MY Love Affair with Monsters
by Tresa Frazier  (2006)

I have been a Scream Queen my entire life. I can trace my love affair with Monsters all the way back to childhood.

One of my favorite memories came during Christmas in 2003. As my family and friends gathered at the Christmas tree, it was my turn to open my gift.  My sister-in-law Sherry was shimmying with excitement as she pushed a very large box towards me.  It was easily the biggest box under the tree and it had garnered envious glances all morning long.  Now as the magic moment arrived, everyone stood around wondering what it could be.  The tension mounted...

Much to my delight, I pulled a singing tombstone out of the box !!

As I squealed with joy, the group was looking at my sister Sherry and me with nothing short of puzzlement on their mugs.  Are they crazy?  Sherry looked up and stated, "You just have to know Tresa. This is the PERFECT gift for her!"

I added, "YES!!! It is!  THANK YOU!!!!"

You see, my close family members have learned to take advantage of the fact that both my birthday and Christmas follow my most favorite holiday of all: Halloween!!

Being the thrifty person that I am, I have nothing but absolute joy and respect for those members of my life that A) save a few bucks by scooping up all the Halloween clearance items and saving them for my gifts to come and B) thinking enough of me to get me a gift that I totally love AND intend to use!!

While other wives have candy, cards, jewelry and gifts bestowed upon them for Valentine's Day, my beloved husband gives the gift that keeps on giving - the newest Stephen King novel in hardback!

I can enjoy the book over and over again while other wives are saddened to catch a glimpse of a pack of dead buds on the counter a week later. Nor do I worry about my bathroom scale inching up yet a few more pounds from that heart shaped box of candy. If anything, I lose a pound or two fighting the monster in my imagination while reading that book!

Those that truly know me know my heart. And if you are brave enough to take a peek, do so at your own risk because you will find it filled with cobwebs!

My love for monsters started with Halloween. For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated with the macabre.  I just can't get enough of it! Some of my earliest memories have ghoulish details tacked to them. For instance, I could not have been more than maybe 3 or 4. My mother, sister and I were living in Indiana at the time.

I remember her walking us down the street to the babysitter's house before leaving for work. On the way there was a small corner store and I remember thinking that "Yeah, Halloween is gonna be here soon! Candy, costumes, what fun!" while gazing at all the pumpkins, scarecrows, witches, bats and skeletons that were taped up on the big glass windows.

There is just something about the autumn air that charges me. The wind is cool and refreshing after a blistering summer. The fall leaves are every color imaginable. Everything is going to sleep for the season. Warm colors, smells of cinnamon, pumpkin and apple cider surround you. Those who have had the immense luck to live up north through at least one fall season will agree.

There is nothing else like this time in the world. A simple late evening walk under October skies stirs the mind to imagination and fantasy. This is the time of year when thoughts of other realms, and just about anything that does not reside within everyday reality, has a way of infusing our senses with mystery and awe.

Thoughts of Monsters have never really scared me.  Sure, when I was very young I would get a jolt from something unexpected.  But soon every scare tactic that instilled fear in others instead provoked my obsessive curiosity.  I would immediately try to figure out "Hey, how did they do that?"  

Some of my fondest memories from childhood almost always include monsters.  Maybe it was going to see a vampire movie with my parents at the local drive in theater (Man, don't you miss those drive-ins?). 

Or maybe it was lying under a pullout couch as the original black and white movie The Fly scared us half to death.  If it involved the bizarre, I was always happy!

And boy did I have fun!  No matter what the movie, you could count on two things: My sister Trelsa would try to cover her face at the appearance of a terrible monster and the other was me trying to scare the tar out of her every chance I got!!  

By the way, yes, you figured it out. My parents named us Tresa and Trelsa.   What were they thinking?  With parents like that, how could I hope to be normal?

I loved terrorizing my sister.  Fortunately, over the years Trelsa began to toughen up. She had no choice.  It was that or perish.  

No pity for the puny at my house! 

When I was a young girl I was often referred to as a witch.   To set the record straight, I am not a witch.  But I could see where they were coming from. 

For starters, I am Italian and have inherited a rather long, pointy nose common to my heritage. Then there was my jet black, nearly waist-length hair.  Add to that my love for all things spooky and it comes as no surprise that I had an odd reputation as a kid. Thank goodness we were past the days of Salem Village!

The teasing didn't bother me at all. In fact, I loved it. I perfected my evil witch laugh and that was like the icing on the cake!

And my friends were right - I was a little odd. For example, my favorite episodes of Abbot and Costello were always the ones that had monsters in them. And throughout the year I could barely wait for the Halloween specials to start airing. This was the time when all those great monster movies made their annual visit to TV!!  It's probably a good thing we didn't have cable in those days or I might have been forced to skip school to catch the Monster Marathons!

I loved it when the grade schools and stores started pinning up Halloween decorations.  To heck with "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas", I wanted the place to look like Halloween!

I did everything I could to get people in the Halloween spirit as well. For example, I liked to invite the neighborhood kids over for séances and then try to scare the boogers out of them!   I was just doing it to get them in the right mood.

Costumes were important too. I loved dressing up for Halloween. I was lucky to have very creative parents so it was nothing for me to show up in unusual costumes.  I even loved having nightmares, the scarier the better!  Suffice it to say, I guess I was not your average Little Miss Sunshine Girl.  I was "Mistress of the Dark" way before Elvira came along and stole my nickname.

Haunted Houses were another love of mine.  Someone would always put together a Haunted House for the season.  I made it a point to visit every Haunted House in the neighborhood.  Some of them were pretty good, but I was never worried.

While other kids were screaming and crying, trying to escape as fast as they could, (poor sister Trelsa included), there I was lagging behind.  I wanted to take in every single minute detail my eye could absorb.  Call it "art appreciation".

Unfortunately, I guess I was a pain in the butt to the people hired to scare us. They would scream, bellow, growl, shriek and roar trying to frighten me.  Don't bother.  They were wasting their time.   What really irritated them was my habit of trying to strike up a conversation with them.   They didn't like that one bit!!

I was completely comfortable in the Haunted Houses.  Where sudden unexpected loud noises can startle me, monsters do not.

I would let the others go around me just so I could take a few more minutes to study all the props in the area.  Plus I had another motive to let them pass.  Staying at the rear allowed me to sneak up.  I learned they were so worried about what was ahead of them that they forgot about what was behind them... and that would be me!

I would let loose a heart-wrenching, blood-curdling scream at just the right moment that would scare the piss out of my friends!   This was so much fun!!

Muwahaahaahaaaa!

Or someone may be strange-looking.  We are trained to be suspicious of anything foreign.  We are taught to be afraid of strangers.  Until you know someone is safe, the smart move is to keep them at a distance.  That's just common sense.  We didn't ask for these instincts; they are part of our evolutionary make-up.  The fear reaction to the unknown is a natural survival mechanism. 

But there may also be something to the theory that Monsters are misunderstood.  Just because someone looks or acts different doesn't automatically mean they are dangerous.  Modern man might do well to think first before overreacting to every threat.

I guess some of my natural sympathy for monsters comes from my unusual childhood.  As a military brat while growing up, I was no stranger to moving every couple of years.  Don't let anyone fool you - that moving was tough!  Moving around so much brought challenges that needed to be overcome.  I sure didn't enjoy being forced to leave dear friends behind.  Just as tough was the task of making new friends.  Being the new kid all the time had its disadvantages. I was not only the new girl, but a strange one at that!  It is not hard to imagine that I got my fair share of being teased on a semi-regular basis.  

I had to learn the hard way the meaning of the phrase 'odd man out'.  Making friends wasn't easy because I was strange and different.   I experienced the feelings of not being readily accepted due my somewhat slanted view of the world. 

Until I finally made new friends, I spent a lot of time being lonely. That's how I grew to sympathize with monsters.  I was about 7 when I started thinking about the plight of the monster. I found myself relating to their experiences. I could see that in some ways we had things in common.  

Why 'Monsters' you ask?  Well, think about it a moment. Most of your classic monsters were but mere victims.  Victims of a certain type of prejudice if you will, as they are abnormal, look different, and seem dangerous.  They were not your average every day dude out for a stroll and people automatically feared them.

Did the Monsters ask to be this way?  Nope. Yet they were attacked for being nothing more than different. 

Let's take a closer look. Bram Stoker's Dracula is actually a love story that starts with a king's broken heart over the loss of his lovely wife.

While the king was off to war, a letter was sent to his wife telling her he had been killed in battle.  Wrought with grief, she threw herself from the top of the castle tower vowing she could not live without him.  Upon his return he found out what had happened. His heart filled with torment, he swore against the gods that they should let this happen. In doing this, he was cast away from his life as he knew it to live his future in the dark side.

The Frankenstein monster was created by a doctor. He was huge and ugly, but he was also innocent of any crime. He tried to help a little girl, but because he was so grotesque the villagers decide that he was WAY too ugly to be hanging out with a little kid.  So they decided to hunt him down.  Was he guilty of evil?  Nope.

The Wolfman gets bitten by a wolf.  Little does he know, he soon has a hairy problem. He is devastated with guilt by the crimes that take place while he is changing, but he is marked for death. 

And what about the Mummy?   Well, this guy had an excuse.  Even I am a total bitch if you wake me up from a sound slumber. And it wasn't like the workers were not warned.  

If I see a sign engraved on a wall that says "Yo…dead man sleeping. Do Not Disturb or you will be picking up your intestines with your spaghetti fork!"  I don't think I am gonna be too eager to prance my fat butt in there.  Would you?

Think about the monsters from their point of view.  How about King Kong?  Wasn't he minding his own business when they came to his island?   Like wild animals, the monsters almost always keep to themselves until someone wakes them up, disturbs their resting place, steals their eggs/coins/treasure/babies, or any other number of ways inconsiderate human beings come up with to mess with them.

Sometimes they retaliate. Who would blame them? Someone comes to your island and starts shooting, it's tough to be the nice guy.  Wouldn't you fight back too?

So as you can see, I have the utmost respect for monsters.  They are unique and special creatures.  Contrary to popular beliefs, they do have feelings, fears, and consciousness.  They would prefer to be loved or respected, but due to their looks this isn't going to happen.  So they pretty much stay to themselves until provoked.

I think people should work a little harder to see the humanity in Monsters. Let's be honest here, not all monsters are particularly cute.  So what?  Can't you relate?  Who hasn't had a bad hair day or two?  Take Carrie, she was your classic misfit. But all she wanted was a little love and acceptance.  Instead she was brutally humiliated.  Wouldn't you lose your temper too?

We are a strange crew, us monster lovers. We know it. We live it. We love it.  It sets us apart from those who are considered normal.  I wouldn't choose to be any other way.

Besides, every group should have at least one monster aficionado in it. Sure, a sunny day at the beach is always nice, but doesn't it help to have people who appreciate the dark side of life too?  We are very interesting people and we are always quick to offer a different point of view.

Plus whenever things get a little stale and humdrum, we can shake things up with a gothic joke or two.  It's bound to be a howler!