Okay, creepy right?
This living (not living) nightmare is called Itty Baby. She's one of my daughter's American Girl dolls. Well, American Girl says she's a doll. But I know what she really is: a mutant, evil, possessed, murderous monster who rummages through the kitchen in the dead of night, when it's blackest and silent, looking for a knife to kill me with. A long knife. A dull knife. One that I'll feel. One that'll hurt.
Okay, maybe not. Maybe she's just my daughter's doll.
But tonight when my daughter looked at me and said, "Look, Itty only has one eye open. That's creepy." suddenly the vision of that Twilight Zone with Telly Savalas and the doll that was alive and trying to kill him came flooding back. So did Trilogy Of Terror, a television movie with Karen Black where a doll is trying to kill her. And the episode of Night Gallery where an army officer returns home and his daughter's doll, a gift from one of his enemies is - well, you see where I'm going here.
I can trace at least some of this primal terror directly back to when I lived with a roommate who owned a Jerry Mahoney ventriloquist dummy. He - the roommate, not the dummy - thought it was hilarious to move it around the apartment and position it sitting up in, say, the kitchen or bathroom, so when I'd get up in the middle of the night I'd see it looking at me in the dark, with its dead eyes and frozen smile. Let's just say if you had stock in Fruit Of The Loom during those years, you did very well.
Although not a doll or dummy, also fueling my fears is the vivid memory of the antique, wooden roll-top desk I had next to my bed growing up. It had long, light narrow patterns within the dark wood that looked like alien eyes staring at me. And we're not talking ET here.
And Stephen King books? Don't get me started.
Of course, the truth I know is that in the real world, when my imagination isn't moving like a runaway train, Itty Baby is really just a doll that my daughter loves. Itty makes her happy and safe, and will probably be the doll that she passes down to her own daughter someday.
The other truth I know is that it only costs pennies a year to leave the light on at night.
4 comments:
I have never really seen Miss Itty this way. But now, when I depart from cuddling with my girlie, I will have to try not to take a second look, this look.
You keep me hoppin', Dear.
Ask my kids. They'll tell you I share your dolliphobia.
If I close my eyes (ok, not every time I close 'em) I have a vivid image of Telly Savalas at the bottom of the stairs. That's the doll I think of every time I see an American Girl Doll. My daughter Rebecca won't even take hers out of the closet now. Bless her.
My oldest, Samantha, has one in her closet as well. It's there on top of the suitcases. Every time I travel, I perform a ritual which involves talking to the doll and treating it with tremendous respect. I am big-time creeped out by dolls.
One thing I never understood. Why did Karen Black suck in that deep breath when she opened the oven? Maybe she suspected her oven would turn out posessed, like ours.
I was also traumatized by the Jerry Mahoney Dummy episode of Twilight Zone. It's what i think about when considering a trip back to corporate life.
I can't really explain it, but the thing that creeped me out more than any other was a TV show from the 60's called the Thunderbirds. Creepy-ass puppets.
Anyway, here's a link that will warm your heart...
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/10/dolls-and-toys-that-creep-us-out.html
Pete, that website is way too disturbing. But the good news is I didn't need the sleep anyway.
Great. Thanks for all the sleepless nights ahead. That doll scares the bageezus out of me.
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