When I was about five years old my family and I moved to Idaho for a while and we lived in a... let's see... I'm trying to remember the house... we lived in a creepy little house in the middle of a field. During Christmas time, my Grandmother came to visit. Me and my Grandmother always went on these things called "nature walks" where we would go out into the wilderness and look for things like pinecones and rocks. When she arrived in Idaho I was anxious, incredibly anxious, to go on one of our little walks. It was dusk and getting dark very fast. We headed out up the driveway with a flashlight. My Grandmother was already in her nightgown and slippers. I was instructed to hold the flashlight beam against the ground to keep her from getting her slippers wet in any of the puddles. We got to the end of our driveway and started up the road when I heard this terrifyingly loud thumping.... no more like a WHUMPing noise. At that moment, I looked up the road, into the darkness, and to my horror saw a 50-foot-tall monster covered in long, red fur wearing shiney red Speedos and shiney red boots with glowing red eyes. I screamed, dropped the flashlight into a puddle, splashing my Grandmother, and turned and ran back to the house as fast as I could. I pulled my Dad out of the shower and convinced him, sobbing, to go outside (in only a towel) and save my Grandmother from the monster. My Father returned with my Grandmother; both were laughing and explained to me that the noise I had heard was the next-door neighbor beating the dust out of her rug with a broom. After that, we moved to a ski resort nearby. The Grand Targee Ski Resort. I developed a compulsive fear of those furry ski boots that women often wore in the 70's. I'm okay now.
