It's too late, Freddy. I know you too well now.

The title, I should explain right off. It's a line from A Nightmare on Elm Street: it's heroine Nancy's response when good-natured jock boyfriend Glen inquires, leading into act IV of the flick, as to why she's picked up a book about booby-traps and anti-personnel devices.


I like it. It's such a teenager-y thing to say, casual and to-the-point, cool without being scripty or a wisecrack.

It reminds me of an occasion when I was in college: I was being bullied by the university administration, and by way of encouragement, my father quoted Hunter Thompson to me: "Don't take any guff from those swine." Nancy is saying, basically, that she's not gonna take any more guff from that swine.

Nancy is also giving the mission statement of every woman in horror and, to some degree, every woman out in the real world as well. It's certainly mine: this is my thing now. I'm into survival.