The Ring and The Yellow Bug

February 1, 2026

Me and two of my best friends are huddled close, walking as a unit through the forest. It’s after midnight, the small glowing slit in the sky proving no moonlight. What are those sounds to the left? Was that a branch breaking in the distance? How far away is the cabin? Will it be any safer once we get inside?

Rewind three hours, and we were as cool as cucumbers. In fact, we were jovial. It was a Friday night, and work wouldn’t be calling until Sunday afternoon. At age twenty, those upcoming thirty-six hours felt almost infinite. Remember existence before all that responsibility, when the tax burden was low and you could fit your whole life in a car? I can remember some of my coworkers hiking mountains, or taking road trips to Canada in those fleeting hours.

I just realized the difference between a twenty and forty year old on a day off. The youth sees all those hours as potential recreation and fun, while the adult spends as many of those hours sleeping as they can.

With this excitement, we decided to take a trip to a friend's house and watch The Ring. It had just come out, and all the buzz around it was terrifying. Not being scared of anything, we thought it would be a good way to relax after a long week. So we jumped in my friend's yellow bug.

A quick note on this car, it was well worn. So well that rust spots had completely deteriorated to the point of making actual holes in the metal. One such hole happened to be on the floor in front of the front passenger seat. Flintstones jokes about foot-powered automobiles were as common as gas stops. Another fantastic feature on this vehicle was the owl spot light. The right headlight always pointed up and out, highlighting whatever was sitting fifteen feet up in the trees.

We arrived as the night sky was settling in, and made popcorn to accompany the film. Right off the bat, holy crap was that movie scary. I’ve never been a huge fan of horror movies, but I didn’t think a PG-13 film about a little girl crawling out of a TV would shake me the way it did. Luckily, I wasn’t alone in the freaked out category. We all felt it. Unfortunately, we still had to pile into the bug and head back to sleeping bags in a cabin enveloped by trees and darkness.

The walk to the car was never wracking. The drive was silent. Upon arrival, we stepped into a vast forest setting. Never mind that the location was a place we had already been staying at for several weeks. After the intense chills from the movie, nothing seemed familiar. I don’t know if any of us actually pretended to be unafraid, or if we went straight into a huddle, but I suspect it was the latter. Once we made it to the cabin, we took a deep sigh and started a fire in the wood stove. The hairs on my neck started to return to first position as we fell asleep.

There is only one movie that has done a bigger mental number on me. The Blair Witch Project. It will be almost impossible for any youngster to understand what made that picture so terrifying. You see, it was the first “found footage,” movie. It was filmed on a camcorder, and had the feeling of a true documentary. Sure the movie is slow and plodding, but this was before short form videos and social media, when our attention spans were much longer. Heck, this was before cell phones. To be blunt, the movie was terrifying because it felt real. It left you with the impression that you could be that kid lost in the woods. Couple that with a home in the forest that looked eerily like the film, and let's just say that my friend and I did not have a comfortable ride home from the theater.

Curious - why is fear sometimes so fun? For a while I assumed it must be associated with youth. But then I expanded the query to pain. When can pain be fun you ask? Simple, with hot sauce. I love insane hot sauces. The kinds that melt your face and make you lose track of time and space for several minutes. I don't know why, and I can’t even recommend it, but I sure like it.

I suppose the point is that each season of life has an opportunity for a wacky ingredient that doesn’t make sense with the rest of the recipe. Fear and pain are not normally something we want on the dish. But every now and then, those seasonings give you a meal to remember. I still think back on that fearful night with the scary movie and the yellow bug. You know what made the fear not only tolerable but fun? Friends. Everything is better with your buddies.