Tilex and Horror

Okay, this is a Tilex story that is quickly going to veer elsewhere ...

The other day I sprayed some Tilex around in one of our showers: Some mildew had arrived between some of the tiles, and it was time to zap it.

Strong smell, Tilex. Not good for you. So, I closed the bathroom door (right next to our bedroom) and noticed (for the first time?) that the door emitted a horrible squeak when I did so.

Now the veering part ...

As I've written here numerous times before, in 1952 and part of 1953 my family lived in Amarillo, Texas; we'd moved there from our home in Enid, Oklahoma. The Korean War was going on, and Dad, who'd remained in the Air Force Reserves after WW II, was called back to active duty and was sent to Amarillo Air Force Base. Dad was a chaplain.

Anyway, when we got to Amarillo, we discovered that, unlike Enid, the town had no TV station. So ... although we had a TV set, it became nothing but a piece of furniture during the year-and-a-half that we were there. For entertainment, we read, listened to records, rode bikes, went to the movies--and listened to the radio. In the early 1950s the radio was still regularly broadcasting the sorts of shows that would soon segue to television--The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, etc.

One of those shows was called Inner Sanctum Mysteries--scary shows that featured at the beginning (and throughout) a squeaking door. Link to some sound from the show. The show ran from 1941-52, going off the air shortly before my 8th birthday in November.

In 1952, that sound horrified me--I could not listen to the show alone--and could not bear much of it even when I was not alone. (I was but a wussy seven-year-old at the time.) As the Ghost of King Hamlet says, "O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!" (1.5).

There were also six (low-budget) films, and the show was on TV in 1954.

And ever since then, the sound of a creaking door has always kind of freaked me out.

And so ... back to Tilex. Because I am now "of a certain age," I am up several times a night (or more) to, you know ... Ordinarily, we keep the bathroom door open, but because of the Tilex, I'd kept it shut, so every time I ... visited ... the room (in the dark!), I opened (and closed) that squeaking door and thought of Inner Sanctum--and wondered if that sound was freaking out Joyce, as well. (A squeaking door at 1:17 a.m.!)

Think I need to look around for our can of WD-40 before, you know, I add "heart attack" to my lengthening list of woes!