Bigfoot, Killer Bees & More Things That Scared ’80s Kids

When it was announced recently that Columbia House — yes, the “this many records or tapes for a penny” people, which was still around — is officially shutting down for good, my heart jumped. Not from shock that it was shutting down, but from the sheer mention of the name, since I am still not over the feeling that I have been on the lam from the law for the past 40 years after I paid my penny and then nothing else. I’m a fugitive.

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These are the core memories that stick with you. I’d convinced myself I had embezzled money from a corporate giant and the only place that I would land was in juvenile hall — all because I wanted Pyromania on cassette.

Was this as scary as the other things that scared kids in the ’80s? Not really, given it was a time when we had to give at least some thought to impending nuclear war and its aftermath (which we were forced to watch movies about in school) and the danger of drugs lurking on every corner and school hallway (even Nancy Reagan showed up on Diff’rent Strokes to tell us about it) or landing on a milk carton.

1980s Kids Had a Tendency to Create Our Own Fears

Other fears came from the worst source imaginable — our own silly selves, who very much convinced ourselves through some kind of schoolyard panic that if you said a few words to the mirror in the school bathroom that … well, read on to see if you get it. And let’s not forget the good ol’ Ouija Board. What could possibly go wrong?

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Quija board game

Either way, if you grew up in the 1980s, at least a few of these lived rent-free in your head long after the bedroom light was supposed to be off. And now that Columbia House is finally, actually closing for good, I figure the statute of limitations has run out. I’m a free man.