Bloody Mary

I remember when I was a child there was this game we would play called “Bloody Mary”. I can not recall who taught us this game.  I think it was a child of one of my parent’s friends who told us about this.  Legend was that there was once a queen named Mary who was persecuted and beheaded.  Why?  I really don’t know.  Perhaps she was one of the wives of Henry the VIII?  We were little kids, about eight years old and did not know anything about British history.  But history was not the point and did not matter to us.  The only thing that mattered was that there was a Queen Mary and she suffered a bloody death. 

The myth was that if you go into the bathroom, shut the door, sit on the toilet and say “Bloody Mary” three times, Mary will appear in the mirror.  So my two brothers and I went to the bathroom, shut the door, sat on the toilet, and said, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary” and without even looking at the mirror, we would rush out the door.  We did this many of times in my childhood.  We really had some kicks out of this. 

I recall a time when me any my two brothers went into the bathroom, shut the door to play Bloody Mary.  We had a very close encounter.  We sat there, and said “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary” and before we could get up to run out, the door open and a woman yelled.  This scared the hell out of us!  It was my mother and we all laughed!