Little fungal creatures hang onto our shower walls while we assume the bathroom empty, they make their way onto our pizzas and our soups, they get ground up into tiny pills that millions of people swallow daily without a second thought, or get taken at parties causing guests to see the cookie monster humping the nightstand.

Mushrooms are everywhere! We can’t escape.. They are a part of our lives and even a part of US! Their spores float into our noses and our lungs. We are carrying around little mushroom babies! Sick!

Alright, so that’s not really accurate, most funguses are harmless…BUT ever heard of aspergillus? It happens when a rude species of fungus takes over a previously damaged portion of your lung and GROWS inside of you! The fungal bundle of joy then proceeds to make your life hell and is ridiculously hard to remove.

And what about athlete’s foot? Or jock itch? Is all that irritation really necessary?

It’s just weird that we end up paying 5 additional dollars to have mushrooms on a pizza knowing full well how nasty the distant cousin of the white cap is. You wouldn’t pay to suck on someone’s athletey foot right?

Mushrooms don’t really fit in anywhere. They aren’t considered a plant or animal. They are just eerie: It’s scary how these little mushrooms shoot up from the ground overnight (and force me to think of a zombie with a hardon in a shallow grave) or envelope our bread within days. I’ve had hundreds of poor fruit bowls succumb to a fungal invasion!

But then again, mushrooms aren’t all bad.  The most popular video game of all time actually used the mushroom for inspiration (in more ways than one, I’m sure).

The groups of mushroom caps that cluster around on grassy knolls are kind of cute too…as long as you don’t think of the hundreds of white, filmy roots that connect them all underground. A 2,400 year old fungus in Oregon is supposedly the largest living organism on earth, covering over 2,000 acres. Once in a while a few golden-colored mushrooms will pop up when the giant feels the need for some fresh air.

In fact, all the mushroom caps you usually see in the backyard belong to one giant organism underground…you’re walking on it…on the creature that’s just inches beneath your feet…sometimes hundreds of acres long. What if it doesn’t like you picking it’s mushrooms?

I think horror movies are trying to convey a message:

Don’t. Have. Kids.

I have no problem watching a massive pink blob absorb a small village

or killer tomatoes roll through the neighborhood

or boyfriends transform into confused, snarling dogs

or a group of buxom blonds get lost in the woods, catch a crazy disease and try to kill each other, only to get  skinned alive and turned into wax statues by the local hobgoblin.

But the instant you throw a baby into the equation…it’s all over!

Example: Killer zombies. Awesome. Bring on the popcorn.

Killer BABY zombies??!! I will curl up in the fetal position and possibly pee my pants. I can’t do it.

Kids are meant to be pure and innocent. The idea of a small, naïve child turning on an adult, OUTSMARTING them and potentially murdering them with their tiny little, baby hands is what nightmares are made of.

Children of the Corn, The Omen, The Exorcist and The Ring are arguably some of the scariest movies of their time, and they all involve a kid in one form or another.

Now, I could be wrong…but what else would possess someone to make such a stressful movie besides wanting to teach people a lesson? Stressing us out can’t be the only reason?!

Horror movies may be a community service-it’s population control! Countless teens will abstain from jumping into each other’s laps, even when their raging hormones make self-control almost impossible. The idea of an unexpected pregnancy is just too scary!

Or maybe it’s just easy to make a horror movie…and kids don’t really need a huge paycheck to be happy.

Just an FYI, I am excellent with kids.

I opened the overpriced novels as soon as we got home and was immediately uncomfortable with the material: My eyes widened as I read about poltergeists throwing knives across the room, aliens abducting teenagers driving across the country and ghosts appearing at the foot of your bed. But nothing…and I mean NOTHING…scared me more than the stories about spontaneous human combustion.

I read biographies on Robert Francis Bailey, John Irving Bentley, Mary Reeser, Henry Thomas and George Mott-All people who died by suddenly bursting into flames.

One sadistic author was gracious enough to provide a photo of the cremated remains of John Bentley-a physician who managed to explode into ashes while in the bathroom. Staring up at me was photographic proof that there was nothing left of this man but part of a scorched leg lying on the blackened tile floor. I had nightmares about that leg.

Turns out that these lonely legs are a common theme when it came to spontaneous combustion: Mary Reeser (a.k.a “the cinder lady” ) fell asleep in her chair after taking some sleeping pills. And why not wash those pills down with a nice cigarette? A lit cigarette may have fallen out of Mary’s hand, which then started a blazing fire that just used her body as a fuel source.  In the end, nothing was left of Mary except for a leg burned off at the knee, with the intact foot still nestled away in her slipper. That slipper would be worth a fortune on ebay!!

There are a few theories as to how people can turn into a flaming torch-they mixed too much meth with alcohol, their clothes sucked up some fat and are now super flammable ( body fat will burn like a wick), static electricity ignited it all-but it doesn’t make it any less scary.

I wandered around terror stricken for months after reading those horrible stories. My dad was a smoker, and I had no way of stopping myself from turning into a pile of ash if he managed to accidentally fling the cigarette in my direction. Later on, I started to think that these people had intentionally set themselves on fire. A superpower that only works once.  Peoples’ homes typically remain intact, there is no burdensome body to carry down the stairs, and hard earned money doesn’t need to be spent at the crematorium.  

Doesn’t sound that horrible. Just so long as you don’t ignite yourself on a subway or children’s hospital…

It’s a good thing I read those books, though. Nothing works better than the thought of spontaneous combustion to keep you from lighting a cigarette in bed.