Ever So Evil household objects

[Amy Z]

I think I had a lot of books I was afraid of like Eileen's National 
Geographics, but no specific one comes to mind.  But there was one 
Ever So Evil household object that haunted me for an entire 
summer . . . in fact, *several* household objects, because I was 
terrified of clocks.

Not all the time, mind you.  Not when they read, say, 3:30, or 
10:42.  Even midnight held no terror.  No, I was afraid of a very 
specific time.  If memory serves, it was 7:21.

See, that summer I saw this movie on TV:  The Hindenburg.  The idea 
behind The Hindenburg was that the disaster was caused by a time bomb 
planted aboard by someone, I guess an anti-fascist contingent.  The 
bomb was to go off at 7:30, when the Hindenburg had landed and only 
the top-brass Nazis were aboard having a cocktail party, or maybe it 
was to go off after everyone had left (even the Nazis), or 
something.  But anyway, the landing was delayed and the guy who set 
it went to re-set the timing, getting there, of course, with only a 
few minutes to spare.  I'll never forget the closeup of his sweating 
face and the timer on the bomb, which looked like an alarm clock, and 
how he turned it in the wrong direction (I guess) and BOOM.  Shot of 
man spinning into oblivion.

This scared the bejesus out of me, and true to the logic of children, 
instead of being terrified of bombs or zeppelins or anti-fascist 
guerrillas, I fixated on clocks.  I had a deathly terror of coming 
upon one when it was 7:21, as if that would somehow cause everything 
to come together and the bomb would go off.  So I would head outside 
around 7 p.m. and hunker down on the front steps, waiting for half an 
hour to pass, wondering if it had and wanting to go sneak a look at 
the clock to check, but what if I went in at EXACTLY 7:21?  

I don't even remember how I coped with my watch.  I must've taken it 
off for the entire summer.

And then there were the years in which cobras, a la Rikki Tikki Tavi, 
would come swarming out of the toilet if I flushed it.  I got very 
adept at getting as close as possible to the door, one finger 
outstretched to flush, and then running for my life.  But you all 
don't want to hear about that . . . 

Amy