Barney is a dinosaur...

...from demented imaginations.

This is a true story. I repeat: This is a TRUE story. I am not making this up. A person can't make up this kind of story. At all. Ask any person in the world to make up this kind of story, and you won't get it. Ask my mom; this really happened.

It happened when I was five years old. That is how horrible the experience was. You ready for this? Here we go:

The Barney Experience

When I was five years old, me and my mother went shopping for my birthday party. We went to a K-Mart or Ingles, I forget exactly which store, but it doesn't really matter.

At the store, they were having a sort of a "mascot day" I suppose. Power Rangers, Tony the Tiger, and other characters were there.

And Barney. Barney was there too. I remember that vividly.

We get to the store, and we are shopping for things, and we see Barney. Now, remember I was five and obsessed with Barney. My parents said I used to drop everything when I heard the Barney theme song (which is to the tune of Yankee Doodle, by the way), and watch it.

So, I see Barney and go crazy over wanting to talk to Barney. So, mother agrees and rolls the cart over to Barney. It was great fun, he sounded just like Barney, acted like Barney, and looked like Barney. The fact that I knew it was a costume didn't matter to a young, impressionable child like myself. I still loved every minute of it.

So, eventually, after saying hi to Barney and Tony the Tiger (who was nearby), we went to get the rest of our shopping done.

After a while, we notice that Barney was on every isle we visited. Every isle. Didn't matter which one we went down, he was always on the same isle.

Needless to say, Mom started getting a tad bit worried. She didn't know why he was always there, but that "mother instinct" (which I think is equivalent to the Spider Sense) kicked in, and she knew that Barney was following us. She decided to shop for the rest of the things we needed at a different store, and we headed for the checkout counter.

Lo and behold, Barney was there. Now mom was concerned; a step up from worry. All she knew was that Barney was following us through the store, I was five years old, and we didn't have Dad there with us.

We check out quickly (this is the days before the self-checkouts), and head for the car. I'm sitting in the little buggy seats for the kids, and I'm looking over Mom's shoulder and guess who I see?

Yep. Barney.

I point and say, "Barney!" I was excited. Barney was following us out to the car.

Mother starts to run. Fast. The only clear image I see in my mind, is me looking over mom's shoulder and seeing Barney start to run after us. It must be rather awkward to run in a Barney suit, for he was kind of waddling, just like the real Barney on the TV show did.

So, there I was. In a store parking lot watching Barney chase after me and my mother. It's almost one of those out-of-body experiences. I mean...how do you prepare for something like that?

So, we finally make it to the car, and mother almost throws me inside and dumps the groceries into the car. By that time, the costumed-Barneyman had caught up with us.

He throws himself onto the hood of the car when mom jumped into the driver's side. He was laying on top of the hood. Literally. He threw himself on it. Or at it, I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish to this day.

Mom told me later, all she could think about was the headlines for the next day's newspaper:

Woman Runs Over Barney in Parking Lot

Thankfully, that did not happen, she merely backed up and squealed out of the parking lot. We've called it The Barney Experience from then on.