Baba Yaga The Wise

 when I was a very young girl, I was taken to see a movie in theaters in the late 70s called Slither. At least that’s what I recall. It being called in this movie. There was a lake retreat, where people would camp for the summer with their dogs and their families and their boats upon entering the theater one of the ushers gave me a little pamphlet and told me to keep it under my pillow or slither would get me. Needless to say, I believed him, and when I went to visit my grandparents that summer and stay at their lake resort in Montana, I took the slither paper with me and tucked it safely under my pillow, but when I flew to South Dakota to visit my father. I forgot the little piece of paper in Montana and had an all out panic attack. My father took me to a toy store and bought me an alligator and named it slither and told me that if I slept with it, I would be safe so I slept with it every night when I was at his house. He also explained to me that lither wasn’t real and that he couldn’t get me because he was just a monster in a movie. I’m pretty sure that my mother and stepfather got in trouble for this whole situation and it took me years to believe that slither and alligators weren’t sleeping underneath my bed. What’s funny is 25 years later one of my sons developed a fear of alligators being in the toilet after watching a Rugrats episode seems the alligator doesn’t fall far from the swamp.