Don't Go Into The Water

Last week, my co-workers and I were discussing dreams and nightmares. It reminded me of one of my own specific night traumas from childhood. This incident, in turn, reminded me that my parents were never formally trained in the parenting arts. Anyway....
I consider myself a really good dreamer. For the most part, I have lots of happy, colorful, carefree dreams. In particular, I have the extraordinary good fortune of having my dreams consistently slip into the yummy zone, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.
For example, I could be dreaming about traveling to Italy for a 8 day, 7 night cross-country extravaganza and my mind will tell me that I will need to take a plane there, because even though this is a dream world, and I could, technically, get there in a blip, it is best to support our air carriers in these difficult times and I am nothing if not conscientious, so there I am, reclined in a very comfortable first class seat and the girl next to me will strike up a conversation about the reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 on Soapnet and how she is in awe of Brandon's fluffy mullet and I'm all like "I know!" and she's all like "Shyaah!" and then, out of nowhere, the drop-dead gorgeous, Brad Pitt look-alike male stewardess will accidentally spill a platter of drinks on my lap and the only thing he can mop it up with is his shirt and he starts to become all nervous, so he does what any other right-thinking person would do- he gets George Clooney and Heath Ledger from coach to come and help clean up this horrible mess and they all have to clean it up with their shirts and pretty soon the Captain hears this bit of nastiness and he figures the best way to help is to put on a little Marvin Gaye over the intercom and I say "Gentlemen, Gentlemen, please. This is no big deal. This will dry. Please, let's just relax." and Brad responds, "My God. You are some kind of perfect woman. So caring and bright and beautiful. In fairness to you, I think I should make out with you." to which I reply, "Well, that does seem fair."
So, you see, I do not lack imagination. And as a child, this was my downfall.
The story is quite simple. The movie Jaws was set to be on television for the first time ever. It was a major TV event. This was something I could not miss. I begged and begged and begged my parents to let me watch it. They said it was scary and I was too young. I said, "C'mooooooooooon!" And they finally caved. There is just no arguing the "C'mooooooooon!" gambit.
It started at 7:00 Central Time. And I did get scared. A whole lotta scared. I was sweating a stain into my adorable little PJ's. I mean, that shark show no mercy, am I right? It's like he had a taste for human flesh. Even though it was on network TV, they didn't seem to be too concerned with showing the blood-letting, as I recall. With about a half-hour to go I was pretty much about to wet my pants.
"Time for bed, sweetie" my Mom yelled downstairs to me.
"The movie isn't over yet, Mom" I shouted back.
"That's too bad, honey, it's your bedtime. I told you that you shouldn't watch that movie anyway!" she countered.
"But Mah-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhmmm!" I reasoned.
"Now!" she checkmated.
Crafty Woman.
Now, for those of you in the parenting profession, here is the problem with this particular situation: If you are going to let your young child watch a movie about a deadly and cunning gynormous shark (or axe-murderer), at least let them watch the WHOLE THING!! The problem is, I never got to see the shark die. For all I knew, he was still out there. Waiting for me. And he was pissed that I didn't have the decency to finish watching his movie.
So I went to bed, covered in sweat.There I was, in my room, under my covers. Waiting to die.
After a couple hours, I did manage to get to sleep. But here is where my robust imagination is more of curse than a blessing.
See, I lived in Northeast Illinois. My young brain knew that the nearest shark was in an ocean, like a zillion miles away. My young brain did not let geography stop it, however. As I feel further into sleep, I became aware of the local news of the day in Dreamland. There was really one major story. You guessed it: A flood. It was a really big flood too. Seems it had flooded the entire Lake Michigan, gaining ground rapidly on Northeast Illinois.
Huh. What are the odds?
As I opened the blinds to my bedroom window in my dream, I saw that the flood was nearly up to the second story window from which I was gazing. For obvious reasons (I'm an idiot), I decided this would be a good time to open said window and look out further. That's pretty much the moment that the Great White jumped up and enveloped my whole upper torso in his 8,000 rows of teeth and shook me around like I owed him money. Blood squirted everywhere of course.
Lesson to parents: If you are going to let your child watch scary movies where the villainous person/animal gets killed off in the end, please let them stay up past their bedtime. Just this once. It will save you a bundle in future therapy bills.