"GET OUT!"

The Movie: The Amityville Horror, 1979 (Sandor Stern, screenwriter, from the book by Jay Anson; Stuart Rosenberg, dir.)
Who says it: The house – or whatever’s inside it
The context: George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) have just moved into their dream home, which happens to have been the site of a brutal mass murder.
How to use it: Jokingly, to imply that a place is haunted, or to say it’s time to leave.

This book was avidly (and in some cases, secretly) passed all around my fifth-grade class, and it scared us silly. The movie's pretty dumb, although it has a couple of good moments. But the quotation seemed appropriate for Halloween weekend.

This morning Dizzy and I took my coffee down to Anna and Tarren's dock. The fog was so thick on the lake that I couldn't see the water at all; the dock seemed to disappear into a cloud bank, as if you could step off it into some other world. Dizzy didn't like it, and I was surprised that he noticed. He's a scent hound, and I've never really been sure how well he sees.

Yesterday was only slightly more productive than the day before, but I did get the two most important things done: I registered to vote, and I got a library card. I'd have gotten a dog license, too, but December is the renewal season, so the young woman at the Gardiner Town Office advised me to wait a month.

Oh, and I met the Gardiner postmaster, who has been putting mail in P.O. Box 921 for me for the last three months, and was beginning to wonder whether I actually existed. His name is Jerry.