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Danika Harper


Last Updated: 4/2/2009

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May 11, 2009 - Monday 

“Eenie Meenie, Chilly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak!” Bullwinkle J. Moose

Although I adored the supernatural from Day One, my childhood experience was pretty much limited to Halloween, sci-fi and monster movies, and old episodes of the Twilight Zone on TV. It was a nine-day wonder when a classmate brought a Magic 8 Ball to school. When I was fifteen, some friends and I scared ourselves silly with an Ouija board at a party. And there you have it -- the sum total of my exposure to psychic phenomena as a kid. I mean, there weren't any books in our small town library on the subject. No internet either (my god, how did I LIVE?) and nobody was talking about psychic visions at the beauty shop.

Things are very different now. There’s been a worldwide upsurge in interest in psychic phenomena, particularly in what some call second sight. Check the movies for instance. Next (Nicholas Cage), The Gift (Cate Blanchette), and Suspect Zero (Ben Kingsley) all deal with psychic abilities. Television fiction includes Medium, Ghost Whisperer and The Dead Zone. Television non-fiction has John Edwards Cross Country and Psychic Detectives. There are countless books on the subject, many of which have hit best seller lists. Across the country, you can take courses and seminars in developing your own psychic gifts. And by conservative estimate, there are a gazillion internet sites devoted to the subject...

No doubt about it, the concept of psychic ability has become almost mainstream. Nearly respectable. If you had visions, dreams, feelings or intuitions about something, you’d find at least a few people in your immediate circle of friends, family and co-workers who would take you seriously. Even the highly popular spiritualist movement of the 1800s, which flourished in the United States and Britain, produced only a scant fraction of the psychic interest we're seeing now.

There are even pet psychics. One was in the news recently when a 6-pound chihuahua was carried away by 70 mph winds at a Michigan flea market in late April. Many volunteers searched for “Tinker Bell”, but without success until Tink’s owners consulted a pet psychic. They credit the psychic with helping them to locate the little dog about ¾ mile away in a wooded area. (Tinker Bell’s all right, by the way.)

I’ve had occasion to witness psychic ability in unexpected places – even in my own kids. For instance, there was the time that my youngest daughter, Sammy, then age 3 or so, had disappeared. We turned the house upside down, but my second oldest daughter – Jaime, age 14– ran outside. She went straight to a strange car that was parked in the driveway and flung open the door. Sammy was locked inside! Somehow our toddler had managed to get in the vehicle but couldn’t open the door to get out again. The heat in the car was intense and another few minutes would have had dire consequences. Jaime said that it just came into her mind where Sammy was. This wasn’t the first time such things had popped into her head either. She found someone else’s lost child in the mall not long after. She overheard the parents panicking, and again, the knowledge simply came to her where the child was. So she went to that location, collected the child and brought him back to his folks.

Are there fake psychics? Of course, just like there are charlatans in all walks of life. But while I'm not ready to pay for advice from an alleged psychic on the internet, I have a very healthy respect for true psychic phenomena. And some people are now theorizing that psychic abilities have a sound basis in science. After all, according to Einstein, the future already exists. Is it so far-fetched that some people can plug into it? Perhaps we all can, if we just knew how.

How about you? What do you think of psychics or psychic ability in general? Have you had any experiences with it?

Dani Harper
www.romancingthewolf.com/
....................................................

2:19 AM 
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April 30, 2009 - Thursday 

We’ve all heard them – urban legends about ghosts that show up at a certain time of day – or rather night. It’s a regular part of many campfire stories, like the spirit of the Hook-handed Killer who haunts Lovers Lane at exactly midnight. In fact, when the clock strikes 12 a.m. in any story, TV show or movie, you automatically know things are about to get scary.

But what about real ghosts, spirits, poltergeists, apparitions and manifestations? When you read accounts of recurring paranormal events, they also seem to take place at very specific times. For example, one of the most recent stories I’ve come across concerns the spirit of a young girl who was said to appear in her former room at exactly 11:30 p.m. Another person reported that her pantry cupboard was opened at exactly 12:34 a.m. every night by an unseen hand.

Why 11:30 p.m.? Or 12:34 a.m.? Or ANY particular time? Nobody knows.

It isn’t hard to understand why human beings have associated the dark (and therefore the night) with scary or odd things. And if there are spirits to connect with – or seeking to connect with us -- it stands to reason that night time may offer more opportunity. Our brains are less busy, the surroundings are quieter, and we may be far more sensitive than we are in the daylight hours. But what about a specific hour?

The idea of a connection between paranormal events and time is not new. Just read Hamlet, for example. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, the king, appears at midnight each night and leaves as the cock crows to signal dawn. In the same play, Shakespeare draws a connection between the paranormal and a certain hour: "Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.” Since Shakespeare’s works reflected the culture of the time, does that mean that the general populace assigned supernatural attributes to certain hours?

In trying to research this intriguing topic, I quickly discovered that “prime paranormal time” may be in the eye of the beholder. The so-called witching hour – allegedly the best time to connect with the supernatural, work spells, and perform rituals – varies from source to source, and encompasses pretty much anytime between dusk and dawn. Some accounts claim that spirits are at their most active between the hours between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. Curiously, midnight seems to take a backseat to 3 a.m. as prime time for encounters with paranormal forces.

Even Hollywood is aware of this strange wee hour. “The Amityville Horror” and “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” both refer to 3 a.m. as being some sort of activating signal to supernatural forces (to be accurate, it’s 3:15 in Amityville). Is life imitating art or the other way around? Has pop culture influenced people to expect supernatural occurrences at that time of night?

I wondered if heightened paranormal activity had anything to do with time of death. If someone died at 3 a.m., would their spirit be more likely to show up at that time? With so many ghost stories (real ones, not Hollywood ones) reported as happening at 3 a.m., I thought for sure that 3 would be the most common time of death. However, there’s a persistent rumor that more people die around 4 a.m. than any other time. Recent hospital stats are tough to come by, but some sources declare that the most common time of death from all causes is 8 a.m., and the second most common time is 6 p.m. Guys under 65 are most likely to die at midnight. A gal in that age bracket would be most likely to go an hour earlier at 11 p.m. Three a.m. doesn’t get a single mention. So much for my time of death theory...

Time isn’t always measured by the clock face, however. An ancient astrological system of planetary hours exists, where day and night are divided by dusk and dawn. Each section is then divided into 12 “hours” (not the sixty-minute variety) and each hour is ruled by one of seven “planets” (actually the five planets visible to the naked eye plus the sun and the moon). For instance, the hour influenced by Mercury would be particularly good for writing – I’ll have to remember that – and magic spells are often worked at the hour most compatible with their goal. A love spell would naturally be done during the hour ruled by Venus, for example. But a spell for fertility would be best done in a Moon hour. Some sources point to the hours influenced by Saturn or Jupiter as potentially good times for paranormal phenomena. Yet phantoms, spirits and specters don’t seem to restrict themselves to those times.

Overall, it looks like ghosts can show up any time they darn well please. And I have no idea why spirits would be concerned with time anyway – aren’t they beyond that now? (I sure hope I’m not checking my watch when I’m on the other side!) As you can see, my research so far has left me with more questions than answers. But overriding them all is this one:

Does the netherworld observe daylight savings time? If a spirit usually shows up at 3 a.m., does it make adjustments to its schedule when we turn the clocks forward or back?

I’m afraid that one is going to be stuck in my head for a long, long time…

Dani Harper http://www.romancingthewolf.com/

What do YOU think? Are some times of the day or night more prone to supernatural activity? Or are we more susceptible to the suggestion of it then? Why do ghosts seem to care what time it is?

1:57 PM 
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March 23, 2009 - Monday 
One of the oldest cities in Mexico is a charming place named Colima (koh-LEE-mah), which means domain of the ancestors or domain of the old gods. I'd never heard of it until I had a chance to visit the country a few weeks ago, but as soon as someone mentioned there were no less than nine museums there, my husband and I (who are addicted to history) had to go check it out.


The first thing we learned is that Colima was founded in 1527 by Hernan Cortez. The second thing we learned is that the conquering Spanish were far from the first ones in the area. A group of Olmec people lived in the shadow of the area's towering twin volcanoes (only one of which is extinct) over 3500 years ago. They were followed by several other cultures and subcultures, including the Toltecs, Mayans and Aztecs.


Most importantly, we learned that you had to have a psychopomp.


The word psychopomp (from the Greek word, psychopompos) literally means guide of souls. In Greek mythology, that might be Charon, who ferried the dead across the river Styx in the underworld. Or it might be the versatile god, Hermes, who sometimes acted as a guide to the underworld. The Norse had the Valkyries, those warrior-maidens who plucked fallen soldiers from the battlefield and whisked them off to drink mead in Valhalla.


The number one spiritual guide to the afterlife in ancient Colima, however, was not a god or goddess. Instead, it was a little red clay dog that looks like an inflated chihuahua. In fact they're called perros cebados (round dogs) and have been unearthed by the thousands in this area of Mexico.


There were dozens of these red clay dogs in the museums in Colima. The plump canines are depicted in many positions -- sleeping, sitting, standing, and even dancing on hind legs. Most are smiling but all have one important thing in common. There's always an opening in the clay creature. Sometimes the mouth is open, sometimes the tail has been made into a tube or a funnel, or perhaps there's even a funnel in the top of the dog's head! Anyone who's worked with clay knows that a piece has to have a vent in it somewhere to release heated gases during firing to avoid breakage, but these openings have a much higher purpose: to allow the entry of a soul so it can then be carried to the afterworld.


In ancient Colima, the dead were buried in tombs, and they were provided with everything they might need for their journey to the next life. So, not only were they given a psychopomp (or two or ten) to guide them , the dead were also given supplies for the trip. Here, the round little clay dogs were performing double and triple duty because in real life, small dogs were fattened and used as food. Some were valued as watchdogs. And some, believed to be holy and have healing powers, were kept to safeguard the family home from evil spirits. (That is one all-purpose dog!)


Just in case the clay dogs weren't enough, real dogs of the same breed were sacrificed and placed in the tomb as well.


The single most amazing thing we learned, however, is that it simply did not matter what kind of a person you'd been in life. No matter how virtuous a life you'd led, if you weren't buried with one of these little clay spirit guides, you were hooped. Doomed never to enter paradise, but to wander the unknown realms and be lost. The inverse was true too. Even if you were a truly horrible person, your safe passage to the heavenly realms was assured as long as you were buried with a plump little clay dog.


In other words, all you really need is a good psychopomp.


Dani Harper


3:01 AM 
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February 24, 2009 - Tuesday 
What is a cryptid? It's an unknown animal, and cryptozoology is the study of such undiscovered creatures. The root of both words comes from the Greek word kriptos, meaning hidden.

Cryptozoology encompasses three fields of investigation. One is the search for still-living examples of animals generally thought to be extinct. For instance, stories of giant grizzly bears in northern regions have led some to theorize that there may be remnant populations of the giant short-faced bear – a creature that went extinct 12,500 years ago. In Africa’s Congo, stories of the mokele-mbeme appear to describe a species of dinosaur. And is the megalodon, a giant prehistoric shark, still swimming in the unexplored depths of our oceans?

The second area of cryptozoology concerns animals which are known to exist, but are being sighted in areas very far from their usual habitat. Are black panthers roaming the English countryside? And what about the stories of giant black cats in Illinois? In recent years, a few jaguars were confirmed to be present in Arizona and New Mexico – areas where the species once lived many years ago. (So far, however, the confirmed jaguars were all spotted, not black.)

The third area of cryptozoology, which tends to capture most of the media attention, concerns the search for animals which are alleged to exist but are not confirmed. We’ve all heard of the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot, but these cryptids are just the tip of the iceberg. The Beast of Bray Road is a werewolf-like creature reported to live in Wisconsin. The Ogopogo is a legendary lake monster in British Columbia, Canada. You may hear about the Chupacabra in Mexico, which allegedly drinks the blood of goats and other livestock. And if you’re really lucky, you might catch a whiff of the Skunk Ape of Florida.

My personal favorite? The Mongolian Death Worm. Who couldn’t love a title like that? Well, maybe the residents of the Gobi Desert – they consider it bad luck to even mention this large snakelike creature. Said to be attracted to the color yellow, the Death Worm itself is bright red and kills at a distance by spraying an acid-like venom. In some stories, it kills by electrocuting its victims!

Here are some links if you’d like to learn more about the world’s cryptids:
http://www.cryptozoology.com/cryptids.php
http://www.lorencoleman.com/top_cryptids.html
http://www.wyrdology.com/cryptozoology/list.html
http://cryptozoo.monstrous.com/
http://www.monstermania.org/cryptoemp/main-emp.htm


http://www.paranormal51.com/

I’ve always been a huge fan of cryptozoology – it sparks both imagination and wonder. I like the idea that everything in our world hasn’t been documented and catalogued, that we don’t know everything there is to know about the creatures who share the planet with us. How about you?

Dani Harper



 

5:46 AM 
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December 27, 2008 - Saturday 

Last week I brought you Christmas Superstitions I, The Good, the Bad and the Scary. This week's installment brings you The Innocent, the Odd and the Downright Creepy! (As before, here's the official disclaimer -- Remember, these are folktales and traditions, and not intended to be taken as truth!)

The Innocent...

Taking three sips of salty water before Christmas dinner brings good luck. (Three sips of Alka-Seltzer afterwards helps even more, LOL). Many cultures throughout Europe and the British Isles believe that all water turns into wine at midnight on Christmas Eve. It's lucky to eat an apple on Christmas Eve. If you're single, eating a roasted apple that night will allow you to hear the voice of your future spouse in your dreams. It's bad luck to refuse a slice of mince pie, and good luck to eat a slice of pie in every house you visit – the more houses, the more luck!

People used to mix in silver charms when making the Christmas pudding, and objects also went into the mince pie. The items predicted the future of whoever found them in their piece of pie or pudding. A coin meant good luck, a thimble meant prosperity, a ring meant a wedding.

An old Irish belief says that the gates of Heaven are wide open on Christmas Eve and that anyone who dies then will go straight to Heaven.

The Odd...

First person downstairs on Christmas morning was to take a broom, open the front door and sweep all "trouble" from the doorstep. A variation on this is to sweep all the bad luck out of the house.

English folklore tells girls to knock on the henhouse door on Christmas Eve. If a rooster crows, she'll marry within the year. If there is silence, she'll never marry!

It's unlucky to receive a gift of new shoes or tanned leather on Christmas. However, some people in Greece ward off bad luck in the upcoming year by burning their old shoes during the Christmas season (Hmmmm... I know a pair of my husband's shoes I'd like to burn!) Another footwear superstition says that all the family's shoes should be placed neatly side by side on Christmas Eve to prevent quarreling in the new year.

In Wales, the plough should be brought into the house and kept under the dining table during the entire Christmas season. This assured a good harvest in the coming year.

If you eat a raw egg before eating anything else on Christmas morning, you'll become exceptionally strong.   

And the Downright Creepy!

Dogs that howl on Christmas Eve will go mad before the end of the year. A candle or a lamp should be kept burning all night on Christmas Eve to avoid a death in the house in the following year.

Instead of water turning into wine at midnight on Christmas Eve, some hold the belief that the water in streams and wells turns into blood! Not only that, if you witness this change, you'll die within the year!

A Scandinavian belief states that it's dangerous to go out on Christmas Eve because of the many supernatural beings that come out of their hiding places that night. Trolls, witches, goblins and ghosts roam freely, some of which are the spirits of the dead revisiting their previous homes. Gifts must be left outside – bowls of pudding and cream, clothes, tobacco and even ale – in order to appease some of these creatures. The most perilous time occurred between cock's crow and dawn, when supernatural beings were at the peak of their power. To go outside meant risking death or being carried off by them, never to be seen again.

Swedish folklore puts a chilling twist on this story. On Christmas Eve, they prepare their dining room with food and ale and blazing fire – and leave it overnight to enable the spirits of the dead to celebrate. The family checks the chairs in the morning for traces of earth, proof that the dead have come calling!

A once popular parlor game gave everyone an apple after dinner, which was then cut in half across the middle to reveal the pattern of the core. If the core is star-shaped (most apples have this), the owner of the apple will see another Christmas. If the core is a different shape, the owner's death will occur in the next twelve months! The appearance of a four-pointed cross was worst of all – although what was worse than death is never mentioned.

Parlor games including keeping tabs on everyone's shadow throughout the evening. If anyone's shadow were to appear headless, that person would die within the coming year.

An old Breton tale tells the story of a blacksmith who refused to stop working after the church bell had rung for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Suddenly a tall man entered his shop with a scythe that needed mending. The blacksmith did the work, and instead of paying him, the mysterious man told him to send for a priest because this work would be his last. By the time the roosters crowed on Christmas morning, the blacksmith was dead. He had mended the Scythe of The Reaper himself.

To avoid bad luck, all Christmas decorations should be taken down by Candlemas (Feb. 2). However, make sure you clean up after them --- every needle left behind in the house from the Christmas tree will cause the sighting of a spirit or a demon in the coming year. (A good case for having an artificial tree!)

Dani Harper

www.romancingthewolf.com

Congrats to Bella. Her name was drawn from last week's comments as the winner of a download of HEART OF THE WINTER WOLF, my first novel. 

2:35 AM 
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December 22, 2008 - Monday 
As you know, I just can't resist anything related to the paranormal. But Christmas? Who would have suspected that there was anything supernatural about such a warm fuzzy holiday? I mean, a big jolly fellow travels all over the world with his flying reindeer in a single night, squeezes down tiny chimneys with a neverending bag of presents, knows if you're naughty or nice but is never seen himself… Come to think of it, that IS pretty paranormal!

I had a lot of fun researching Christmas superstitions and I was amazed by how MANY there were! In fact, there's so much material I've decided to blog twice about this topic. Here then is the first installment. (By the way, here's the official disclaimer -- Remember, these are folktales and traditions, and not intended to be taken as truth!)

The Good….

Unmarried girls can cut a twig from a cherry tree on St. Barbora's Day (Dec. 4th) and put it in water. If it blooms by Christmas Eve, marriage will follow within the year. Counting the stars on Christmas Eve will foretell the number of sheaves in your harvest. And if you see the sun shining through the limbs of the apple trees on Christmas Day, there'll be an abundance of fruit the following year.

If you dream on any of the 12 nights between Christmas and Epiphany (Jan. 6), your dreams will come true in the next year. The first person in the household to hear a rooster crow or anyone who hears a cricket chirp on Christmas Day is going to have a very lucky year. Good luck follows those who give money to the poor on Christmas Day, to those who eat their breakfast by candlelight, and to those who stir the Christmas pudding.

The Bad….

Bad, bad fortune follows those who leave the dishes unwashed on Christmas Eve (and that's on top of what Mom will do to you!). On Christmas Day, it's unlucky to leave the dinner table before everyone has finished. A full moon on Christmas predicts a scanty harvest in the year to come. If Christmas Day falls on a Thursday, a year of windy weather is forecast.

On Christmas Eve it's said that you can hear the bells of lost churches that have been covered by floods or buried by landslides and earthquakes. Picking up nuts or fruit from the ground will bring bad luck. So will sending carolers away without treats or money. And you really don't want to be the first one home from church!

And the Scary….

A piece of winter greenery (holly, mistletoe, evergreen, etc.) must be brought into your home during the Christmas season, to keep away evil spirits. However, every winter leaf left in the house after Candlemas (Feb. 2) will result in the sighting of a ghost, or perhaps even a death in the house during the coming year! Mistletoe must be burned, or those who kissed beneath it will become enemies.

Those born on Christmas Day are rumored to be able to see ghosts and spirits. And those who are born on Christmas Eve are said to turn into ghosts themselves on that day every year! (Wow, this sounds more like Halloween, doesn't it?) The only way to avoid this odd fate is to remain awake the entire night until Christmas Day dawns.

I'll be back soon with another installment of Christmas superstitions!

Dani Harper
http://www.romancingthewolf.com/
Your turn! What Christmas superstitions or folklore have you heard of over the years? All commenters will be automatically entered in a random draw to win a download of my first novel, HEART OF THE WINTER WOLF. Draw will be made when the next blog is posted, and a winner will be announced at that time.
12:58 PM 
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December 14, 2008 - Sunday 

 I'm so excited!  THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT was just released today from Cobblestone Press

When is a ghost not a ghost?

Kerri Tollbrook counsels the newly departed, but what happens when the tall, dark and handsome spirit she meets at the shopping mall refuses to be counseled?

Firefighter Galen McAllister feels like The Invisible Man when a malicious spell separates him from his still-living body. Kerri is the first person he's met who can actually see him. Now if only he can get her to listen to him…

Can they create enough magic in the nine days before Christmas to break the spell, or will Galen remain a ghost forever?

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER  or buy the download from http://www.cobblestone-press.com/catalog/books/holidayspirit.htm 

6:00 PM 
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December 7, 2008 - Sunday 
Tis the season for... Ghosts?

That's the title of my blog when I make a guest appearance over at Coffee Time Romance's Coffee Thoughts on Tuesday, December 9th.

I'll be talking about my fascination with the paranormal and about my upcoming release, THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT, which comes out on December 14th. THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT features love, magic, presents – and a sexy ghost who claims he isn't dead. What more could you want for Christmas? Okay, okay, free books....

Listen, I'm giving away a download of THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT as part of the guest blog. If you go over and leave a comment on my blog at Coffee Thoughts on Dec. 9th, you'll be entered!
http://coffeetimeromance.com/CoffeeThoughts/

Thanks to all my readers -- you rock!

Dani Harper
http://www.romancingthewolf.com/
 
6:48 PM 
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December 4, 2008 - Thursday 

"Have Yourself a

Paranormal Christmas"

Hosted by authors Dani Harper and Catherine Stang

 

A Romance Author Web Hunt – Dec. 1 to 21, 2008

24 authors, reviewers and book sites participating!

 

It's easy and it's fun! 

Just go to the websites on the list and find the ghostly icon.

 

You could win one of 3 prize packages brimming

with books, ebooks, mugs and goodies!

 

Check out the full details at http://www.romancingthewolf.com/contests.html

 

6:01 AM 
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November 5, 2008 - Wednesday 
We all have something that pushes our most primitive panic button. I'm not talking things like Tyrannosaurus Rex or the shark from Jaws or even 10-foot-tall, brain-sucking aliens with ray guns. Think smaller. Waaaaaay smaller. The very same human who will rescue a family of nine from a burning building or face down a burglar armed with nothing but a folding chair will turn to Jello on stilts in the presence of his or her personal demon. Said demon of course is not in its brimstone-chewing and pitchfork-wielding form, but in the guise of a deceptively harmless-looking creature such as a mouse.

And then it hits – that peculiar fear reaction known only to homo sapiens. An attack of nerves so complete that in ten thousand years of civilization we still can't think of a single intelligible name for the condition. We're assailed by the heebie-jeebies, the creepy-crawlies, the jitters, the all-overs, the jim-jams and the screaming meemies.

Me, I get The Willies.

While I have no reaction whatsoever to slugs, bugs, snakes, rats, mice, lizards, bats and even the inner workings of cows (don't ask), I come down with a severe case of The Willies when confronted with a spider. I don't know why that is – some mis-mutated survival mechanism? After all, while I'm dancing around, rubbing my arms and legs, flapping at my clothes and yelling EEYEWW at the top of my lungs, the spider has plenty of time to run off. When I've finally finished with The Willies, my enemy is long gone, leaving me safe and sound – at least for the moment. Instinct triumphs again.

I'm ready for a different evolutionary leap though. Recently I stepped into the shower only to discover that I wasn't alone in there. Eight beady eyes met my gaze. If they'd belonged to four mice or four beetles or even four plumbers, I'd have reacted better. But nooooooo, not only did all eight beady eyes belonged to a single spider, but this spider was big enough to wear a t-shirt and I'm certain he had a tattoo. I immediately suffered an attack of The Willies that was so extreme, I leapt backwards out of the shower and straight into the nearest wall, braining myself with the towel bar. It might have been just the ringing in my ears but I could swear I heard high-pitched spider laughter as I crawled hastily from the bathroom, naked, whimpering and cursing. So much for that inner defense mechanism. Thanks a lot, Darwin.

It's important to note that the adage out of sight, out of mind does not apply to situations like this. Once The Willies have been activated, they have to run their course. It took me half an hour of pacing, shaking and jumping around to get up enough nerve to assess the situation rationally. My rational assessment said that I was on my own. Have you noticed that scary-evil things only show up when you're all by your lonesome? Sure, husbands and boyfriends will save you from a charging grizzly bear, but it's a perverse Law of Nature that they'll never be on hand in true emergencies such as power failures, cars that fail to start or spiders in the bathtub.

I confess, I considered siccing my pug onto the beast (Kill, Scooby, KILL!) but finally decided against it. My benign pug has all the ferocity of an eggplant. The spider would be in no danger whatsoever unless Scooby accidently farted on it. Besides, if my pug did actually TOUCH the spider (Ick, ick, ICK!), then The Willies would render me completely unable to touch my dog for heaven knows how long. I'd have to hand him biscuits with a pair of barbecue tongs...

I next considered waiting the six or seven hours until my husband got home from work. I could go without peeing or brushing my teeth that long, couldn't I? Then I remembered I had an appointment I'd waited three weeks for. With mounting horror, I realized just how many things associated with getting ready for the day were trapped in the bathroom with the eight-legged invader. Makeup. Toothbrush. Earrings. OMG, my bra was hanging on the back of the bathroom door! For a wild moment I thought I could make it without all those luxuries and then I caught sight of myself in the bedroom mirror. My hair was sticking up in a lopsided morning mohawk and nothing, but nothing, would render it fit to be seen but a shower.

I would have to confront the enemy.

The flyswatter looked too flimsy to be of much use and the broom couldn't be wielded within the confines of the shower. A hammer would be a little rough on the bathtub enamel and would also require too much precision. I finally decided on the bathroom plunger as my weapon of choice – it had a nice heft to it. Not as good as a baseball bat but I didn't have one of those. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing I didn't think of our deer rifles....

I opened the shower door carefully, praying the spider wouldn't be startled. Not because I cared about its spider feelings, but because one sudden move from the creature would have cost me another hour of The Willies. Fortunately, the eight-legged invader was paralyzed by incredulity. A plunger? Are you kidding, lady?

I launched my attack.

It was grim, it was messy and it was accompanied by strangled shouts of EEYEW, EEYEW, EEYEW, EEYEW, EEYEW and many GODDAMMITS. I think most of them came from me. After the battle, I turned the hot water on full blast and left the shower to disinfect itself while I ran to my room (still naked). I was dancing around but not with victory.

And that's the pity of it. More evolved gals would no doubt feel empowered enough to raise that plunger over their head and triumphantly shout "I AM BETTY, DESTROYER OF EVIL!". But me? I'm in the throes of an even bigger case of the creepy crawlies, a heebie-jeebie meltdown of epic proportions.

The Willies have struck again.


Dani Harper

Halloween provided me with a perfect opportunity to dust off this all-too-true story and add the gory details (kind of like "the director's cut" version of a movie -- now expanded and uncensored!). So now I've told you what sends me screaming down the street --- it's YOUR TURN --- What scares YOU? Can anyone add to the list of synonyms for "heebie jeebies"? (My personal favorite is the screaming meemies -- one of my relatives used to say us kids gave her those...)
2:05 PM 
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