Mom hung a mass produced art print on my bedroom wall when I was about 8. It's of a little girl holding her puppy.
Cute, right?
Thing is, this painting terrified me. And I was raised in the time where you just kind of swallowed any complaints and didn't bother mom or dad with kid foolishness.
Here is a copy of the thing I actually had hanging on my wall. This same frame. Probably came from Service Merchandise or some such.
What in the everloving hell is lurking just over her shoulder?!?! To me it always looked like a skull wearing a hat on the side of his head, like a little old timey jaunty hat a clown would wear.
It's a wonder I got any sleep. I was too afraid to tell mom I hated it. I never considered that I possessed the agency to take it off my wall and hide it at the bottom of the closet.
I think of this cursed painting still.
Did you ever have something in your childhood that unnecessarily scared the bejeezus out of you?
I didn't have any objects.
What I did have was a seemingly inocuous video tape. It was called 'Steps', and it was a series of simple childrens' songs for foreign kids who were learning english.
But there were TWO songs that really, REALLY freaked the fuck out of 5 year old me.
The first one was a song about how a kid went to school and had a red pencil etc. -- Except it was sung in this very dramatic, very soulful voice that made it feel like we were supposed to mourn the death of this poor kid who had gone to school and never returned.
The second one was a song about eating your vegetables and shit. Think of any song like that, what you're imagining is probably pretty close to what it was like in the tape. But the imagery consisted of some singing fruit. And there was a bit where an apple would look right at the viewer -- And SMILE. With a set of (what seemed to be, it's been 25 years) VERY REALISTIC HUMAN TEETH.
These two songs always had me running for cover behind the couch. Surprisingly I enjoyed the rest of the tape.