare it to the odds of you being born. That’s why I would just play it safe and go to the movies instead.”

“Yeah, I’m just not into fiction,” Geoff restated, slightly defensively. “I don’t like my mind to wander there, on that ‘trip’. Why let myself worry about things and problems that are not even real? At least the bear is real.”

“But I don’t need a real bear,” I insisted. “I don’t need a real bear to have fun.”

“I do,” Geoff countered. “It’s no fun if I don’t have a real bear. Because I don’t like to know if I know I’m going to live.”

“We’re adrenaline junkies,” Bill admitted. “It’s the anticipation of placing ourselves in situations where you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Adrenaline junkies who are too scared to see a Disney movie?”

“‘The Boogeyman’ is Disney?” Geoff asked me.

“Yeah.”

Bill ignored this.

“That’s different,” Bill justified. “Now we’re actually discussing psychology.”

“Huh,” I confirmed. “We have now ventured into the realm of neurosis.”

We all exchanged looks.

“I don’t know what that word means,” Bill admitted.

“By definition it means reacting to something in an irrational way,” I said. “Maybe because of prior trauma. It’s like being threatened by something when there is nothing to be threatened by. A scary movie or going out into the woods where there is no real threat of bears.”

They just stared at me. I didn’t want to interrupt their conversation.

“Oh geez, I gotta go,” I announced. “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“It’s okay we were just talking about Remote Viewing.”

“Cool,” I said. “You should make a video game about that. Where you find gold using your Remote Viewing powers.”

“That’s a great idea!” Bill said.

“Yeah,” Geoff said. “We could make a special headset so you can actually use your real Remote Viewing powers to find the gold in the video game.”

“Yeah!” I said. “And blood goes down your nose every time you use the power.”

“Call me!” Bill said.

“I will …”

This was fun, but I had to bid Geoff and Bill goodnight. I grabbed my groceries and headed to the car.

Out in the Car

When I got in, Schubert played on the radio. I quickly changed the station. I refuse to listen to Schubert because every time I do, something dreadful happens. Which sucks because I love him, and he is my favorite. Sometimes I fantasize what life with Schubert’s music would be like. All that beautiful piano music.

But it’s simply not worth the risk. Every time I listen to him, we fall terribly ill or something goes awfully wrong, again. And I’ve tested it many, many times.

With this said, I have no problem going to see “The Boogeyman.”

Or at least, I thought I didn’t.

I went to see “The Boogeyman”

This was interesting. I barely managed to watch the first 30 seconds before walking out. It was excessively violent.

I struggle when violence involves children.

I didn’t used to feel this way. But now that I’m a parent, I seem to be more sensitive.

When I went home, I narrated the opening scene to my wife. What happened in the first 30 seconds with the baby carriage.

She was equally repulsed. “Yuck! I can’t deal with that either,” she confessed.

We mused about how times have changed.

“We’re not living in the 70’s anymore,” I noted. “They were a lot tougher than we are. Back then they could make movies like ‘The Exorcist’ and it was no big deal. We can’t do that anymore.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Our thresholds of tolerance have shifted. We can’t handle this stuff anymore. Not with things like school shootings – they didn’t have that back then. We see this on the news every day.”

“Right. So are we neurotic or not?” I pondered.

“We just might be,” she suggested, a hint of a smile appearing on her lips. “So you’re done with ‘The Boogeyman’?”

I shrugged, “I’ll probably go back and watch the rest tomorrow.”

 

Kerry Heffelfinger co-founded Sunflower Counseling MT with his wife, Marie, and their three spirited children. In the scarce moments of respite from running the business, Kerry indulges in his passion for the electric guitar, which he keeps, rather unconventionally, in the bathroom. Aside from his musical pursuits, Kerry finds solace in the seemingly mundane: wandering the aisles of Target and browsing the colorful array of La Croix cans. These simple pleasures, however ordinary, offer him moments of tranquility amidst the chaos of family and work life.