I spell so poorly; butcher words so completely, my computer’s dictionary is sometimes at a loss. Then I turn to my bound cardboard and paper dictionary but even then you have to be at least half way there to find a word, so I frantically dig into my buddies; “Roget’s Thesaurus”, Random House’s “Word Menu”, and even my encyclopedias for help. While hunting one day I ran into “bugbear” and I haven’t been the same.
I quote here from, “Leafman Attacks” (book one of four) Leafman, Who’s Beefman? The narrator explains; “A bugbear is a problem that couldn’t possibly exist, but sometimes does.” An extended version of the next page (that didn’t all fit in the book) is; “there’s not enough room in this house for me to even think but if I quit thinking my mind will shrivel up with neglect, like a fifty year old black walnut, and rattle around in my head while I walk. Then if someone breaks into my house he’ll hear my brains rattle when I sneak out the back door with the phone. He’ll punch me, I might even loose the use of my right arm, and he’ll get away and go rob someone else!”
I often blog about John’s ability to love life’s smallitudes (a word not found in any of my books by the way but means an attitude in which the a person can appreciate and treasures “the small and simple things in life”.) But another part of his thinking could be described as a bag of bugbearian doom.  nancymauerman.com