Now, for anyone who doesn't know, the Tailypo is a monster from a Southern ghost story. Basically, there's this old man who lives in the woods with his dogs. He goes hunting one day and his dogs bring him the tail of some animal he didn't see. He takes the tail home and eats it for dinner. Then that night he hears scratching noises and a creepy voice says something like, "Tailypo, tailypo, who has taken my tailypo?" To make a short story even shorter, the old guy gets "flayed beyond recognition"* by the Tailypo who, obviously, gets his tail back.
ANYWAY. My roommate and I both heard this story when we were little. My Gran used to read it, and she had a creepy Tailypo voice. Roommate and I were both traumatized by the Tailypo, so of course we're obsessed with it now. As we continued talking about it, we decided that if one of us wakes up in the middle of the night, we'll start chanting "tailypo tailypo I'm comging to get my tailypo" in a creepy voice until the other one wakes up, because it's fun scaring the crap out of each other like that.
Now, I turn into a giant wimp at night. If I wake up in the middle of the night (and I only sleep through the night about once or twice a year) and I've been thinking about something scary like the Tailypo, I will become irrationally scared of EVERYTHING. Seriously. So anyway, last night I had a nightmare about tornadoes, and woke up at 5am. I considered chanting "tailypo" at my roommate, but then I became irrationally afraid that I would freak myself out by doing that. So I didn't. Roommate was pretty disappointed when I told her. :)
If you've been deprived this wonderfully traumatizing childhood experience, go check out "Tailypo: A Ghost Story" by Joanna Galdone. It's terrifying.
I love my roommates. It warms my heart that they're just as crazy as I am.
*See the Wikipedia article on the Tailypo.
1 comment:
I've forgotten this story. It scared me more than any story I can remember. Actually, The Witches was probably scarier, but only by a little.
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