Top 5 Frightening People Who Have Physically Touched Me

McBane here. We apologize for the technical difficulties and now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Now, where was I…

5) Raptor

Blogmate Raptor, candidly seen in real life (artist's rendering).

Profile: Potential pedophile. Recreational murderer (speculative but likely). 3-1 favorite to be penciled in as cause of death on my autopsy report.

In all fairness Raptor really shouldn’t be this high, but I wanted to populate this list with recognizable people only. In his defense, he does have a weird thing where he threatens to kill me every time I see him (“I’m gonna gut your belly like a fish” / “that’s not the saddest thing…the saddest thing is you won’t live to see the sun rise” [spoken at a restaurant at 4 a.m.] / etc., etc. etc.). For years I thought he made these comments to all his friends, leading to the following awkward conversation between me and my other two college roommates:

ME: So you know that thing Raptor does every day where he threatens to kill you?

ROOMMATE ONE: Uh…no…what?

ME: No, seriously, you know what I mean. So the other day, he was telling me that if he had a knife sharpener…

ROOMMATE TWO: What the fuck are you talking about?

Also has other frightening things going for him, most of which I can’t easily chronicle out of context. But here’s a mere singular example illustrating his dedication to being creepy: in college he once sat in a chair in the dark for over an hour with a wig covering his face, waiting for me and the other two roommates to come back after we had recently seen The Ring.

His impressions are also plentiful and disturbing: he does a good “raptor,” a great “girl from The Ring” crawl, a fantastic sociopathic koala bear, and a truly terrifying Don Knotts.

Hmmm, maybe he is number five after all.

4) Sean Astin

Sean Astin, stumping on the Hillary Clinton campaign trail.

Profile: Fake underdog. Hairy-footed hobbit. Hillary supporter.

I was very briefly propelled into Master Samwise by the crush of humanity at a Democratic delegate convention; he was regaling us all with tales that basically insinuated that since he was in Lord of the Rings, we should give a shit about his political viewpoint. I did learn he was Patty Duke’s son, though, so that was kind of cool.

And of course, Obama won the nomination.

Eat a dick, Rudy.

3) Dennis Rodman

The real question is this: what's that other hand doing?

Profile: Rebounding specialist. Publicity whore. Deranged malcontent.

This one barely happened, but I mean come on…it’s Rodman. Any contact is harrowing.

I once turned a corner at a grocery store, of all places, and Rodman was right there (I may be getting my memories confused, but I want to say he was buying beer and soap); he deftly sideswiped me, but a knuckle on his hand slightly grazed my ear.

Just to be safe, when I got home I soaked the side of my head in a pool of hydrogen peroxide. No, I didn’t. But I did spend 20 minutes cleaning my ear with all the finest anti-bacterials money can buy.

2) Albert Belle

Typical Belle dilemma: a) hurt the bat (again), or b) hurt people (with the bat)?

Profile: Ex-MLB superstar. Hyperaggressive monster. Antisocial maniac.

I bumped into Belle at a baseball game once as a kid, as I was leaning over to ask for an autograph from one of his teammates. I immediately thought my transgression would lead to the sudden and abrupt end of my life. Luckily, he merely looked at me for a minute like he wished for nothing more than to crush my skull with his bare hands, then in his first at-bat hit a home run about 800 feet and glared in my general direction.

I suspect I had very little to do with this and that Belle just hates the sight of people in general, but I’ve been kind of sour on the whole autograph thing ever since.

1) Sylvia Fowles

Fowles, though she towers over the 6'4 Candace Parker,
needs only mind waves to separate Parker's shoulder.

Profile: WNBA star. Team USA backup. Genetic superfreak.

I was working at a women’s college hoops tourney once and had to run to the restroom. When I got back out, Fowles and the other 14 LSU Tigers were in front of the door, waiting for pre-game introductions. As I mumbled my way through their mass, the astoundingly huge Fowles suddenly resonated a Dikembe Mutumbo-like laugh at a teammate’s joke, put herself in reverse, and to my dismay, an unexpected runaway caboose situation ensued.

You know what? I don’t want to talk about this anymore.