Emily: If I tell you something, will you promise not to laugh and make fun of me?
Bob (already looking like he might begin laughing): Well...I'll try.
Emily (risking it anyway, because she so wants a vodka gimlet tonight): You see, I'm kind of afraid of the basement at night, especially that room, and I'd like to have some vodka (we store alcohol in this room down in the basement that's really quite creepy). Would you mind going down and getting it?
Bob (for some reason, he doesn't even snicker): Sure, but you're the one who is all enamored of Spooky Days (what we call the month of October in this house), and yet, you're afraid of the basement?
Emily: Yes, all the ghosts and vampire bats and cool things hang out in the attic (where she has a little area she uses as a writing nook when it is neither too hot nor too cold). Creepy, scary, human things hang out in the basement. Oh yeah, and zombies (in case you didn't know, zombies live in garages, too).
Bob goes down to the basement and comes up with the vodka.
Bob: There was a huge spider down there. It nearly killed me. (Ahhh! Now we know why he didn't snicker.)
Emily: No there wasn't. The spiders are hanging out in the attic, too. It's the creepy serial killer in the basement. He was watching you through some hole in a board the whole time you were down there.
Bob: Oh-oh-oh, the creepy serial killer.
Emily doesn't reply. She's checking to make sure the basement door is securely locked.
It's true. Basements are horrible places where serial killers set up shop or "camp out," waiting to strike families they've been stalking. Basements are where incestuous fathers build special rooms and keep their children imprisoned. They're where people hide victims' bodies. Give me the attic rafters and a few rattling chains over that any day...
9 comments:
I know about that scary room! We have one, and it's right next-door to my office. If I disappear, you'll know where to find me.
Awww! Funny and sweet, but do watch out for that basement serial killer. He sounds very mean. I know! You could leave some improving literature down in the basement - meditational tracts, self-help books, religious writings. Rehabilitate him! Bob could drop them down there when he takes the vodka back. :-)
Basements are also the place I store books that I give out through Bookmooch. Therefore, the serial killer in my basement is very busy reading Moochable books. Consider yourself responsible if there is a delay when someone want to get one of my books from Bookmooch. I wouldn't dare disturbing my own serial killer.
Bob is a gem! My basement is mostly finished and I have a guest bedroom and a library down there. The utility room is not finished and includes an under the stairs dark nook that creeps me out. I don't have a serial killer living there but there might be an imp or some other small, malformed creature up to no good. Even the cats don't go under there!
Worst of all are the dirt floor basements. Any time I have ever had to go into one of those I have felt sure that I would be trapped there for the rest of my life.
BTW, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!
As I'm sure you know - I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU!! Belated congrats for your 14th with Bob.
Charlotte, oh dear! To be so dangerously close to that scary room while writing. I hope you have a sturdy lock and keep a baseball bat by your side.
Litlove, funny, the one place where we have no books is the basement (must be that I'm afraid to let me friends share space with that serial killer). Religious tracts and such nonsense, though? That's a good idea! (Not Dante, however. Serial killers have been known to misinterpret him and take matters into their own hands...)
Smithereens, I take full responsibility. However, if your books are distracting your serial killer from his other pursuits, I say, let those book moochers wait.
Stef, oh yes. Imps (and trolls) definitely live under the stairs. (We had a space like that in our old basement, as well as a bomb shelter that made me think, "rather suffer the consequences of the bomb than to be stuck down here.")
ZM, oh yes, dirt floor basements are absolutely the worst. Thanks for the anniversary wishes.
Heather, yes, I would certainly expect you to agree, and thanks for your belated wishes.
I owned a house once with room off the basement with a dirt floor. On the walls, scrawled in red paint, were the letters T.S. An ode to Eliot? I think not. Totally Scary. The door to the room was an old exterior door, with years of grime on the window panes. I had to put a shade on the window, or I would never have been able to do the laundry.
I like the idea of someone living in Ms Smithereens' basement and reading her books. There is a squeaky, slow, elevator in her building. Very film noir. Picture something in B&W, with a young, Jeanne Moreau. My brain is spinning the yarn right now.
Cam, I think I remember your referring to that scary basement in one of your posts. I don't blame you for putting a shade on the window. And, yes, I love the portrait you've begun to paint of the reader in Smithereen's basement.
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