So the other day I did a little Google search for the term “dream man.” (Don’t ask. I’m bored and single and this summer is proving to be long and lonely already.) What I turned up is…well…not what you’d expect.

Ladies, meet your Dream Man. Literally. Apparently thousands of people can identify this man as someone they’ve seen in their dreams. Sounds weird, right? Flyers have been posted around the world asking if people recognized this dude. There’s a guestbook online for witness reports that spans over 400 pages.

Have any of you guys seen this guy before? With such a horrifying handsome face, I’m sure you wouldn’t forget!

“College is the best time of your life.” If you are in college, you will indisputably hear this more than a few times throughout your undergraduate years. Being told over and over again that college is in fact, “the best time of your life” is kind of intimidating – especially after graduation, leaving questions such as “If these past four years have been the very best, then what will I look forward to in the future?” to pop up.

My personal M.O. was to toss that belief aside as I embarked upon this next stage of my life. Why dwell in the past just because I won’t have the security of undergraduate antics to hide behind anymore and it’s time to face the music of the real world? (Despite John Mayer warning us that there’s no such thing as the real world, just a lie you got to rise above.) Instead of idealizing college as many people do, I have taken the approach that it’s okay to look back fondly and smile, but to not hold it too close or else I’ll never let go. And who wants to be one of those girls in their mid-30s recounting their college days as if they just happened?

However, I am not always perfect at sticking to my plans.

So, after looking for a job (for what seemed like forever), I finally found a nannying position that fits well with my LSAT studying schedule and writing gigs. For a few weeks now, I’ve been watching two girls (ages three and 16 months), and everything was going great – until the other night. This night can go down in the babysitting books as the night that made me want to crawl all the way back to Virginia (where my alma mater is), break into my old dorm room, and rewrite my entire thesis again (yes, the one that I will gladly never read again if I can avoid it).

From the minute the parents left, the two little girls went on what seemed like a wild rampage of testy behavior. Instead of calming down, despite my efforts to entertain, they just got more and more worked up. This resulted in dinner being thrown across the kitchen (do you know how long it takes to clean up couscous off the floor when you can’t find a broom?), and dessert – the one thing that I suspected would make them happy – all over me. Yeah, that’s right; as the three year old declared “You’re not my mommy!” she dumped her entire bowl of peach cobbler on me. The bowl met my hair, then my shoulders, and then my cardigan – as my hair became soaked with cobbler goo.

Standing there with orange globs rolling out of my hair, college life kept coming to mind. How easy it all seemed three months ago. I was thinking “What if I was going back to school?” or “What if I was starting over again, as a first year at some huge public university?” (the complete opposite of my undergrad experience). All this thinking led me to ponder why we all put so much emphasis on those years. And here’s what I’m thinking…

Throughout college, we spend all this time dressing up for formals, planning how we are going to tie our toga for the frat party, and matching clothes with our friends before heading out for weekend parties. We spend all this time inside the classroom, and even more time outside of the classroom thinking and talking about what we learn and why it’s important to us. We live in this bubble where you have to mix pleasure with hard work. And then all of a sudden, the bubble bursts – and here we are, scrambling to find jobs, a place to live, the meaning of life, and most importantly ourselves outside of the context of the last four years.

Life after college puts everyone in some kind of limbo, and this idle time makes us yearn for the past, and while our present usually seems not quite what we imagined it to be – it’s exactly that, the present. So, why does it seem so hard to see the future?

I’ll be the first to tell you, the post-grad journey doesn’t come with a manual. And although no one gave me a pamphlet my first day of college that mapped everything that would happen to me throughout college, I still felt sheltered around my peers, my professors, my parents, and everything and everyone in between telling me what to do and how to do it – and that worked as my compass along the way. Now though, I’m my own compass. And on days when a three-year-old throws peach cobbler on you, it’s no wonder I want to turn my compass in the opposite direction to get as close as possible to what I thought was “the best time of my life.”

Even though I know playing nanny is only temporary, and I do have a lot to look forward to in the future (even if the future seems very far and distant at this very moment), I also know that some days – you can’t help but reminisce.

I had a lot of nightmares as a kid. Thanks to these nightmares and various frightening films I’ve developed a hilarious set of OCD habits such as opening and closing closet doors before sleeping and checking behind the shower curtain before I saddle up to the toilet (you laugh but one day someone is gonna be in there and then who’s the dumb one!)

My imagination is easily inspired. For a while I couldn’t even watch a commercial for a horror movie because I knew those 30 seconds were enough to create an entire world of horrific fantasy that I’d be trapped inside for the rest of the evening. The one thing more unnerving then horror characters and sharks (I don’t swim in the ocean, at all, ever) is muppets.

Not all muppets, Kermit is fine, Fozzy, whatever. I’m talking about those LSD muppets that creators slip in films and TV shows, mixed with other cute, lovable creatures. They lure you in with Grover and then BAM, some abomination walks onto the screen that’s burned into your mind forever. Some horribly disfigured, warbly voiced monstrosity that may as well be drenched in blood, because thats how you’ll remember them, regardless.

Here’s five of the worst perpetrators.

5) Sesame Street’s Big Bad Wolf

He first appeared in a mock ‘News Report’ that Kermit was doing about the story of the 3 Little Pigs, but eventually was cast in a full time role in my brain as the monster that lived in the crawlspace behind our dryer. His nose and mouth are almost crocodilian in length, making him a hybrid death machine that can not only eat you whole, but smell (and enjoy) your fear.

4) Sesame Street’s Yip Yip Aliens

Who the f*ck invented these? I’ve seen like 3/4th’s of every science fiction movie ever and I’ve never observed a more frightening rendition of creatures from another planet. They have no body, and their circular mouths are contorted into a look of excruciating pain. The sound they omit — ‘Yip Yip‘ — over and over gives them an almost zombie-like demeanor. Incapable of love or communication, their race knows only war.

3) Skeksis from ‘The Dark Crystal’

Bird reptiles that appear to have some type of bizarre bone disease and turn infantile when they die/age. As someone who grew up around wild turkeys, the thought of gangs of intelligent, upright walking, violent minded birds hit very close to home.

2) The Rockbiter from ‘The Never-ending Story’

Could you have designed a more horribly disfigured face? My cousins would loop this scene and force me to watch it as a form of torture.

1) The Fiery Gang from ‘The Labyrinth’

A gang of forest dwelling, possible serial rapist apes who sing about ‘showing you a good time’ while removing their limbs and creating a gallery of horrifyingly twisted body shapes. Then they try to rip your head off, in an effort to make you more like them. Awesome, just awesome.

[Got any childhood fears induced by muppets? We want to know]