Posted on 03/16/2005 5:21:03 AM PST by ShadowDancer
With my kids, Monster Spray works best. Some people claim it's really more like hair spray with a special label, but the sweet smell is what drives the monsters away.
And I made sure my kids saw that their Monster Spray was a gift from Grandma and Grandpa. That way they know it works!
The only Monster I remember in my childhood was on the Island of Guam.
The toa-toa mona's came to visit us virtually from the day we arrived on the Island. We lived on Anderson AFB when my father was in the Air Force.
I remember vividly one night the AC was out in my bedroom. I decided to put a lawn chair up in the living room and sleep on that. Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I woke up, just laying there enjoying the breeze from the AC in the dining room.
The "monster" in my bedroom had found me and didn't like the fact that I wasn't in the bedroom.
Something grabbed my shoulder and tried to lift me out of the chair.
Needless to say the blood curdling shriek that I emitted shook the louvers throughout the house. I gathered up my pillow and blanket and beat a hasty retreat back to the bedroom.
Never again did I leave that bedroom after going to bed. At least not until the sun came up.
"Gee, Mom, why do I have this paralyzing phobia of people named Bob?"
Hmmm....
My childhood fear of monsters is a theme I've often explored. (Hell, you're looking at 1,272 pages of therapy, folks). Under the bed, in the closet, up in the attic, the laundry room, that storage room at the end of the hall—monsters were everywhere in our house, lying in wait. Lying in wait for me.
But, where they all came from, where these monsters all lived, was obviously one place: The Basement. I mean, all basements provide perfect conditions for any unnatural beast: dark, cold, drafty, lots of shadowy places to lurk—a complete monster ecosystem. All they needed was a little kid chow thrown to them now and then.
Now, in our house, the door to the basement was in the kitchen and for some ungodly reason the light switch for the basement was controlled on the kitchen side. For a monster-fearing kid, especially one with an older brother who had obviously entered into some kind of evil pact with these same monsters in order to save his own skin, this was not a good thing.
One evening that I would like to forget, I was about halfway up the stairs with some firewood. (Wouldn't it be nice if you could hear the sound track to your life? At least you'd have a clue that danger was imminent.) And that's when it happened. With an audible click, the light switch went off and I was plunged into darkness. Welcome to nightfall in the Monster Serengeti.
I dropped the wood (the cachophony of which wrung out the last few drops that still remained in my adrenal gland) and scrambled blindly to the top of the stairs. There, my desperate hand finally found the doorknob. Locked, of course. (Did I mention the lock, also controlled from the kitchen side? Such a fun house to grow up in.) And then, in an eerie, lilting tone, my brother's voice could be heard from the other side: "It's coming for you, Gary! Do you hear it? It's cooominnnng for youuuu!"
Just like the mother wildebeest, my own mother could always recognize the sound of one of her calves in distress. Soon she arrived, hooves flying, driving off the hyena (the laughing variety, as usual) and saving me from certain death at the hands of God-knows-what that was slowly ascending the stairs behind me.
Over the years, I can't help but think about how often people have asked me, "How do you come up with these ideas?"
God, it is so easy.
-Gary Larson, The Complete Far Side
Very very vivid. (he's got 2 older brothers)
Priceless!
Any bids by the DNC?
I'm one of those mean mommies .. I threw the monsters out on the street and banned them from my house :0)
NEWT: My mommy always said there were no monsters---no real ones---but there are.Well, I sit corrected, then. Very good.
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