Tom Joyce's chamber of the bizarre

Old Mrs. MacNamara used to live down the street where I grew up, and the kids all loved to hear her talk about the superstitions from her native Ireland. Never butter a slice of toast when it’s raining outside, lest you bring bad luck down upon your house. Leave a saucer of milk outside on the night of a new moon as an offering to the wee folk, lest they bedevil your dreams and tie knots in your hair at night. Close your eyes every time you walk past a sewer grate, lest the Screaming Purple Monkey Man climb out, burrow through your eye sockets and eat your brain. Later, we found out those weren’t really Irish superstitions. She just did a lot of acid.