Damn martians
Reember back in the days of old (at least for me, maybe not for some of my older, more distinguished fellow b3tans) when a music came from steros the size of small TVs? Usually a big black box made by a fine British electrical company (Goodmans anyone?) containing one LP player, one FM/AM tuner (DAB? wtf is that?) and two tape players that were supposedly killing the music industry. The whole lot cobbled together by some bored bloke in the midlands and tied to some speakers by string.
The old box that lived at my mums was a grumpy old bastard. These days I know it was well past its best, with dry joints and bad wiring causing it to crackle to life by itself and burst out static like a taxi-drivers radio.
But to a 9-year old me it is terrifying, posibly haunted, and definitely out to get me.

As if that wasnt bad enough...

Imagine, if you will a dark, rainy night some time in 1992. A small EnsignJack has his pajamas on, and is laid on the floor of the warm living room, having been given something to read by his dear old mum, who is sat behind him watching Coronation Street. What has he been given? The original, 1970s LP version of Jeff Wayne's Musical The War of the Worlds. Yes, the one with two great black discs, full song lyrics, amazingly detailed artwork and condesed version of the the story.
The wee EnsignJack reads the story enraptured. Amazed at the artwork, relieved by the engineer's plan for a Brave New World, heartbroken by by the loss of the Thunder Child, and utterly terrified of the giant alien warmachines. Heatrays melting everything they touch, the red weed spreading across London, and the incessant, victorious UUUUUHHHHLLLLAAAA of the aliens as the cubstomp the human race.
He makes it to the end of the tale, cheering to humself as the mighty alien war machines fall to humble bacteria and on to the epilogue, a modern-day NASA is sending its mission to Mars.

Wide-eyed, adrenaling pumping and fearful that the alien menace wasnt as defeated as he thought it was, he closes the the LP case.
It was then that the bastard stereo decided to spring it's trap. It had watched the small boy read, transfixed with fear and excitement, and as he finished the story it switched itself on and let out a full-volume burst of static that was a mix of a lion's roar, a broken taxi radio, and of course UUUUUUHHHHHLLLLAAAAAAA...

I. Hit. The. Fucking. Roof.

I jumped up, running around the living room gibbering "They're coming! They're coming!" like a chav that been told thy're being investigated of being a disability cheat. I ran to the window, certain that I would see green flares coming down from the sky as more of the alien invaders arrived (of course, there was nothing there).
I hysterically ran upstairs, certain that my eyes were deceiving me and that another window would show the truth, but there was nothing but rain and inky blackness.
I ran back downstairs, still beside myself in fear and launched myself onto the sofa, hysterically crying my eyes out and certain this was the end of everything I new and loved.

It took mum nearly three hours to calm me down and convince me that there was no aliens, that I was just being a "daft sod".

Epilogue 1:
Next day, mum decided that she'd had enough of the old stereo and handed me a screwdriver so that I could "play" with it.
I happily took that fucker apart piece by piece, torturing it with as much maliciousness as a 10-year old could manage (in later years, this level of torture would again occur in the Hostel films. That hunting group has nothing on the pleasure I got from taking that fucker's tapedeck out and showing it to the one still in there)

Epilogue 2:
2005, sat in a cinema watching the Spielberg version of The War of the Worlds. The whole thing brings the events of 15years ago back to me, in a semi-Vietnam flashback.
But this time, there is no gibbering, no hysteria. I leave the cinema dignified with my friends and immediately buy a round at the nearby refreshment establishment. I feel better.
(CaptnJack isn't really called Jack!, Thu 12 Apr 2012, 12:30, Reply)