by David Bickel
So let’s not make it worse by ignoring unspoken boundaries, fellas.
But if you do insist on flanking me when I go please, please, no peeksies.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.79
My mom would always bake me a urinal cake for my birthday.
CASPER
When we were growing up, nobody ever acknowledged the sad truth about Casper the Friendly Ghost, which was, of course, that he was a dead kid.
Then somebody had the bright idea to make a live action/CGI Casper movie, and not only did they let the cat out of the bag, they dwelled on the fact that this little boy had died. From a tragic illness.
So we take our kids to see it and now they’re convinced they’re gonna drop dead the next time they have a fever.
Which is terrible.
But here’s what’s worse: Once you’re dead, without fail, when people see you, they’ll yell “G-g-g-ghost!” and run away so fast they’ll leave their shoes behind.
And that can’t be good for your self-esteem.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.61
Nancy has either seen a ghost or a used Band-Aid on the ground.
STYROFOAM
WIG HOLDERS
They’re in the shape of a head but completely white and with no defined facial features. My mother’s, I’m sure, was out to get me.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.03
With wig on it: 8.79 With toupee on it: 9.31
Despite what anyone’s told you, I never tried to make out with her.
MOTELS THAT BOAST
THEY OFFER COLOR TV
When you stay at a motel—where basically anyone can drive up to your room, leave the car running, kill you, and then quickly drive away—you’re basically playing serial killer roulette; your odds of being murdered there are, give or take, around fifteen to one.
But if the motel sign brags that they have color TV … well, your odds just got a little worse. It’s simple math: The color TV boast means they haven’t renovated the motel in forty years, which means they haven’t updated the locks, which means anyone can break in with that patented 1970s vertical credit card swipe, which means it’s pretty much guaranteed your skin will eventually end up being worn by the guy the townsfolk refer to as “a quiet man who kept to himself.”
On the positive side, you can watch Casper the Friendly Ghost in beautiful Technicolor while you await your imminent demise, knowing that soon you too will be scaring housewives right out of their slippers.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.45
Free continental breakfast with every beheading!
PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS WEAR GLASSES WITHOUT THEIR GLASSES ON
Once someone has established themselves as a glasses wearer, they don’t look right unless they have them on. They switch over to contacts or have Lasik and all of a sudden, you get that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach.
Put the glasses back on, pal. Sure, you’ll look older and not nearly as handsome, but at least I’ll feel better inside.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 5.61
Dreamy
Nightmare
ACCIDENTAL INCOMPLETE FACE SHAVING
Shaving is a pain in the ass and on occasion you’ll miss a tiny spot—that’s understood; you’ll get ’em next time, Champ.
But when you miss giant clumps? That’s when you need to be sent home to put things right.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.30
Dave likes to tell himself this was the only reason he wasn’t voted People’s sexiest man alive.
PASTE
Also known as the black sheep of the glue family.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 5.83
Or as the slow kid calls it, lunch.
BEE BEARDS
Having never invited a swarm of bees to settle on my face and body, it’s hard to say what the motivation behind this can be. To look cool? Nope. To impress the fairer sex? Negative. To make the rest of us really, really uncomfortable?
I think we’ve found our winner.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 5.90
Photo credit: Ellie Conlon, www.thistledewfarm.com
“Who said anything about ‘invited’?”
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES PLAYING MENTALLY CHALLENGED
From Jodie Foster in Nell to Sean Penn in I Am Sam to Rosie O’Donnell in, well, anything.
You’re not only creeping us out, you’re taking jobs away from regular retarded people, and that’s not cool.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.98
Mike Reuben, star of Life Goes On: The Motion Picture.
ANY SCHOOL BUS NOT BEING USED AS A SCHOOL BUS
Used to take kids to school, a school bus is creepy enough. The beaten-up seats, the windows that never really open, the vague smell of vomit and sawdust…
But when it’s been retired and is now used as something else—that’s when it really gets bad. Whether it’s now a bookmobile, a camper, or a pedophile’s hangout, all are equally creepy.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.19
The Partridge family has clearly fallen on some hard times.
JOKERS
I don’t mean jokers like “Hey that guy just dropped my Rolex in the toilet… what a joker!” I mean actual jokers, i.e., the first thing you throw out when you open a deck of playing cards.
It’s an interesting phenomenon: No matter what brand of cards you get, the joker is always some creepy dude subtly mocking you. As if he’s saying, “You’re stupid, I’m smart!” or “You have a severe gambling problem and it’s slowly driving an irreparable wedge between you and your family, Dave.”
Jokers are assholes.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.73
Probably drove the king of hearts to suicide.
BAD DENTURES
Don’t you realize that when you’re talking to me I’m looking at my feet? Why do you think that is? Is it because I have such pretty feet (My Feet Creepiosity Index: 8.10; My Feet in Sandals: 9.31)?
No, it’s because your choppers look like crazy yellow Chiclets.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.24
And they’re a hundred times worse in the jar.
MR. MAGOO
Years and years ago, somebody decided that this would be a great idea for a children’s cartoon: the adventures of an old blind guy who continually comes close to dying tragically as a direct result of his disability.
What kid doesn’t love old people and the blind? And yet—it was a huge hit.
Now I’m torn. On one hand, I’m creeped out by the cartoon and the fact that it’s been popular since before I was born, and yet at the same time I’m thrilled that there’s hope for my breakout animated character, Deafsie McMute, America’s Favorite Retarded Paraplegic.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.91
The FAA deserves some of the blame for giving Magoo his pilot’s license.
UNSTUFFED BUILD-A-BEAR SKINS
It’s like a tiny serial killer murdered the Snuggle Bear and removed his guts. What’s next, he “wears” the pelt to lure other adorable stuffed creatures into his web of death?
I guess what I’m saying to my wife is, I don’t care if it’s our longstanding tradition—no more Build-A-Bear birthday parties for me ever again!
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.72
Turns out Ben and Julia aren’t fans of lifeless corpses.
NONBLINKERS
You know the guy or gal who just looks at you and doesn’t blink? They’re either robots from the future sent back in time to destroy humanity or just a really creepy human.
Either way, not for me.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.69
To be fair, Jeff lost his eyelids in ’Nam.
WHITE KIDS WHO ACT LIKE BLACK KIDS
It’s disturbing, these suburban kids who not only dress like, but also talk like, they’re from some ghetto. What’s with the accent, Federline? You’re from Oregon! You know who was the last black person to live in Oregon?*
The interesting thing is that this phenomenon is almost completely limited to white kids trying to be black (aka “Wiggers”). You don’t
see white kids trying to act Chinese (“Winks”) or Jewish (“Weebs”). Honestly, have you ever seen a white kid from Portland with a yarmulke and a tefillen saying, “I don’t mix no meat and dairy, yo.”
Bottom line is, we all hate you.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.03
Z-Dog hopes rapping will be his ticket out of the ghettos of Scarsdale.
*Not a rhetorical question. I really don’t know the answer.
THE KID WHO ALWAYS HAS A NOSEBLEED AT SCHOOL
This might sound heartless, but the kid at school who always has a nosebleed, the kid who always throws up, and the kid who smells like he crapped himself should be isolated from the rest of the kids. I’m not suggesting a whole separate school, but certainly it’s not too much to ask for a separate wing in the normal school for all the kids who can’t control their bodily functions.
Or maybe a separate school.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 8.11
During this particular nosebleed, Jesse also crapped himself.
FANTASIA
Old people always told us this was a classic and insisted we watch it. And they knew it was torture. Here’s my theory:
We’ve always been told that every parent wants their kids to have a better life than they had—and I believed that until / became a parent and saw how great things are for my kids, most notably:
They have hundreds of TV channels. I had six and I usually had to turn the dial with a wrench.
They have DVDs. What did we have? View-Masters.
And they have the Internet.
The Internet!
Game over, they win.
And I hate them for it.
And our parents, while they lied through their teeth and said they wanted a better life for us, hated us. Because they were jealous that we had six channels of TV! And View-Masters!
And they felt that if they had to suffer through a creepfest like Fantasia, then we’d also have to. To get us back. Because they were jealous.
Trust me, kids, you’ll be showing it to your children someday, too.
Probably right on your freakin’ Internet.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.07
Based on a true story.
CANADIAN COINS
You ever wonder why candy machines won’t take them? It’s because they’re strange and different. (And, of course, as my parents always taught me, anything strange or different is bad.) I’d be willing to bet that even Canadians find them a little creepy.
Here’s my pitch to Canada, and this is free. (Please don’t try to pay me for it in Canadian coins as a big ironic FU!)
Make your coins look and feel exactly like our coins, right down to the ridges on the quarters, only instead of presidents or buildings or the other cool stuff we have on ours, honor some Canadian heroes.* We’ll all know they’re second-rate coins, but the candy machine won’t, and isn’t that what really matters?
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 5.94
All that stands between me and a king-sized Twix bar.
* OK, there are no Canadian heroes. But Alan Thicke is pretty awesome.
JAPANESE CARTOONS (AKA ANIME)
Even as a boy, I knew in my gut that Speed Racer didn’t look or sound right. The drawings were strange, the voices were stilted, and the characters didn’t move with any fluidity. And yet it was a big hit, so I thought it must be me, and I forced myself to watch Gigantor and Astro Boy, squirming the whole time. It was my earliest submission to peer pressure (to be followed years later by alcohol, cigarettes, and a little bit of gay bashing).
If you disagree with me, that’s your right (as a moron), but do me this favor: Go on YouTube and check out a show called Panda! Go Panda! It’s about a little girl who befriends a baby panda and its father, with whom she establishes a sort of bizarre marital relationship. If you don’t agree that it’s one of the creepiest things you’ve ever laid your eyes on, I’ll refund what you paid for this book.*
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.99
And to make it worse, a winker.
* Claim is made for dramatic purposes only. The author will not refund any money you paid for this book. But the show is pretty damn creepy.
NURSERY RHYMES
Kids are falling down and breaking their crowns, humanoid eggs are falling off walls and crashing to the ground, old ladies are cutting off the tails of mice—and not just any mice, blind mice.
Listen, I’m not an idiot—I know Mother Goose was a giant bird in a bonnet, so odds are she’s gonna come up with some crazy shit. I blame us, for continuing to frighten our children with these verses of doom hundreds of years later.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 9.64
“Pssst … you’re creepier than me, and I’m a giant egg!”
MONOCLES
When I was seven, the eye doctor informed me that while my left eye was perfect, my right eye wasn’t. For some reason, I couldn’t comprehend the idea that they’d give me glasses with a clear lens in the good eye. Instead I was sure I was going to have to wear a monocle.
OK, I was borderline retarded.
Here’s my point: If monocles were anything but very creepy, I doubt I would’ve minded (in fact, it would’ve been pretty entertaining to the other second graders to comically let it pop out of my eye whenever I was surprised). But think about it, nobody cool or heroic ever wore a monocle. Colonel Klink, a Nazi (and worse, a buffoon!); Charlie McCarthy, a ventriloquist dummy—and those certainly aren’t creepy; Mr. Peanut was kind of cool I guess, but he always came off a little arrogant for me, like he was better than the rest of us because he was a giant peanut. Well guess what, Peanut? You can get glasses and have clear glass for your good eye.
Idiot.
CREEPIOSITY INDEX: 7.23
The author celebrates his latest book deal.
BEGGARS
An open letter to the homeless guy on Laurel Canyon and the entrance to the 101 Freeway:
Dear Sir,
First of all, what follows should betaken as constructive criticism. All in all, you’re doing a great job (although I guess “job” wouldn’t be the best choice of words). Anyway, I’m sure you don’t hear this a lot, but your very presence creeps us all out a little (that’s called “tough love”). So what I’d like to do is help you make the whole experience a little less disturbing for us and maybe get a few more nickels into your empty coffee cup!
First off, your appearance. So I don’t sound like a complete Negative Nelly, I’ll tell you what I like. The leathery skin works. It tells me you’ve been outside a lot, which homeless people are. Very believable. The clothes work well, too. The ripped and stained T-shirt really reads like you have no other clothes in the world—nice touch. The camouflage pants are a winner, though I would like to see the urine stains a bit more pronounced (the problem with camouflage).
As for your face, I love—love—the matted hair and beard. That’s the difference maker. I went as a bum (“Hobo”? Grrr—I wish I were more PC) to my kid’s private-school Halloween party last year and even though I looked really gross and pathetic, something was missing—the matted hair and beard! I went the lazy man’s route, the ski cap and the burned cork “beard”—lame!
So those are the things I think are really working for you. Now the things that aren’t.
Let’s start with your sign. We’ll break it down.
“GOD BLESS YOU.” OK, not all of us are that religious, but it’s a good headline, no denying that. Actually, funny story—I was driving down Laurel a few weeks ago and I sneezed, and as I opened my eyes, what do you think was the first thing I saw? “God bless you.” Oh man, I laughed. In retrospect, it probably looked like I was laughing at you, but really, I was laughing with you.
“I HAVEN’T EATEN IN A WEEK.” OK, that goes under the assumption that you make a new sign daily, which I doubt you do. In other words, will tomorrow’s sign say “I haven’t eaten in a week and one day”? You see what I’m getting at? Instead, how about a one-word grabber: “Hungry.” Or “Starving.” That might be a bit more eleg
ant.
“MY FAMILY HAS AIDS.” OK, gotta be honest—this is a real downer. Can you bang it down to the mumps or maybe the flu? Or maybe something like, “Me no feel so good!” (All I’m saying is, funny sells.)
The only other part that bumped for me is when you wrote you were a homeless vet. Now to me, you look around fifty or so, although admittedly it’s hard to gauge, what with the leathery skin and the matted hair. If you are fifty, I have a hard time figuring out what war you’re a veteran of. ’Nam seems like the most likely war for you, but that ended probably around thirty-five years ago, so you’re too young for that. And yet you seem too old for either of the Gulf wars. So right out of the gate, I’m skeptical—unless, of course, you meant that you’re a veterinarian, which would explain the pretty healthy looking dog you have with you. If that’s the case, you should clarify.
