For those of you unfamiliar with the 1991 horror/comedy film, check out the following trailer.

The story follows Ernest P. Worrell, a sanitation worker, who must defeat a demonic troll who transforms children into wooden dolls so he can feast on their energy.

When that movie came out, I was 5 years old. To a 5 year old it doesn’t get much scarier than a demonic troll who turns kids into wooden toys. I have vivid memories of being terrified that the troll would sneak up on me in the middle of the night and turn me into a doll.

The other day, my brother and I were talking about that movie so I decided to look up an image of the troll that haunted me for so many years. I cautiously clicked on Google images and closed one eye as I expected to see the spooky troll and immediately fall back into my 5-year-old state of panic.

But a funny thing happened instead.

I laughed.

I saw this picture of the terrifying troll and I couldn’t help but smile.

Look at that guy. He has bad skin, a weak beard and is short and overweight. He is not a terror…he is more like a teenager. A teenager that plays with dolls. What a wimp. Those chubby fingers won’t be giving me nightmares anytime soon.

In the moment, our world can be terrifying. We are so paralyzed by fear that we do not have the ability to step back and see past the scary.

However, as time goes by, things become less scary and more silly.

Remember that presentation you were afraid to give. You thought it would be the death of you. Seems funny now that you breeze though presentations all the time now, doesn’t it.

I won’t be able to convince you (or myself) that things aren’t going to be scary, anymore than I could convince a 5 year old that a demonic troll is not something to fear. But what I can do is say that down the road, our fears won’t seem so bad.

What seems like a monster today might just make you laugh later.

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2. Over 200 feral cats live in Disneyland. I guess they heard a giant mouse lives there.

3. In Japan, letting a sumo wrestler make your baby cry is considered good luck. Wait, what?

4. The skin on your elbow is called a wenis. Apparently at some point in time 6^th graders were in charge of naming body parts.

5. When Fredric Baur, the inventor of the Pringles can, died, his ashes were buried in one of his cans. The last time I heard of something like that was with the inventor of the coffin.

6. Apples in grocery stores are typically 14 months removed from being on the tree. I guess the term “fresh apples” is used loosely.

7. President John Quincy Adams is known to have frequently skinny-dipped in the Potomac River. Good thing Twitter wasn’t around back then.

8. There are roughly 18 minutes of total action in a baseball game. The other 3 hours are comprised of spitting, stretching, t-shirt throwing, piano playing and more spitting.

9. In Germany there are fake bus stops outside of nursing homes to prevent confused senior citizens from wondering off. Clever, but it seems like just taking care of all the people in the nursing home would be a better idea.

10. Hippo milk is pink. This just in…hippos produce milk.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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2. Throughout history, the exclamation point has had many other names. It has been called a dembanger, slammer, and gasper. In language and in law, many sentences end in a slammer.

3. Japanese Burger Kings created a Whopper cologne. I don’t think this was necessary. Any guy who wants to smell like a hamburger, probably already smells like a hamburger.

4. In March, a fire extinguisher factory burned down in Chicago. Insert your own joke here _____.

5. South Dakota Governor’s Office of Economic Development is running an ad campaign saying that living in South Dakota is better than living on Mars. Have they not seen Mars Attacks? I am not sure I would pick a fight with that planet.

6. During the Cold War, KGB operatives used a “lipstick pistol,” which was 4.5 mm, single shot weapon hidden inside of a lipstick holder.  The result was called “the kiss of death.” How has this not been used in a Mission Impossible movie??

7. Earlier this month, a Jordanian doctor left a cell phone in a woman’s abdomen after performing a C-section. I’m not too concerned that he forgot it, we’ve all left our cell phone somewhere. But why was it in there in the first place?

8. You can determine the age of a humpbacked whale by looking at his earwax. Nah I think I’ll just take his word for it.

9. The average person makes the same New Year’s resolution 10 separate times without success. Like the saying goes…”the 11th time is a char…aww just forget it.”

10. I am sad to say that James May’s LEGO house has been destroyed. Apparently he built it on land he didn’t actually own. Didn’t he learn anything from playing with LEGOs on his older brother’s side of the room as a kid?

Photo credit: Wikipedia

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