Years ago, when the third Jurassic Park movie came out in theaters, I accompanied my mother and her best friend. We had seen the previous movies and we were all excited to see the newest one. My mom’s friend, will call her Bee, loved movies. I do remember her making the comment that she didn’t do well with scary movies but I shrugged it off, this movie wasn’t that scary.

We seated ourselves to the right side of the movie theater, where there were only two seats per row. My mom and her friend sat behind me while I sat and watched on in amazement.

We were sitting there, not even twenty minutes into the movie, when things began to get good. They had landed on the island and sent a guy out to search the woods nearby (I already knew that probably wouldn’t end well).  Then you hear something big coming, they all begin running towards the plane to get away, leaving said guy in the woods to fend for himself. Well, low and behold when they take off down the run way, the guy comes running out of the woods, flagging them down for help and as the plane lifts off, a giant dinosaur comes exploding out of the woods after him. The dinosaur snatches the guy up in one bite while simultaneously crashing the plane. Fine. I can handle that, something like this would have to happen at the beginning; I was prepared for it.

What I wasn’t prepared for, was the blood curdling scream that erupted from behind me.

I did one of those vibrating jumps you do when something really scares you and almost came up out of my seat. I looked behind me, only to find my mom’s friend had launched herself backwards in her chair (trying to get away from the dino I suppose). At first I thought someone had grabbed her or something. I’m glad the chair was bolted to the floor or she would have landed in the lap of the person behind her. She looked like she was about to climb over the back of the chair and run anyway. She was still screaming, eyes wide-almost popping out, with her fingers clinched down on the arm rests.

For a split second, her reaction made me think she had seen something else in the theater. I jerked my head back around to scan the crowd for something terrifying enough to match her scream. Nothing.

Every time the dinosaur would roar, she’d scream. When the dinosaur would try to eat one of them, she jerk sideways like she was on a simulated ride.

About that time, another dinosaur appeared and I can’t remember what all happened but there was running and screaming and dinosaurs fighting. There wasn’t a break in the action for a bit. But I didn’t see much of the next scenes because I was too busy bouncing back and forth from the movie to her. She screamed like there was a dinosaur in the theater with us. At one point she jerked so hard she kicked my seat. My mom was laughing at her and I couldn’t help but giggle. She grabbed her chest like she could leave us at any moment. I thought we were going to have to take her out of the theater.

Finally, the people got to somewhere safe and I heard Bee gasp for air.

“Oh that scared me,” she whispered.

I settled down into my seat with a smirk. If that first part scared her, she was about to go on a wild ride. The next hour was filled with screams of terror and roaring dinosaurs, I enjoyed every moment of it.

We were camping at our favorite lake one summer when my brother decided it’s high time for me to learn to ride the buggy board. I had never ridden one before, I always watched in awe as everyone else did though. It seemed like so much fun. They were pulled behind our boat, jumping waves, riding easy, smiling the entire time. After they all got off, they’d always talk about how much fun it was and that they wanted to do it again.

I never got on one, honestly I was too afraid. I couldn’t swim and I knew if I ever tried it, I’d drown myself. Secretly, I wished to ride one, one day. When he told me that I was going to ride, I refused at first. It wasn’t until he told me that he would be riding it with me, that I agreed. We jumped in and he got me settled on the board. He told me to hold on and not let go, while I rode he would steer. Then we were off. He kept the front of the buggy board up while we raced through the water, I remember him screaming into my ear as we shot across the lake to not let the board nose dive down. Got it. We bounced along the lake with the occasional wave almost throwing us airborne. It was fun.

And then he let go.

The last thing I remember him saying was hold on. And that, ladies and gentleman, was the only thing I remembered. In a split second he was gone, I was left to fend for myself in the cold, cruel world; where life lessons were about to be learned. Before ever riding a buggy board, I had come to the conclusion that riding it would be very bumpy and chaotic; during our ride, I was pleasantly pleased to find out that it wasn’t as bad as I imagined it to be. Well, that’s because my brother’s weight was offsetting everything. When he let go, things changed. My fairly smooth ride turned into what I could only describe as a Sunday drive straight through a tornado. My scrawny 80 pounds did nothing for me. I was about to take the ride of a life time. All I could remember to do was hold on!

I bounced a few times, which wasn’t bad. I had already bounced a few times before and it was fine, I could handle this; everything was under control. I wasn’t until I hit a wave head on and was completely airborne that my brain started sending out mayday signals. When I landed the first time it knocked the breath out of me but I held on. I was sliding sideways then, crashing through waves that tried their best to take me out; but I held on. Another wave came and sent me airborne again but this time when I landed I felt myself slipping off. Not today. I mustered every ounce of strength I had and pulled myself up farther onto the board, digging my fingernails into the foam board. And then it all went terribly wrong.

Remember earlier on when my brother told me to keep the front of the board up? I didn’t. When I pulled myself upward, I pushed the nose of the board down. And that’s when I learned why you should keep the front of the board up. I felt the board jerk a few times before the front dipped down and was quickly sucked under the water, I along with it. I was only under a few seconds (all the while in my head I’m thinking, just hold on) before the board shot up completely out of the water; my brother told me later it reminded him of a dolphin. My entire body was airborne. With as much momentum as I had going, my feet shot up behind me past my head. I almost flipped off the board but I held on. I came in for a landing, only I didn’t land on the water; I plowed through it. So here I am gliding through the water, plowing through schools of fish, just praying that the board would come back up soon. I remember thinking; as long as I stay on the board, I can’t drown. Really-though?

The board jerked again and I catapulted upward out of the water and into the air again. For the next full minute I did this over and over again, I’d get sucked under and then I’d spring back up. My wet hair had plastered itself across my face, I couldn’t see; water assaulted me from every direction, I couldn’t breathe. My worst nightmare however was coming true; my solid grip had been broken by the last hard landing. I was sliding off the back of this thing and there was nothing I could do about it.

Finally, I made peace with it and accepted my fate. I let go. I slid right off into the cold water, the waves I thought that would over take me weren’t there. In fact, letting go was the smoothest part of the entire ride. Funny how life works. I waited there to be picked up, the boat (which now had my brother on it) pulled up beside me and they pulled me onto the boat.

“Are you alright?” My brother asked.

“Yeah,” I managed.

“Why didn’t you just let go?” He asked, he was already horse laughing.

“Because you told me to hold on,” I countered.

“I didn’t mean like that.”

To this day, I can’t get near a lake without him giggling. 

While working at the grocery store, the one thing that I had come to hate was how the sun would shine right through the ceiling windows during certain parts of the day. If you were unlucky enough to get the one register at the end, the sun would blind you until it had moved past the window. This would last a good fifteen to twenty minutes.

This particular day I was (un)lucky enough to get said register. Of course the sun began to rise right during rush hour. I scanned items while squinting and fought off the oncoming migraine that came with working at this register. Finally, there was a lull in the crowd and I was able to rest my eyes for a second.

A man wearing a black-leather biker jacket came through my line soon after. He was about two twenty, maybe a little more, six foot tall, bald, with a trimmed beard. His sunglasses rested on the top of his head. This man seemed rough and tough, with a no bull attitude. I did my usual, “Hey, how are you?”

“Doing alright,” he told me as he pulled his wallet from the back of his pocket.

While I waited for him to find his money, I rubbed my eyes and sighed loudly.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asked handing over his cash.

“This sun is killing me.” I told him pointing up to the ceiling window.

I didn’t really feel like I needed to explain that anymore than I did. I was obviously wrong. I was handing him his change when I noticed he was staring at me with an odd expression.

“What?” I asked.

“The sun,” he spoke looking back up at the ceiling.

“Yeah, it’s killing my eyes—”

Before I could finish, he interrupted me with an abrupt, “You’re a vampire!”

I watched in stunned silence as this six foot tall, two hundred pound, bald, biker man slung shot himself back and forth in my line yelling ‘vampire’; all while flapping his arms like a bat and bobbing his head up and down. He then grabbed his bag full of bread and meat and left my line, I could still hear him calling out vampire to himself as he exited the store.

Why me?