Midterms

The tradition of midterms is the worst tradition.

But on the bright side: I DID get a B on a test I wrote in 30 minutes at 1:45 AM about a book I hated so much I started SparkNoting it halfway through [Je n'aime pas White Whales!]. Hallelujah!!

Tailypo

"Tailypo, Tailypo, now I've got my Tailypo."

These lines struck complete fear in my heart as a child. The book cover pictured above, though ripped and tattered and stained, put me on complete edge. It scared me more than the Bloody Mary stories my cousin Brian told me at Mardi Gras. It scared me more than the rattling chains my dad heard late at night from work... his office stood over an old slave market. And it even scared me more than Urusula from the Little Mermaid. 

As a child in Alabama, this story was read to me in preschool and kindergarten, and we identified with it although we lived in the city. My mama once told me a story about my grandpa or great grandpa seeing a snake in an outhouse and embarrassingly enough, when I flushed the toilet between the tender ages of 5-8, I was terrified that a tailypo- or a tailypo's tail- would crawl right on out.

Heck, I am 22 and I still don't like to look at this book cover.