Out of the blue, a flash of memory hit. It was as if seeing a bad dream coming up from the abyss of discarded and forgotten memory graveyard.

There was a thing. An image. It was… ugly-ish.

Depending on the angle, it passed for a scared senseless boy. But if one looked closer, it was anything but…

If one had to guess, it was prompted by a chat about all the scary movies people seem to enjoy. Some have great effects that scare people. Others are just comical in their failed attempts to be scary.

Then. That image flashed.

The ensuing goosebumps suggested that the image once held a very scary hold on the writer. What if… what if there was something worth exploring and looking into?

The Initial Ladder Idea.

Standing in the middle of a a large sidewalk while waiting for the light to change, the scene of hurried people eagerly trying to get to jobs they totally hate made for a comedic playground. While not a comedian, writing stories lends itself to watching people move about.

Up ahead was a big bright red truck with a super shiny white ladder raising it’s bucket to assist in placing new advertisement on a billboard. Of all things, the latest scary movie du jour.

For those reading this post in real time, it’s for a new movie who’s main advertisement character is a scary looking clown. OK, supposed to be scary looking anyway. Not judging. Just not having the effect of scaring me. That’s all.

Chuckling to myself (yes… yes… trying to write about myself in the third person feels… weird today so will slip in and out of first vs third person a lot in this post), I waited for the green light to cross. I never did fully understand the saying that starts with “Do not walk under ladders…” as the associated bad luck never managed to make sense to me.

Some time after walking under that super shiny white ladder (technically not a ladder… more like the shaft of the boom arm of the bucket crane… with a short ladder attached to the side of the arm) the image from history filled the imagination. There was a time when a white ladder had sent fear. There was a time, darkened passages with half visible people was scary.

Not trying to poke fun at childhood, the shiver that followed was not very amusing. The last time this writer (me) felt this kind of shiver, there was also the memory of being highly embarrassed and feeling shame and humiliation. You see, the story “When Ladders Traumatize” happened around the time when boys start to see women as being beautiful and attractive.

All the fellas in school were ahead and knew how to approach girls. They had that ease of conversation. They weren’t affected by the charm and giggling. I, on the other hand, didn’t really care all that much about girls. They were there. Sure. They looked good. Great. But they were not a factor in school.

I competed seriously with them, as they were quite smart and proud of that. Yet, the imaginary line between my scholarly self and social self never got crossed.

So, remembering those days was… chilling. I must have missed many a signal from one too many attractive gal who wondered what was wrong with me.

The peak of my humiliation and embarrassment did happen on a white wooden ladder actually. I couldn’t flirt to save my life. I was not thinking about school. I was not trying to mingle with the super pretty gals. I was trying to keep a low profile.

Why. Why. Why. Why!

On that very ladder… where I was working to sort out my fear of heights… the most beautiful woman I had yet seen in my age group in all my life… took it upon herself to flirt with me? I will never ever know.

I panicked. I stammered. I flushed over. I nearly lost my composure. I wanted to get off the ladder. I wanted to hide. She wanted to talk. She wanted to know too many things. Top secret things. Like my name, what town I came from, how I managed to look so handsome, what school I went to.

While I was on the freakin’ scariest shakiest ladder of all time! And, she was standing super close to me. Her perfume was of the gods. I could not understand why I wanted to feel her lips against mine.

My own perception of things was that my mind had lost itself in the whole fear of ladders thing (no… I am not going to expand on the stomach pain thing… it was only aggravated by the fear of heights… but the pain had started much earlier in the story… announcing the pain early would not have made the story as compelling).

I didn’t want to say something stupid. I didn’t want to look uncool. I didn’t want to disrespect her by groping her and letting my extremely fast heartbeat dictate what I would do. It’s not polite to touch strangers without their permission.

But man did I want to feel her body next time mine… um… actually… wanted to feel way more of her body next time mine as she was letting her breast touch me through her very very thin blouse.