Posted by
This Guy on Thursday, August 17, 2006 12:25:45 PM
Kids can be so cute. My son recently began refusing to go to sleep at night unless I first perform a thorough search for (and elimination of) any monsters that may be lurking in his closet or under his bed. Both of those locations are, of course, prime spots for monsters, so I can understand the fear, even though I'm pretty sure that I've never allowed any monsters into his room, and I've never actually found any in either place. Nevertheless, the fact that I do the checking seems to reassure him, and it's pretty easy to do, so I don't mind undertaking the ritual for his peace of mind. It helps me out, too, since a happily sleeping child requires far fewer nighttime comfortings than one forced to cower beneath blankets in the corner of the bed.
Every once in a while, I'll round up a monsterling from the backyard and dispatch it, and then show it to my son. That might seem cruel or unnecessary, but it actually makes the little guy feel better, since he knows if I ever
were to find a monster in his closet, I could still take care of it for him. He feels better, I feel better, we all sleep well at night.
Except, sometimes I have a hard time ignoring the fact that there are no fewer than 37 full-grown monsters in my basement. At least, that's how many there were last I checked. Which was a while ago. And I don't mean the
cute-and-furry Sesame Street variety either. The smallest of them is easily twice my height, close to three thousand pounds, and has more teeth and claws than a great white shark, taped to a tiger, glued to a bear, tied to a lion, covered in dentures and sponsored by
Lee Press-On Nails. I'm quite certain that if one of those things ever decided to make the trek upstairs, I would be utterly powerless to prevent it from having its way within my humble home.
I don't let my son go into the basement, of course. I tell him that there are icky spiders down there, and it's best to let them have their space, so we can have ours.
I guess it works out pretty well, though. I check under the bed and the closet every night, and he goes to sleep content to know that Daddy made the house safe. And Daddy tries very hard not to think about the basement.