I’d like to think I’m the kind of person who would rush into a burning building to save somebody’s cat. But when it comes to scary or gory stuff? I’m a total wuss.
My friend Susie at Susie Lindau’s Wild Ride went to see the movie Jaws projected onto a big screen behind a swimming pool for ultimate impact. She said it was fun, but I’m not buying it. I don’t care if the special effects look like a couple of 4-year-olds playing with toys in the tub by today’s standards. I saw that movie when it first came out, and it was super-scary. Hearing that theme song when I’m near any body of water bigger than a wading pool is enough to make me pee my pants.
Lots of people love horror films and graphic games, my own kid included. Not me. Once I’ve been introduced to a gruesome menace (be it alien or domestic) it is just a hop, skip and a jump for my vivid imagination to put said menace on the road leading straight to my house.
I’m a wuss; how about you? Now there’s any easy way to tell.
Peg-co’s patented Wuss-o-Meter* gauges wussosity using a scientifically developed psychological profile. Take this quick survey to see where you stack up.
Wuss-o-Meter* Questionnaire
I. You hear a strange noise downstairs late at night. You:
- grab a baseball bat and go down to investigate.
- send your significant other down to investigate.
- send your 6-year-old child down to investigate.
II. You find mouse-droppings in the kitchen. You:
- go on the hunt, armed with enough firepower to subdue an enemy army, vowing not to rest until this rodent scourge has been eradicated.
- put out a mouse trap and shut the kitchen door until it has been caught.
- don your house slippers and do a Tom & Jerry on the nearest stool.
III. A friend invites you to see the sequel to Mutant Axe-Murderer Zombie Apocalypse of Gore. You:
- say, “Great –I just got my Mutant Axe-Murderer Zombie Apocalypse of Gore super-fan costume back from the cleaners. Let’s camp out overnight to be first in line!”
- go and have fun, but pretend you dropped your phone during the especially gruesome parts so you have an excuse to look away.
- say, “Sorry, I can’t make it. I feel a cold sore coming on.”
IV. There’s no better way to unwind at the end of a long day than by playing video-games. Your go-to favorite is:
1. Resident Evil: Deadly Silence
2. LEGOs, The Lord Of The Rings
3. Putt-Putt Joins the Circus
V. You overcome your fear of the original, black and white Night of The Living Dead movie, which gave you nightmares as a kid, and go see a revival showing at the Bijou. As a result, you:
- have a great time eating popcorn and laughing at the film, which now looks campy with its overly dramatic acting and dated special effects.
- have a great time but leave the nightlight on when you go to bed.
- pretend to have a great time, but when
you get home you run in, dead-bolt all the doors, nail boards on the windows, and then hide under the covers armed with an economy-size bottle of holy water. You would have hidden under the bed if you weren’t convinced that space was already occupied by formerly beloved family members who have been turned into flesh-eating undead.
Score: Add up each answer’s allotted points and check your score against the Wuss-o-Meter* handy classification guide:
- 5- 7 points: Bad-ass. You ain’t afraid of nothing; not nobody, not no-how. This spirit is exemplified by Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games saga.
- 8-11 points: Everyman. You’re brave enough when you have to be, but temper that with a healthy dose of caution, like Woody from Toy Story.
- 12-15 point: Mr. Chicken. You’re not exactly afraid of your own shadow, but you don’t trust how it always seems to be right behind you. The poster-child for wussiness was Don Knotts in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, who narrowly beat out The Cowardly Lion to claim the title.
I’m a 12. Mice don’t scare me.
*The Wuss-o-Meter is another fine product from Peg-Co.’s Behavioral/Health Sciences Division, a subsidiary of Peg-o-Leg Industries. Peg-o-Leg Industries – making money any way we can.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
Ooh, I just make it in the Bad-Ass category. That dang mouse one was almost my demise. Fictional horrors? No problem; I can take ’em. Real-life horrors like a mouse in the house? I’m outta there.
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Isn’t that funny – I’m the exact opposite. Must be because you write mysteries, you’re able to channel all that imagination.
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Either that or I read so much Stephen King when I was young, I’m immune. 🙂
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I’m Woody. Kinda knew I would be. Movies usually don’t bother me, but the bumps and scratches in the night?? They get me every time! If your Wuss-o-Meter lets you, Peg, try watching “Nosferatu.” It’s an old black-and-white version of Dracula, the first movie that really creeped me out.
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Um…no. Thanks anyway.
I still remember a vampire movie I saw when I was really little. To give Mom a break, dad would bundle all us older kids (as in, not the baby) in our jammies, throw us in the station wagon and head for the drive=in. We’d be inside tearing the car apart while he sat on a lawn chair outside battling the much-less-dangerous hazard of killer mosquitoes. I remember a movie about a car load of co-eds whose car breaks down on a lonely road, they seek shelter at a gloomy castle, and, as you might imagine, things did not turn out well for them. I still remember the image of 6 girls in their shorty-nighties shrieking and jumping around the room while bats flew at them.
I think I need a drink.
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Oh, the drive-in! We had one just up the hill from our house, and it was home to all sorts of creepy flicks. I’m sure the co-ed flick played there, too. When we were older, my friends and I crept up there to see if we could watch for free. Crouched in the weeds, we thought we were getting away with it until a bunch of guys (Drive-In Bouncers??) scared the bejeezus out of us. We ran, screaming, back down the hill to home. Let’s have a drink together – bad memories!
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Too fun. I scored 22! Is that possible?
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It is possible. I’m just proud that you were able to come out from under the bed long enough to take the quiz.
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I’m Bad-Ass, but only because you didn’t have any questions related to house centipedes.
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Uh oh. Just wait until Wuss-o-Meter Version 2.0 comes out!
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I have never understood the fascination of having the crap scared out of your for entertainment. Give me a comedy or feel good movie any day! I am Woody…I love Woody!
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Me too. And that’s just about the speed of the movies I like to watch.
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Hey!Everyone is afraid…I’m too…I’m afraid from that Doll Chucky from horror movie series…(Seriously scares my shit <(") )….but you know…our greatest strength is overcoming our fears and rising above them…….
A Proud Wussy btw 🙂
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Even the commercials for those movies were terrifying! I couldn’t look at a doll again.
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I’m squarely in the Mr. Chicken category. Also, that Don Knotts movie is one of my faves. One of the best parts is when someone tells him to calm down and he exclaims? “Calm? CALM? Do calm and murder go together? CALM and MURDER?”
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Don definitely had a point there, didn’t he?
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It shouldn’t surprise you to hear I came in at badass status! Ha! I can’t watch gory super realistic films, but old ones are a hoot.
I’m not a gun person, but I killed a mouse in my pantry with a fly swatter and have investigated my house on occasion. It was just a ghost.
Thanks for the shout, Miss Peg! It is such a nice surprise and most appreciated. Da dum. Da du. Da dum. Da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum……
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With a fly swatter??? You really ARE bad-ass. I’m not afraid of mice at all, but I’m squeamish of squishing something that big.
You’re welcome, toots! 😉
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It was gross, but I didn’t think I had a choice. If there’s one mouse, there are ten! It was a while back and I haven’t found another one in the pantry since. Whew!
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I’m on the badass/everyman borderline. It all comes down to the last question – I answered 1 but I think it might be cos I’m too cheap to leave the nightlight on…
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I’ll have to have the next version weighted for thriftiness.
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Chicken through and through!
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I am chicken, hear me cluck!
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hahaha
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I’m like you, can’t watch a horror movie to save my life. Wild imagination. I made the friend who took me to see Aliens stay up the rest of the night with me and be reassuring every time I heard a noise.
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I saw that one at the theater and they practically had to delay the next showing while the custodian cleaned every chair in the place. Scared the CRAP out of everyone!
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I saw it at the Quad in Saginaw and after the creature burst out of the guys chest, a bunch of people got up and left. That was one hell of a nonstop terrifying movie!
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Really, they left? I just remember everybody screamed, even the macho teenage boys, then looked around and laughed self consciously.
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I can’t see why in #2, getting a cat is not an option, because that’s what we did last time. Also, any strange noise downstairs is most likely also a cat and requires no investigation.
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Getting a cat IS an option, but it ranks right up there with the Tom & Jerry option. You can see all the expanded profile options if you buy the Deluxe Home Version of the Wuss-o-Meter for only (# to be specified later) easy payments of $19.99 each. Operators are standing by!
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I am afraid I can’t do that. I have to admit, I have this irrational fear of giving out my credit card number online or over the phone.
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Nothing irrational about THAT fear.
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I’ve got a night stick under my side of the bed, for bumps in the night, and mice don’t stand a chance in my house. I don’t go see horror movies, not due to fear, but because I can’t stand watching victims make really stupid choices shortly before being skewered by pitch fork wielding lunatics.
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I can respect that choice. There’s some commercial about a bunch of teens running from peril deciding to hide behind a bunch of chain-saws instead of getting in the running car and leaving – love it.
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Total wuss! That’s me. I startle at the sound of a loud burp (sometimes mine). True story: As our first outing as new parents, my ex-hubby and I went to see Crocodile Dundee. Having no babysitter, we took 1-month old Alex. He was sleeping contentedly in my arms until that scene when the woman is bending down near the river’s edge to stupidly wash her face or something and the big-ass croc bolts out of the water reminiscent of a that boat scene in Jaws. Well I nearly launched my swaddled son like a football over my shoulder. My ex-hubby (and much calmer parent) held Alex for the rest of the movie.
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Note to self: When attending scary flick, leave baby at home.
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🙂
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Reblogged this on Santa's Reindeer.
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I guess I’m a badass, then. Scary movies don’t scare me – I’m too firmly entrenched in the realization that what’s on the OTHER side of the screen is not real.
I laugh, every time something horrific shows itself on screen – usually because the SO has just jumped out of his skin. (does that make me sadistic???)
As for real life horrors – I grew up in a big old victorian – complete with bats in the attic. Every once in a while, one would take it into its furry little head to spread leathery wings in the human’s living space.
My 3 sibs and I used to get out the tennis rackets when this happened, and do our best to wack the thing around the house.
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We did that, too! My brother and I had one trapped in our long, blue bathroom and he got it with a very nice overhead smash. It was just stunned, so we sandwiched it between our two rackets and put it out on the porch to recover and fly away.
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Good times we had swatting the bats, getting them into a pail with a cookie sheet over the top, then putting the pail out on the porch for the night. Die you vampire! It was pretty disconcerting waking up from sleep in the front bedroom seeing something moving around and knowing it was a freakin bat. Woke up Dad to help with its capture.
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We had those things more than once and they were usually in the back bedroom, weren’t they?
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I feel the need to confess. The reason I know now that things on the screen aren’t real is I had a 6 month stretch as a kid of wearing a turtle neck to bed every night after my older sibs let me watch a Dracula movie.
Does that shift me a bit down the scale? It was a few (I ain’t saying how many fews…) years back…
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No, if you were under 12 you are exempt.
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I was too scared to read anymore after that first graphic….was there a quiz?
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You didn’t miss a thing, Mr. Chicken.
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Bawk, bawk bawk bawk bawk……
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I’m Woody too. The movies terrify me. So do amusement park rides which, if surveyed, would have surely put me firmly into Barney territory. But real life stuff, I deal with.
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Isn’t that interesting? My (semi)fearless youngest is just the opposite. She says that paranormal/zombie stuff doesn’t faze her at all because she KNOWS it’s not real.
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That stuff just bores me. It scared me as a kid. But the slasher picture? I WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN. (And I terrified even in swimming pools after seeing Jaws.)
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Yeah, you have to worry about urban sharks in pools.
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1 House always makes noises, ignore.
2 Cool! Pet mouse! Leave out more food.
3 Go to movie, but don’t pay attention, too distracted by giant Twizzlers and gallon of Cherry Coke.
4 Clouds & Sheep!
5 More Twizzlers and Cherry Coke!
What’s my score? (Also, do I have ADHD?)
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No, you don’t have ADHD. Looks like you’re just hopped up on sugar from all the Twizzlers and Cherry Coke.
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Mmmmmmmmmm, yummy! 🙂
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Ay! I’m the biggest Wuss and damn proud of it. Especially movies about the devil. Exorcist, Damien etc! Life is so stressful why do I want to sit in the dark and suffer voluntarily! Mr. B loves them all!! Great questionnaire! 😱😱
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Exactly. And why do I want to pay for the experience? (thanks)
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No Gracias!!
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Mr. Chicken – just, but still – I don’t like horror movies and horror stories like the books of Stephen King scare me: I get nightmares from them!
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Me too. There have only been a very few Stephen King books I have been able to read – like Under The Dome – that were kinda scary but not too gruesome.
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Fran, I get nightmares just looking at the covers of horror books!! And at Halloween, I can’t even drive because of all the scary billboards!
Melinda
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Oh, it is not that bad with me, I quite like some horror video games, like Dire Grove – I can stand the sight of skulls and bones – but I never made it through The Fog, for example. I like making Goth-inspired advent calendars with tombstones (for example) or with coffins. But a tunnel of horror-ride? Not for me.
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Isn’t it interesting how one person’s terror is another person’s thrill?
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I fess up – I’m off the wuss-oh- meter. I don’t know about Mr Chicken but that Cowardly Lion, he ended up brave. So I’m thinking there’s hope for me yet. if I could only find my way to Oz.
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Then the Wizard could reach into his black bag and make all your dreams come true! Let me know how that works out when you finally see him.
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Is there someone wussier than Don Knotts? That would be me!
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No, there is nothing wussier than Don Knotts. I might consider declaring a tie, but I would need some pretty darn compelling evidence to even go that far.
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My hero is Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe. My fav film Transformers. One look at my blog and anyone could see on which side I’m leaning on. Fun post.
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I’m a big Poe fan, but King is too, too for me.
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Sometimes I wonder how it’s like for Tabitha…
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I’m a big wussy-wuss, knew that already even without doing the quiz! In fact I’m too scared to even do the quiz, that’s how much of a wuss I am – beat that sucker! I do love Jaws though, but usually any horror, fictional, real, or imagined, I’m outa there!
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This is a stupid question, but does England have sharks?
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We do, but primarily the harmless to humans varieties, it’s extremely rare to get any attacking sharks around here – I believe you could count on one hand the number of shark attacks on humans in British waters in the last couple of hundred years, and as far as I know there haven’t been any fatal ones.
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I’m pretty much Don Knotts. But roaches don’t scare me. I kill those bad boys with my bare hands. I’m washable.
Jaws on a big screen??? Not even if I was wearing Poise pads!!!
Melinda
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Roach’s???? Ewwwwwww!
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Looks like I’m Woody with a cape. “Jaws” traumatized me for life. If I can’t see an opposite shore on a stretch of water, I get sweaty. This was a problem when I lived in Minnesota as I attracted mosquitos. Still better than What’s Under the Water.
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I guess mosquitoes are better…except when they’re bothering the HELL out of you.
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I live in The Big Woods–no lights, nobody to hear you scream… When I hear something, forget a baseball bat. I just walk out and LOOK ANGRY. If absolutely necessary, we have guns all over. So far, the Bears and mountain lions haven’t made eye contact (note: they would scare me as I’m a real Hillbilly & I know exactly what they can do). Smaller wild creatures have been kicked, stomped, had heads torn off and the obvious shovel-head-chop or sure, ‘lead poisoning’ (bullets) but we never kill for fun. It’s normally for food and NEVER trophies. That’s what city people do. 🙂
That said, I’m allergic to wasps, so when I see or hear one–which is often–I scream like a girl and run.
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Whoa,you’re pretty hard core! We live out in the country and sometimes when I go for a walk I start telling myself that while bears, wolves and wild cats are practically unheard of in north central Illinois, they are not entirely unheard of. I scare myself even when there’s no good reason.
Our house is practically covered in wasp-nests. I spent a fortune yesterday having the deck and the front of the house professionally power-washed and while I was standing there talking to the cleaner guys before they left, the wasps were already busy rebuilding their nests up in the peak where I can’t reach them. GRrrr! But I’ve never been stung so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
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Yeah, wasps are fers. We always keep wasp/ hornet spray but usually use the hose to knock down nests that are on 2nd storey…w spray in hand just in case!
I think we fare okay cos we have ALL the wildlife, including birds and such, which probably cuts down on some.
When I was about 8yo, I was playing in an dog kennel (we trained dogs as well as all the other Old McDonald’s farm critter on the ranch), a red tailed hawk dropped down and sank her talons into a hen by me. I turned and kicked the snot out of it. Hen was okay but surely wouldn’t have been with my barefoot Hillbilly self!
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If I said Woody scares the living crap outta me, what would be my score?
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Off the charts.
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I am a bad ass, but then you didn’t have things that really scare me on your quizz.
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Sorry? Good?
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I suppose good.
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I’ve never taken a quiz where I got to be a badass before. I kind of like it!
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You’re welcome.
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Oh, Barney and Mayberry – we laughed and learned to avoid Wuss in real life.
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I liked him in the Andy Griffith show the best. What a great character!
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Somehow Barney was comforting. He could blunder, but it was OK.
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