Universal Subconscious

by Amanda Metcalf

You can't spell Ouija without OU

I like to be scared.

You can't tell from my calm persona or my unexciting lifestyle, but I'm a closet thrill seeker. I love roller coasters and that other big amusement-park toy that attaches you to a cable and swings within 6 feet of the ground. I love scary movies. I love haunted houses and ghost stories out in the woods.

That is, I like them once they're finished. Catch me with 125 feet of free fall left on the Skycoaster or in my room with the lights off while Linda Blair's head is spinning in The Exorcist or running in front of a chainsaw-toting man who gets paid to laugh maniacally and chase me, and I'll tell you I'm not having a very good time.

Give me five minutes, though, and I'm on top of the world - and I know I'm not the only one. "Dude that was awesome. ... Let's go again! ... That was the most funnest thing ever!"

But that's the thing: It's not fun. Why endanger yourself with a heart attack? Why keep yourself up at night dreaming of mass murderers who don't talk - the strong silent types like Jason and Mike Myers - and ghosts that stand at the foot of your bed?

They make no sense. Jason and Mikey should open up and share their feelings of violence and aggression. Maybe then we could make some progress. And the ghosts! What's with them? I would think that, as a member of the supernatural family (part of the freak kingdom in biology), ghosts could move about as they please and do pretty much anything. Why then do they just hover at the end of one's bed until they are spotted and then just up and disappear? Why don't they hang around for awhile - sit down, have a beer or a cup of tea, go a few rounds of Scrabble or maybe even take a whirl on the Ouija board?

As absurd as serial killer and ghost behavior is, it still creeps me out. And for some reason I keep subjecting myself to the torture of sheer panic and fear. When someone says, "Hey let's go to Cedar Pointe and ride the scariest, fastest, tallest, most unstable roller coaster built to this day," I say I can't wait. When a friend suggests we rent the entire ••Omen•• series and watch the movies all night long, I enthusiastically agree.

I don't know why because I end up watching a devil possess a nice person while my friend naps beside me. By the time I realize she's asleep, I've already seen the scary part and I can't turn the movie off because I don't know where the power button is. And even if I did, I'd have to sit in the dark by myself, making myself automatically vulnerable to all the evil powers that be.

And when I'm home by myself and see Unsolved Mysteries is on Lifetime when I'm looking for Golden Girls, I still watch the Unsolved Mysteries episode that announces a grisly murder in the neighboring town never was solved.

These indirect encounters with fright always end up the same way. My rationality and reasoning increase tenfold. Case in point: I move from the couch in the middle of the room to the one against the wall for better protection.

But wait, that couch is against a window, and everyone knows scary things can get through windows much more easily than walls. So I decide to head upstairs. At this point I'm walking slowly down the hallway and up the stairs with my back against the wall, so I can see better and no one can stand behind me with a knife raised.

But murderers hide in closets. I realize I need to get out of the house.

So I grab my keys and run down to my car as fast as possible as if a ghost couldn't catch up with me if it wanted to. Once I get to the car I remember the scene from one of the Friday the 13th movies in which a driver gets into his car and Jason promptly slits his throat from the backseat.

This isn't the proverbial fearing for my life here. This is the real thing - praying to God, thoughts of my family and what will happen to my cat and how it doesn't matter that I didn't do my math homework.

And guess what. I'll do it all again. I'll watch Unsolved Mysteries reruns. I'll have a horror movie fest. I'll ride the Millennium coaster this summer. And I'll love it... once I finish praying.

Amen.

Metcalf, a senior journalism major who graduated high school on Friday the 13th, can be reached at am378397