Boo!

Have you ever been really scared? Like when you’re watching the shower scene from Psycho, the ending of Halloween or any Whoopi Goldberg movie. As the feeling passed over you, how did you refer to it? People have many different sayings to express their momentary frisson of fear.

You scared the hell out of me—This is actually a good thing. You should be glad to get those demons out of you, even if it took watching Sister Act 2 to do it.

I was scared shitless—Now this is scared. If you excrete every drop of waste in your body, you must have found out that you can’t afford cable or satellite TV and are stuck with an indoor antenna that picks up 3 channels. Sometimes. I was in this circle of hell for a year so you have my sympathy.

You scared the living shit out of me—Hmm. You never hear anyone say “you scared the dead shit out of me” do you? Can shit be alive or dead? Since it’s in your body and you’re alive, it must contain living particles in which case this variation has a corollary to being without cable TV. But since shit can’t eat, breathe, talk or think on its own, you’d have to say it’s not living which means this saying makes no sense. Of course, neither does me spending 60 words writing about it.

That scared the bejeesus out of me—Honestly, I don’t know what “the bejeesus” is, so I don’t know how you get it scared out of you. Possibly it’s related to the heebie jeebies or maybe the hoochie coochie but probably not the cha cha, can can or Walla Walla. To get something scared out that you knew was living inside of you but you don’t even know what it is, I believe would take listening to Celine Dion screech her way through an entire Vegas show. I choose to keep the bejeesus inside of me, thank you.

She scared the pants off of me—I’m not sure how this happens. I know alcohol can make your pants come off and category 5 hurricane force winds could do it but I’m not sure what kind of scare could be responsible. Possibly watching The View and realizing this is how far our culture has fallen.

You almost scared the life out of me—Obviously this is the ultimate and as such, is very personal. You need to figure out for yourself what could scare you close to death. Myself, it would have to be if the publishing world decided that only one author was allowed to write novels anymore and they chose as The One, the God-awful hack James Patterson.

Now I’m going to tell you something that should scare you and we’ll see what your reaction is. Let me know whether you lose your shit, your bejeesus or drop trou. Here goes: There are 3 million Americans unemployed, some for more than a year, but The Situation from Jersey Shore stands to make $5 million this year.

I need to go change my underwear.