Mark My Words

I’ve Got a Sinking Feeling

1–2 minutes

When I was a kid, I was scared to death of quicksand.

I don’t know whether to blame Gilligan’s Island or The Incredible Hulk or one of the countless television shows and movies that portrayed people getting stuck in quicksand. All I know is, while a lot of people avoided swimming after watching Jaws, I preferred bodies of water to land, figuring the risk of a shark attack was minuscule compared to the very real danger posed by quicksand, which I believed lurked everywhere that wasn’t paved over. I was convinced I’d inadvertently step in a quicksand-filled swamp on my way to school and be swallowed whole, a thought that terrified me.

Look at the fear on the Skipper’s face! No wonder scenes like this gave me nightmares.

Sure, it seems silly now, but according to Slate magazine, 3% of all films released in the 1960s showed characters sinking in quicksand. No wonder I was so scared! The reality is, it’s physically impossible for a human to become completely immersed and drown in quicksand; because of the fluid’s high density, we can only sink to about waist-level. This still leaves us vulnerable to dehydration, hypothermia, or predator attack, but those all feel pretty unlikely. I am simply shocked to learn that Hollywood over-exaggerated the danger!

What, if any, irrational childhood fears did you have?

Still not sure if I’m writing every day this month…

22 responses to “I’ve Got a Sinking Feeling”

  1. Edmonton Tourist Avatar
    Edmonton Tourist

    I also thought quicksand would be problematic when I became an adult. And I thought I’d see a lot more anvils and headhunters.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Swinged Cat Avatar
      Swinged Cat

      LOL! And along those lines, whatever happened to the Acme company?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  2. Kerri Avatar
    Kerri

    I was petrified of closets, especially at night. I read Stephen King’s Night Shift when I was pretty young…10 or so, so believe. And there was one story that scarred me for years: The Boogeyman. I would literally give any closet a wide berth, or move extremely fast when walking by. And if the door was even cracked open at night? I wouldn’t even go near it. Nope.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Swinged Cat Avatar
      Swinged Cat

      I have a real-life creepy story about a closet…

      …maybe I’ll have to write about that soon!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  3. AutumnAshbough Avatar
    AutumnAshbough

    I recently watched a whole video on how to escape quicksand and now I have no fears. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Swinged Cat Avatar
      Swinged Cat

      Is the crux of it just to yell “Help!” as loudly as you can?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. AutumnAshbough Avatar
        AutumnAshbough

        Ha, ha, no, there’s a whole science to it. Pretty cool.

        Like

    2. David M. Green Avatar
      David M. Green

      The best way to escape from quicksand is to avoid it altogether. 😇

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      1. Swinged Cat Avatar
        Swinged Cat

        I can’t argue with that!

        Like

  4. Rivergirl Avatar
    Rivergirl

    Our town flooded once when I was I child. Days later my mother took me the park, I wandered out of her site down near the bridge where I wasn’t allowed to go. I walked under it and got swallowed in the mud up to my chest. Frigging terrifying. Took 4 grown men to haul me out. Not quicksand… but close.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Swinged Cat Avatar
      Swinged Cat

      Great.

      You have just rekindled that ol’ childhood fear I’d worked so hard to overcome…

      (Scary story. Glad you made it out okay.)

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  5. Bijoux Avatar
    Bijoux

    I was also fearful of quicksand. It seemed to be in an awful lot of TV shows and cartoons? My main fear was dogs, but my brother and best friend were both bitten by German shepherds, so not that irrational. And I’m still afraid when I hear barking to this day.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Midwest Mark Avatar
      Midwest Mark

      Dogs don’t like me. But that’s another story. Having been bitten by a dog myself, I understand your brothers’ fears!

      Like

      Reply
  6. Ally Bean Avatar
    Ally Bean

    I, too, grew up with an amazing respect for quicksand. I learned about how evil it was on TV. Now to think I was duped…

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
  7. The Travel Architect Avatar
    The Travel Architect

    That’s a good point you make. You never see people sinking into quicksand on TV or in movies anymore. Must have been deemed too hokey and unlikely. D’ya know what, though? Sinkholes – the kind that swallow houses – are a real thing. Don’t know how common they are, but they’re kind of like the grownup version of quicksand.

    Great, now I’m going to have nightmares, and I already have that damn Menard’s song in my head to boot!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. David M. Green Avatar
      David M. Green

      Every good thing comes to an end eventually. Quicksand scenes went out of fashion as horror movies stopped being creative becoming ever in your face grosser with each passing year.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
      1. Swinged Cat Avatar
        Swinged Cat

        Sad but true. I prefer good old-fashioned quicksand to gore!

        Liked by 1 person

      2. David M. Green Avatar
        David M. Green

        As do I. I did discover four horror movies on Amazon Prime made like they would have been made in the 50’s. They are the best I’ve seen in a long long time though there wasn’t any quicksand.

        Like

  8. David M. Green Avatar
    David M. Green

    My mother was terrified of quicksand after listening to a skit on the radio when she was a little girl (back then they didn’t have television) of a women who stumbled into quicksand after pulling over onto the side of the road.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Swinged Cat Avatar
      Swinged Cat

      I used to think there were puddles of quicksand right alongside the road, too!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. David M. Green Avatar
        David M. Green

        I grew up cheering on the quicksand yet it wasn’t until in my mid teens that I saw a woman go down without being rescued.

        I write quicksand and horror stories would you like me to share them with you?

        Like

  9. Writer McWriterson Avatar
    Writer McWriterson

    So many quicksand situations in sitcoms and cartoons from the 1970s.
    I was also terrified of tornadoes because of The Wizard of Oz, and of house fires because of all the fire drills we had at school.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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