Make a noise like a vampire.
Chances are (inside your head) you either snarled or said the word “blah” in a technically inaccurate yet authentically dramatic Eastern European accent.
Now, make a noise like a GHOST.
“Boo!” Exactamundo. Ghosts say BOO.
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary (the two volume blue one with the magnifying glass) doesn’t list the word “boo” at all; I had to refer to the app version, which cites a 1639 poem as one of the first formal usages of the word as an exclamation. Which makes sense, y’know, ‘cause ghosts are old.
Another historical usage is a Scottish expression where one describes an extremely timid person as someone who “wouldn’t say boo to a goose”, but geese are terrifying. I found more than one website offering step-by-step instruction as to what to do if a goose attacks. They peck from the ground and then fly at your face. And don’t take a swing at them; it just makes them more angry. Being scared of a goose? Totally understandable.
In fact, making fun of people because they’re scared of things they should be scared of is weird. I mean, people are scared of a lot of different things for a lot of reasons. I don’t have a pet tarantula [y i k e s], but I don’t hate tarantulas, I hate flies, and they don’t scare me, I’m just admittedly flyist, which puts me square in the middle of Team Tarantula, but I don’t have one.
Do they eat flies?
I am not looking that up on the internet.
Most fear is like that, where we are scared of something that isn’t necessarily life threatening. Scared of being embarrassed, or being late, or having all your teeth fall out.
That last one wasn’t in the same category as the first two, was it?
Sorry about that… let’s substitute “the unknown” for the teeth thing.
No, that also seems a little bit heavier than embarrassment and tardiness. Hmn.
My point was going to be that cats are afraid of snakes, but scientifically, they’re faster than snakes, and 9 times out of 10 will win a straight-up fight with a snake, but they still jump every time they see a cucumber or belt on the floor, and like cats, I don’t think any of us are scared because of facts, exactly. We’re scared because of threat:
– If you don’t hurry up, you’re GOING to be late!
– If you don’t brush your teeth, they’ll ALL FALL OUT!
(Ok, the teeth thing works now.)
First encounters with vampires are terribly threatening because anything bad that might happen is only just beginning, but the apex of most ghost interactions peaks at the “Seeing Of The Ghost” after which you are just in a room with an angry entity trapped somewhere it doesn’t want to be, waiting for some important reason it’s not totally in control of. Like a spooky DMV.
The BOO is a jump scare, sudden and aggressive: but to be honest, everything that’s terrified me in the past decade was lumbering, slow-moving, ominous. Not so much a BOO as a ubiquitous rumble from a far-distant horizon, blazing with fire, forcing forward clouds of murder hornets through billows of orange grey smoke. That’s not BOO. That’s not even a threat, that’s, well, dread. “Nothing to fear but fear itself” is nowhere near as comforting in practice as in oratory.
I say all this in celebration of Spookytime, which is not just Halloween, because if you really think about it Thanksgiving is a part of Spookytime too. That can be a long trip in the car.
But while you’re enjoying your pumpkin spice everything everywhere think about this: Spookytime is not just about us being scared. It’s about us being scary. Looking at the deepest parts of ourselves and wondering what we’re capable of.
And let me just skip to the end: we are all capable of everything.
Look at the news. See all that horrible stuff? Any one of us could’ve done that, because we speak and move around, and all words and actions can create or destroy, every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. And it’s not just the drastic sudden BOO things we didn’t do, we also avoided apathy, malice and contempt. We are actively CHOOSING not to be awful. Every single second.
Good for us. Yay. Time to celebrate.
If “Halloween is every day” then kindness is a costume we can wear all year ‘round. There’s plenty of janky and preposterous stuff out there, but if we’re choosing not to create fear, we can also choose not to consume it.
Although, I do believe in spooks. I do. I do. I do.
Make a Boo Noise Here.