Parents want their children to feel safe and protected, but as overgrown children themselves, parents sometimes indulge in a little mischief at their children’s expense. Full confession, I was guilty of this just the other night.
The O’Driscolls’ longsuffering washer-dryer set has been replaced with brand new units from the former place of employment that shall not be named. To remove the old rattletraps and get the new appliances onto the back porch, the dead, cobwebbed, soil-encrusted remnants of my wife’s potted plants and related supplies had to be cleared away. A full day of not fun work later, you wouldn’t know it was the same porch as before.
So, I was bemused by my oldest daughter’s reluctance to go start some laundry one evening. The middle child had previously expressed reservations, even fear at the way the old washer would jump, rattle and move around, but this was my oldest offspring and the back porch’s deficiencies had been rectified. Before, I had thought the cramped, cluttered nature of the space and the numerous hidey-holes for spiders and creepy crawlies was what had her reluctant to be out there at night. In fact, I wasn’t sure her leeriness wasn’t just some dodge to get out of doing chores, which prompted a wicked impulse in me.
“Look, you better just hurry and do it before it gets much darker,” I advised in a tone which hinted I wasn’t telling all.
“Why, is something out there?” my poor daughter asked nervously.
“Nah,” I said with bored nonchalance, “Not yet. Just watch out for— the Thing With No Head.”
“ Thing With No Head?! What thing?” came the urgent reply.
“Greg,” my wife said with a certain cool look and tone of warning, but this was too good. Our eldest had taken the bait. I might as well play with her a bit, now that she was on the line.
“No one has seen it up close,” I said. “Just big and red— and it doesn’t have a head.”
“Noooo,” my daughter said dismayed, “Are you making this up? Now I really don’t want to go out there. What if I don’t see it coming?”
“Just hurry and keep your ears open,” I said as if it was a piece of cake, before adding darkly, “You’ll hear the sound of its hooves before it gets too close.”
She slunk away, less than enthused. Not long after, she crept back in, laundry still not started and tremulously stated she had heard a creaky sound from the porch roof. My youngest, the only boy and quickly catching on that this was all just a big goof, smiled and decided to get in on the action. “He said you’d hear its hooves coming!”
“Unless it crashes through the roof, right on top of her,” I clarified. He laughed— right up until he was told to go protect big sis as she worked. I suspect his put upon groan and dragging feet disguised a little leeriness of his own.
This back and to went on for a bit. There was at least one panicked rush of pounding feet fleeing the porch, and I’m not sure if the laundry ever did get started before their bedtime. At least I got a good chuckle at how credulous kids can be, conveniently forgetting about a night in the Pennsylvania mountains when I was about my oldest’s age.
Right after watching Hellraiser (the horror movie with Pinhead, remember him?) I found the back door hanging open. The night was pitch black and our dogs were barking like crazy in the yard outside. It had taken me a good long while to approach and shut the back door.
The next day, picking my daughter up from middle school, I reminded her of the teasing from the night before and how silly it seemed in the light of day. She agreed that it was all pretty silly.
Then I decided to remind her of something else monster related. Once when she was younger than her brother is now, back when she was the only child, she had asked if there really were monsters. I remember saying, “No, honey, not if you mean the kind with scales and horns and sharp teeth. Humans cleared all those monsters off the earth a long time ago.”
Then I had added, “The only monsters left all look like regular people. They are human just like you and me, but all twisted up inside and they prey on other humans, just like real monsters.”
The banality of evil, I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately. The worst monsters look just like regular people. You only know they are monsters by their actions, what they do and how they treat other people.
Frankly, I’d trade those kind of monsters for the Thing With No Head.
