The First Time I Watched Jaws

There are some movies that are burned into your psyche forever. The first movie that affected me was "Where the Red Ferns Grows." I was four and the part where the boy falls on an axe and dies sent me into a waterfall of tears. I went upstairs with my mom following me. She asked me why I was crying and all I could come up with was that death made me sad.

My parents tried to be courteous of my sensitivity from that point forward. My dad was so courteous that when I was nine and he wanted to watch Braveheart on TV in our  living room, he locked the door after I went outside to play. He was even so gracious as to refuse to let me in when I was pounding on the door and yelling, "I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!!!"
I heard a muffled, "Just wait a few minutes!" through the front door. I suspect that he had fallen asleep as per the norm.

A year later, "The Patriot" was on TV and my parents were watching it in the living room at night when I was supposed to be asleep. I couldn't sleep though, so I came downstairs to see what they were up to and as soon as I rounded the wall, Heath Ledger's character got shot in the face. I turned right around and went back upstairs.

When I was eleven, my parents thought that I had outgrown my movie sensitivity. They regretted that assumption later.
We watched Jaws as a family one night. I was a little scared, but it was more of that "fun" scared feeling rather than like sheer terror. That is until I had to take a shower the next day.

I was legitimately terrified that a full-grown shark was going to be able to come up through the 3-inch drain pipe into my shower and kill me dead. The solution to this problem? If my mom was in the room at the same time, that would prevent any blood-thirsty sharks from coming into my tub. The shark would move on to the next kid who naively took a shower without a parent in the same room. Rookies.

My mom humored my irrational fear and whenever I would shout, "MOM! I have to take a shower!!" she would sigh, grab a magazine and come upstairs.

My sister also had an illogical lavatory fear. At six years old, she was afraid that when she flushed, some monster was going to be able to emerge from the plumbing depths and get her. So, naturally, to prevent this from happening she would close the lid, stand on top of it, flush, and stand there until it wasn't making noises anymore. Then she would bend her little strawberry blonde head down to peek through the little crack between the seat and toilet and make sure the coast was clear before getting down to wash her hands.

My hygienic shenanigan went on for a couple weeks until my mom made me take a shower without her in the room. Any time I heard a gurgling sound coming from the pipe I would hold very still and get ready to hop over the little wall of the tub. Then I would slowly resume washing my hair while holding very still. By some miracle, I survived (my mental absurdities, not a shark attack) and I have turned out to be a semi-rational human being.