The Boo Factor
July 20th, 2006
I’ve seriously got a problem.
And it isn’t the kind of problem that I can go to a doctor for. Or a dermatologist. Or a surgeon. Or a doctor who deals with a major calcium deficiency. Or the kind of doctor who puts you in a air-tight examination room in a paper gown, asks you to sit on a paper-covered table (circa 1957) and makes you sit there with a draft up your butt for 45 minutes.
No, this problem (and me, personally) seems to be far more elusive than that.
Let me first explain my problem, which is an ailment currently going by the name of Bootasis Hideafesteria. Believed to afflict every one out of fifty (50) individuals, Bootasis Hideafesteria is the compulsion to quickly hide around corners, in closets and behind beds in dark household rooms in an attempt to (and we quote), “scare the living bejesus out of another person by hiding, biding ones’ time, and then shouting out the most horrific and scary word ever…”
Boo!
There’s two problems to address when facing a life controlled and manipulated by such an affliction. First and foremost is the compulsion to continually hide in an attempt to scare people. For me (and I’m coming clean on this and being honest here so know that I’m a little fragile), I am always on the outlook for a great hiding place where my labored non-breathing (because breathing can ruin the joke and allow you to be found) cannot be heard. Some people are constantly looking for poker games to play, horses to bet on, free buffet premieres where they can drink those drinks until they’re sufficiently drunk…
But me? I’m constantly looking for awesome hiding places.
I’ll never forget August 8th, 2004 — a day that will live in infamy as the time I actually stuffed myself under the kitchen counters after having emptied all the pots and pans into the guest room of my home. There I waited, for 45 minutes, for my roommate to come home and go for the frying pan. I won’t lie — I was in utter and complete pain, having had to contort my body into a shape no mere mortal should ever be required to form their body into. But when my roommate opened that kitchen cabinet door wide, I was more ready with my Boo! than anyone has ever been ready with a Boo.
Which brings me to my next issue.
The compulsion to hide and refuse to respond to shouts of “hey, where are you?” all with the distinct goal of scaring the crap out of someone else in your ominous, quiet little home is bad enough on its own. It’s even worse when you find yourself doing it at other people’s houses — the equivalent of looking in someone’s medicine cabinet, but instead looking for great hiding places in their homes. But even worse than hiding in some stranger’s wet bar or their wine cellar or that awesomely-huge pink hamper in their 2 year old’s bedroom is the fact that after all the hiding has been done and the moment of truth arrives… And the person that you’re attempting to scare is reaching to open that keg-o-rator mini-fridge…
Is that I have to shout Boo!
Boo. Really? The dictionary defines the word “Boo” as a word “said suddenly to surprise someone.” I mean, I guess we’ve all been conditioned with the word, but aren’t there far better non-conventional things to say to scare someone even more? I mean, if you went to open your child’s toy chest to put all those toys away one night after all your dinner party guests had gone home (except for me, of course, who had been hiding in said toy chest for like an hour already just to try and scare you) and I jumped out and said something like, “I think I’ve just accidentally soiled myself…”
Isn’t that scarier than Boo!?
Wouldn’t the visual of me, all cramped into your child’s toy chest, having just said that I think I soiled myself (and potentially all the other toys in the toy chest) be scarier than me just jumping out and shouting some old pre-19th Century word at you? Wouldn’t finding me hiding in your fold-out couch/bed in your living room and then jumping out and saying something like, “I’ve been trapped in there since your party last month… by the way, you don’t know me but I’m Frank’s friend Pauly D…” shake you to the core more than that three-letter nothingness? Wouldn’t me, falling out from your A/C vent in your master bedroom and crashing down onto your 5400 square foot architecture model you’d been working on for a presentation that was due tomorrow and saying something like, “I think I’ve got shingles” make you run for the hills?
Probably more than Boo!
So while I can’t stop my compulsion for hiding in the trunk of your car and scaring you at the most inopportune time (while being pulled over for speeding by the Highway Patrol) or jumping out of your wedding dress box in the back of your storage space… I can stop the trend of shouting Boo! to scare someone.
Because honestly. Really. Is it scary at all?
Nah. I didn’t think so either.
—
In other news, don’t forget that tomorrow “Words For Your Enjoyment” — where you submit an idea for a post, we write it, lock it up, and you keep the key. Or something like that. Don’t let another week pass you by without getting a unique opportunity to get your chance at being in the WFYE Ambassador’s Club! (More on that, later.)
The temptation to test your behavior is almost overwhelming.
Comment by Keith — July 20, 2006 @ 7:46 am
You’re just mean, not scary.
Comment by susan — July 20, 2006 @ 8:28 am
Susan - Mean? Look, I’ve got a problem here. You don’t go around telling alcoholics they’re mean, do you? Well, if they beat you, you do. But still.
Comment by Pauly D — July 20, 2006 @ 8:35 am
I see a BHA (Bootasis Hideafesterias Anonymous) group forming in the near future.
Comment by Hilary — July 20, 2006 @ 8:51 am
In all honesty, there are hundreds, nay thousands, of words scarier than “boo.” But none of them ever work quite as well.
You want a great way to take your obsession to the next level? I work part time at a gym and, when I train people, I tend to hide around corners and scare them as we’re closing the place down. Considering we’re two of the only people in there and they don’t know the place so well, it makes for great jumps. I’d videotape it for you, but that would take way too much prep time and, face it, I’m lazy.
Comment by Kevin — July 20, 2006 @ 9:11 am
I participate in booing, as well, but I wait quietly outside the bathroom door until the victim finishes and opens the door. It’s a more low-key form of the practice of booing, yet quite effective when timed appropriately.
Comment by Danielle — July 20, 2006 @ 9:33 am
why boo, when you can get a cheap fart pillow to position for your hapless…. i meant, happy… victims? especially with company around?
there’s no pleasure beyond watching them emphatically deny being the sole originator of sesmic-inducing farts… while you emit clucks of sympathy… after all, something else could be worse with them… (tee hee hee)
Comment by tochi — July 20, 2006 @ 9:59 am
I think what we’re talking about here is simply a most excellent example of onomatopoeia. Like Kevin said, nothing works better than “boo” and nothing sounds more like “boo” than “boo!”
Comment by Jeff — July 20, 2006 @ 10:02 am
Damn. You should have posted a warning with this post. Just pulling up the site to see Boo right up there like that scared the crap out of me!
Comment by jerry — July 20, 2006 @ 12:09 pm
that boo ghost could be from pacman. i can hear the music now.
Comment by ms. sizzle — July 20, 2006 @ 1:33 pm
I had to stifle my laughter while reading this post as I’m sitting at my desk at work. I about lost it when I read your fold-up couch paragraph. Love it!
Comment by Nanette — July 20, 2006 @ 4:14 pm
People who like to scare other people are just plain sick. SICK I TELLYA!! But since you have no intention of stopping your sick, twisted hobby, maybe you could try saying POO instead. That’s pretty scary in its own right.
Comment by Monica Ricci — July 20, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
Is what you shout really so important? Cause if you suddenly jumped out of my hamper or fold-up couch or my kitchen cabinets, I’d scream so loud I wouldn’t know what the hell you said.
Comment by Rabbit — July 20, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
Do I scare you, Pauly?
Comment by Amy — July 20, 2006 @ 6:15 pm
Amy - Maybe.
Comment by Pauly D — July 20, 2006 @ 6:16 pm
Ok, Being that you have at least 50 readers here, it shouldn’t be surprising that at least one of your readers shares this same affliction.
Of course, that would be me. Well, I should say, I used to share the affliction. Quite honestly, you can never completely be cured, or so the specialists all over the world, have told me. But I will tell you, my fellow BH’r, what helped me was this.
It was back in 1994. I was at a friends house when a nook in a hallway beckoned me to come hide in it. I tried to resist but my efforts were futile. I anxiously awaited my victim, a 62 year old grandfather figure. Mentally practicing my “boos” in my head, so as to get it just right, I heard him approach. I jumped out from the nook and shouted “Boo”. The best “boo” you could ever imagine. Suddenly, he grabbed his chest. His breathing became labored. He was having a full blown heart attack! As he lay on the ground, gasping for air, still clutching his chest, I swore to myself that if he made it through, I would never succumb to my BH again.
Suddenly he began to laugh. He got me. Yes, in my attempt to scare the bejesus out of him, he had oned me over with his articulate acting skills. Still I remember the oath I had made to myself and the fact that if not today, perhaps someday, my unfortunate disease could mean the life of someone I loved dearly. From that moment, I decided, it was time for me to take control and to take my life back. BH was not going to be the boss of me any longer!
I still have some setbacks, yes, but I always remember that day back in 1994 and it helps. Perhaps this information will help you too. Good luck, my friend.
Comment by Jacquie — July 21, 2006 @ 4:32 am
Jacquie - This really touched me. In fact, I’m calling Oprah right now to see if she wants to buy the rights to your BH story and cast Halle Berry in the role of YOU. God, that would change the world, you and your story.
Fingers crossed!
Comment by Pauly D — July 21, 2006 @ 9:02 am
I laughed my ass of reading this entire post. I didn’t know there was someone out there who had a worse affliction of Bootasis Hideafesteria than I did.
God, I hope you really did hide in a toybox at someone elses house just to scare them…
Comment by mojotek — July 21, 2006 @ 10:56 am
Well, all right then. I’m gonna gather up 30 of your closest friends and relatives and we’ll all hide, shout “Boo!” at you and have a boo-intervention.
Comment by susan — July 22, 2006 @ 11:53 pm
Bootasis Hideafesteria? No, no, no it’s called Bratitis!!
Comment by Rachel — July 24, 2006 @ 11:53 am