Chupacabra

I’ve never really liked my name, Charlene. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is because I don’t like the “Ch” sound, and because people here always pronounce it wrong.

As much as I’ve always disliked my name, one time during my childhood I was obsessed with writing it everywhere I could. Like on walls. I shouldn’t have been writing on walls, or anywhere else that was not paper for that matter. So my parents got all mad at me for writing on the walls, the windows, the doors, the appliances, etc.

Still, I wanted to write my name everywhere. So I figured that I could still write on walls if it was really small and my parents couldn’t see it. So I went ahead and wrote a “C” (the first letter of my name) everywhere I could think of. I was so excited.

Shortly after running out of places to leave my mark, a horrible thought came to my mind? What if the Chupacabra thought it was “C” for chupacabra and thought I was calling it, then came to kill me? That was almost a reasonable thought, since I was so young and the chupacabra sensation was all you could hear in the news back then. The Chupacabra sucked the blood out of X and Y animal. I was so fricking scared.

So I went back to all my marks and wrote an “h” after the C, so it read “Ch”. That’s so it was obvious that it meant my name, not some monster’s name. After adding an “h” to all the C’s, I felt relieved. Until of course, I remembered that “Chupacabra” also starts with “Ch”. Oh my god. I was terrified. I could hear the Chupacabra creeping behind me already.

I went back and added an “a” after the “Ch”, so it read “Cha”. That would make the monster know that I wasn’t calling it.

That night, shortly before going to sleep I was still scared of the monster. What if the monster was stupid and thought that it said “Chu”? Before going to sleep, I tried to scrub off all the marks I had made. Some came off, and some didn’t. I was terrified for days.

I never wrote on a wall again, that’s for sure.

Have you had any similar experience with monsters (or thought of monsters) in your childhood? Did you parents tell you that the boogeyman would come to get you if you didn’t behave?