{"id":12872,"date":"2024-09-12T15:39:16","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T19:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12872"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:03:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T13:03:59","slug":"jump-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=12872","title":{"rendered":"Jump scare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evan Waite \u201902 is a co-executive producer of FOX\u2019s hit Family Guy. A satirist and humorist, he has also written for the show The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and contributes frequently to The Onion, McSweeney\u2019s, and The New Yorker\u2019s \u201cShouts and Murmurs\u201d section.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Now he adds a book, Life Wants You Dead: A Calm, Rational, and Totally Legit Guide to Scaring Yourself Safe, published by Chronicle Books, to his credits. And it is, of course, funny. Framed as a survival guide, and stemming from Waite\u2019s own apprehension during the pandemic, Life Wants You Dead aims to \u201chelp us fear better. And longer. And bone-deeper.\u201d Waite jokes about dangers and absurd fears we all face in various spheres of life \u2014 our bodies, our loved ones, our homes, technology, doctors, and school. In the excerpt below, from a chapter titled \u201cIs the Man in the Mirror Stalking You?,\u201d Waite illustrates why we should all fear the human body.<\/span><\/p>\n

THERE HE IS AGAIN. Using your toothbrush. Peeing beside you. Lifting identical weights at identical times.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Coincidence, or something more sinister?\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Seeing that same jerk each time you look in the rearview can be an unsettling experience. It\u2019s easy to brush off such suspicions as paranoia. Why would someone try on a jacket in front of you at the store, or check for spinach in their teeth after you had a big salad? But being followed by this mysterious freak is more common than you might think. Each year, millions of people experience some form of stalking by their reflection.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

If your gut tells you you\u2019re being watched by someone with your same gelled edges, trust it. Chances are it\u2019s no accident that they\u2019re right there with you every time you glance at a shiny toaster.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Creeps like the mirror monster will look for any way to interact with their victims. A typical tactic is to show up when your guard is down, like when you\u2019re trimming your ear hair or poking at a pimple, then let their guard down to an equal extent. This increases your level of comfort with them, drawing you deeper into their twisted orbit.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly, mirror stalkers tend to choose victims of the same height, gender, and level of baldness as their victims. Other than funhouse mirror stalkers, who vary by width and waviness, the demographic pattern is chillingly accurate. Women frequently stalk one another when getting dressed in the morning.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The man in the mirror has been following me since we were both babies, and I\u2019ve tried everything to make him go away. When I punch the mirror, he stands in the shards. I threaten to call the cops, and he picks up his phone. I can\u2019t floss, I can\u2019t primp, and I\u2019ve stopped using my Waterpik! In my darker moments, I\u2019ve even thought about doing away with my sight altogether by wearing a blindfold, but I couldn\u2019t live with the guilt of knowing my family would find my body sprawled over an ottoman I tripped on.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Well, I\u2019m tired of running from reflective surfaces. Maybe it\u2019s time to face the man in the mirror and see what he wants. Who knows, maybe I\u2019ve misjudged him. When you come to think of it, we actually have a lot in common. We dress the same way, lotion our bodies in the same order, and both like singing Al Green into our respective hairbrushes.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The man in the mirror isn\u2019t perfect, but neither am I. Maybe we both need to start treating each other better, because in the end, we\u2019re all we\u2019ve got.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family Guy writer Evan Waite pokes fun at our deepest anxieties in his first book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12872"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12994,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12872\/revisions\/12994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}