In the midst of my imagination

The imagination is a powerful thing. I thought that being older than 5, ok maybe 10, indicated that I should have firm control of how my imagination worked by now. Not so. I have been proven wrong twice this week. At home, alone, one night I decided to throw caution to the wind, put homework aside and pick up a book to read. It turned out to be a murder mystery, with vanishing women and ghastly deaths, the usual murder mystery fair... And, yet the author did a good job of collecting my imagination and refusing to relinquish his grasp. I found myself jumping at slight noises from outside, holding my breath when I heard neighbors on the stairs, and even locking my bedroom door. (Not super effective if a killer wanted to get me... It's one of those locks you could open with a penny.) Even after I told myself I was being silly, I still had a some nervous minutes (ok I'll be honest, hours) that night. What added to this personal embarrassment (side note: is it really embarrassment if no one else is there to witness it? :end side note) was that this was not the first time I had read the book.
Incident number two is not for the squeamish, or those who are currently eating so stop reading now! No? You want to keep on reading? I warned you... As I was attempting to pick up my mail one afternoon from the communal mail boxes; you know the type, where everyone's box is next to each other, stacked like the cubby holes from first grade; and I noticed a bunch of ants climbing and darting all over the area. My imagination kicked into superdrive, took control of my brain, and my immediate thought was: what if someone put a dead rat in my mailbox? In my head I had a clear picture of myself approaching the mailbox, opening it slowly, reaching in and pulling out a dead, moldy, decomposing rat by its squishy tail...eeewwwww... Why I wasn't screaming in my head while this was happening I don't know, but the non-in-my-head me shuddered violently and felt extremely nauseous and ended up not getting the mail that day.