Gator!
I was commenting on a blog post last week and related a tale of my childhood fear of the toilet.
Yes, the toilet.
See, I was afraid to use the bathroom in the dark because of the alligator. I was convinced that a horrible alligator lived in the sewer underneath my Grandparents’ house (no, there wasn’t actually one there) and that if I used the toilet in the dark, the alligator would somehow know I was there, come swimming up from the depths of the sewers, and snap my naked little butt off.
I have no idea why I thought that. It’s probably because of some ridiculous story one of my uncles cooked up to scare me. That’s my best guess.
And then I got to thinking…alligators popped up in more than one of my childhood nightmares.
First, there was the one where I was sleeping in my crib and I heard big sloshy footsteps coming up the steps in our apartment, through the living room, and into my bedroom. As I looked out through the slats on the crib, a big old alligator looked at me and said “I’m just going to bite you a little bit right here in the neck.”
WWWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, that woke me right the hell up. Pretty sure I never slept with the lights off again.
I also had a strange recurring dream as a child. My Grandfather (dressed like a newspaper reporter in a 1940s movie) and I were walking outside of my elementary school building when suddenly we heard large stomping feet approaching. Everyone in the immediate area screamed and ran for cover; my Grandfather and I ducked behind a bush in the front of the school. We all cowered there, watching the sky just over the houses on the other side of the parking lot across the street from the school…and then he appeared.
The Tin Man. (You thought alligator, didn’t you? Nope, not this time.)
The Tin Man approached, stopped, and his funnel hat popped off. Out of his head came a yellow slide, much like the slides in the game Chutes and Ladders. Down the slide came every person I ever knew and we all stood up and talked and hung out for a while.
End of dream.
However, I know that there was also an alligator in that dream. In some versions, he was just bopping around the parking lot hanging out with everyone. In others, he was sort of there waiting for the Tin Man to arrive – kind of like a sidekick.
So…toilet lurking, neck biting, and Tin-Man sidekicking alligators clearly had some significance in my childhood fears. I have no idea why.
And today? I think alligators are awesome. These guys are much less menacing.
![20131112_232048[1]](http://www.themeaningofme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/20131112_2320481.jpg)
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Ha! Two things come to mind when I read this.
1. I was scared to death of going to the bathroom, because I thought a snake was going to get me. There was a story back then of a person who found a gigantic snake in his toilet after it came up through the pipes.
2. My cousin IS completely petrified of alligators. Yes, he lives in South Carolina where alligators are abundant, but he has gone over the edge into crazy.
Dreams fascinate me. You’ve had some odd ones!
Clearly, childhood fears of toilets are common. Dreams are indeed fascinating business. Can’t imagine why mine all had alligators…
When I lived in Florida, I went to Gatorland. That was awesome! There were gators of every size. It was a really hick, off the beaten path place, but I loved it.
I must admit, though, that your toy alligators are much cuter than the real thing.
That does sound awesome. Yes, Zilla’s toy ones are much less threatening than the real thing – gotta love’ a pink alligator or one with a prison-stripe belly!
As a child I was always afraid of swimming in pools because I thought that maybe an alligator or shark had someway found their way into the water. I still to this day have dreams occasionally about being in the ocean with sharks and whales, scared to death. How old to I have to get before I outgrow this fear?!
Wish I knew…still haven’t gotten over my fear of monsters under the bed, either. 🙂
Yes! The snake in the toilet! I was convinced my grandma’s upstairs bathroom would have a snake in the toilet. Still makes me shudder when I think about it.
Oh, I was always afraid of my Grandparents’ upstairs bathroom…something about being up there at the end of a long dark hallway terrified me. Such a fraidy cat!
What a bunch of funny stories. I can’t say that I’ve ever been scared of gators before, but I did have a brother freak me out about the toilet before. He told me to be careful when I’m on it or something might pop out. He made it sound like it was a regular occurrence. It took me a while to get that out of my head when I was younger.
It seems that childhood toilet fears are pretty common. Check out the other commenters. Brothers can be goofy like that. Growing up, I had two uncles who were like older brothers and they did all kinds of stuff like that. Funny now – now so much when we were little kids!
Absolutely the bathroom light had to be on, but it was for the snake rather than the gator. The alligator/tin man sidekicks…now that is my favorite!
So funny!
[…] where you don’t have to cut anyone’s food or say things like “please take the alligator off the table […]