Ubernormal Activity

I sat in front of a big black box for almost three hours yesterday. My mind was blank, numb, mush. My legs seized up from the weight of my body crushing down on to them. I didn't move. I sat, mesmerized by the flashing imagery before me. My mouth hung open, not slightly, but wide enough for dribble to trace its way around the crevices of my mouth and down into a safe nestle on my chin.
My hair stuck up like a cruel Don King impersonation, my hands lay abandoned somewhere near my lap. My eyes widened, drawing parallels to walnuts, dinner plates, bush babies. I breathe erratically, in, out, in, in, out, gasp, in, out. I shudder, I twitch, I smile mischievously. I relish every minute of it.

I am an undercover horror movie junkie.

Every fright stings my nervous system with piercing jolts. Adrenaline pumps through my veins like a power surge, increasing my heart beat, shaking me to my core. Every time some unsuspecting victim gets his head sliced off by an axe-wielding maniac, I let loose an initial nervous giggle, followed a witch's cackle. I savour each blood-curdling scream, appreciating every organ explosion with gusto. Ah, nothing beats the sweet smell of fear in the morning.

My penchant for the gory is shared by millions. We like to instil a safe rush of adrenaline, we enjoy the thrill without the possibility of hurting ourselves. Watching horror movies is the equivalent to a kiss from your great aunt Martha, It's going to terrify the life out of you, but at least you know that at the end of it, you'll be unharmed, if a smidgen shaken. It's the injection of excitement that we all crave in our mundane lives. We grow fearful everyday of he pains and terror around us, yet we still put ourselves through the Exorcist every few months or so. Is it to ensure our livelihood? Are we scared that, without our exasperatedly pumping hearts, we are empty, devoid of life? Do we watch them to prove that, in fact, we can take the fear? That we are stronger than we let ourselves believe?

Whatever your reason may be for scaring the bejesus out of yourself, horrors can teach us a few important life lessons:
Never clench your teeth during a particularly nasty scene; something WILL happen that will result in you swallowing parts of your own cheek.
Don't think that it's a good idea to stroll through your house in lingerie without a weapon if someone has called to tell you that they are watching you; you will die a dismembering death.
Refrain from all forms of paranormal contact activities; someone you know WILL get possessed and kill off the rest of the family, one by one.
Don't take showers in motels. Not under any circumstance

These are all relevant and important facts of life, facts that we would be unaware of, had we not witnessed them in movies. This strikes the conclusion that a bit of fear can bring a lot of assistance to the watcher. So go ahead, make your day, watch your horror, live longer than the sissies who don't.

Spidergirl

Picture this: You're lying in bed, trying to squeeze in a few grunted snores before work. You feel a searing pain next to your right eye. Your eyesight blurs, your face feels like a sewing machine base, your jaw locks and you start to feel woozy. Imagine my disappointment when this melodramatic pain turns out to be a spider bite not of the radioactive type.

The doctor confirms the worst, not only will I experience a list of symptoms of less than peachy discomfort, but I will not be able to climb walls with my new poisoned blood. Dreams of shooting webs from my wrists are banished. The possibility of swooping through the streets of Cape Town, taking out bad guys and accumulating mass appreciation, is dispelled. My heart breaks.

“Are you sure?” I tearfully ask the doctor, already designing my red and blue Lycra suit in my mind. “Just your average, everyday Button spider bite,” he responds, more concerned with my disappointment than my condition. My feet are heavy as I leave his mint-green office. My heart floats precariously in my throat. Gone is my opportunity for mutant fame. Relinquished are my delusions of radioactive grandeur. Doomed am I to a life of normalcy and apparent Yoda impersonations.

Despite my normal diagnosis I spend the days post-bite in a state of constant alertness. Every bout of pins and needles inspires my imagination to greater fantasies of flight and fight. I see myself manically pummelling a backstreet rapist, pulverising a knife-waving mugger, bringing a car down upon the empty head of a gun-toting hijacker. The more I think about these prospects, the angrier I become. Why couldn't I have become a spider-mutant? Why couldn't I kill and maim every evil-doer in Cape Town? It hit me at this point. It wasn't the radioactivity that I desired, rather the revenge I sought from these criminals.

How odd that my justice button was pushed by an insect bite. Trouble is, now I can't seem to turn it off. If you happen upon a red and blue-suited woman, swinging from a balcony in Long Street, possibly stuck and suspended by a broken piece of garden rope, maniacally threatening all bad-guys and yelling for medical assistance simultaneously, it may or may not be me. Criminals, you have been warned.

Hacked

In this world of technological advancement, each of us believe ourselves to be moguls of internet magic. We are not. We are morons of the magic. For months now I have commanded my Facebook page, my gmail and my Blog like a true pro. I have sailed my ship of technology through rough seas and sun-bleached skies. I have danced in the very daisy fields of computer literacy. I have managed to lose all of my information to a douche of a hacker.

Whilst trying to access my email last week I received the heart-stopping message of doom, “The password you have entered is incorrect.” My palms started to sweat, my brow furrowed, my buttocks began to clench rhythmically. Steadying my quivering hands I tried my Facebook account. Once again I was told that I had entered the wrong password. Concerned that although this was a different password to that of my email, Facebook too had blocked me from entering. After four cigarettes and a glass and a half of Old Brown Sherry I had built up enough courage to throw caution to the wind and try my blog. DISASTER! I was once again denied access.

What could I do? My very existence was compromised. Several people referred to what had happened to me as “identity theft.” Are we in such a sad state of technological advance that losing email and Facebook accounts now constituted you as being indentityless? Who was I? Had my life lost it's meaning? Was I still allowed to introduce myself as Kelly-Paige or did I now have to find a new identity? “Nice to meet you, I'm Kelly_Paige22@hotmail.com.”

One account couldn't be reinstated without the consent of the other. Nothing could be rectified until I had Google convinced that I was the rightful owner of my account. Google hated me, told me that I “did not seem to be the account holder.” How did they know? What could I do to sway their vote? Was my hacker, at this very moment, pulling the Google strings, telling the Google geeks that they in fact were the honourable members of my prestigious Gmail?

After much toil and trouble, days of frustration, several unnecessary tearful fits from the people I threw things at in my frustration, and the completion of one very crystallized bottle of sherry, I managed to recover my gmail. Celebration! My life has been recovered. My existence has been reinstated. My identity has returned. I have been reconnected to the world. My life is back on course. How very, very, sad of me.