Monster Busters
in Stories
as children, Monkey, Princess Know-It-All
When PK was about three she started making up excuses for getting out of bed at night. Anything to interrupt my peace and quiet and get a few more minutes of attention. PK’s favorite distraction was ghosts. She would come out to the living room crying that there were ghosts all over her room and that she couldn’t possible sleep with the fiends flying around.
In order to deal with her fears I would run around the room scooping the ghosts up and throwing them out the windows and doors. It was quite a workout and made PK laugh like a hyena. The upside was that after I’d chased all the ghosts out of her room she would go to sleep. The downside was that she was so amused by my ghost-busting that every time I went into her room to catch them there were greater numbers of ghosts. Just inventing more ghouls wasn’t enough though, they also got smarter. Eventually I’d go into her room to find hordes of ghosts who would no longer cower and scurry off when tossed out on their ears. The new ghosts would cling to the door frames, wriggle out of my arms to hide in the closet and creep back in the window while my back was turned dealing with the next apparition.
Fortunately there came a day when PK outgrew the ghosts and I was forced to join a gym to get my exercise. Now I’m dealing with Monkey’s fears: Monsters. Tonight she crept into our room after she’d been tucked in to let us know that her room was overrun and she was on the run. Since DH was lounging face down on the bed and showed no sign of concern I abandoned my ironing to fend of the oogedy boogedies.
She entered her room cautiously and told me the monsters were under her bed. After I turned on the light she inspected the shadows below her bed and declared that there were no monsters because they were only there when the lights were off. Flicking the switch down she checked again and pronounced that they were back.
I turned the light on once more and sat with her to discuss the problem. It turned out that the monsters hid right outside her room waiting until the moment the room went dark to go mini-size in order to slip in unseen. Once under the bed they got big-sized again in order to scare her.
The solution to the problem was immediately clear. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my aerosol can on monster repellent. It’s very similar to bug repellent or RAID. By spraying it around all the doors and windows we were able to stop the monsters from entering the room at all. With the monster problem solved Monkey snuggled back into her bed and hasn’t been seen again.
Two questions remain. How far will the monster problem escalate and what boogy-woogie with Busy B come up with?
Always Zip Your Pockets
Just spent some quality time with my husband, a flashlight and broom. Dirty mind! We were outside in the dark sweeping up snow in the grass searching for my brother-in-law’s lost keys.
Apparently when hubby and BIL were outside this afternoon playing football with the kids the keys fell out of his unsecured pocket. Unfortunately he had no idea when exactly that happened so he could only tell us that they should be somewhere in the common area (about the size of a big backyard). This was complicated by the fact that they had trampled over and around the entire area which had then been covered by even more snow.
Hubby started by searching spots he knew he’d tackled BIL while I started kicking through the snow at the base of the big king-of-the-hill type pile the plows had built at the end of the driveway. Finding nothing I grabbed the broom and swept around it a couple times while hubby crawled through it just to double check. When we still hadn’t found anything I started out across the field of play. After the first pass across I was sweating in my big down coat and started unsnapping the top to let the breeze down the back of my neck. By the time I finished the second pass I pushed my hat off my ears and neck.
I continued on a few more times sweeping my way from driveway to sidewalk while hubby dug through the end zones with his flashlight. As I took a breath and repositioned the flashlight against the broomstick so it would shine on the snow as I pushed it around I saw that the snow removal crew had returned. A truck was plowing a neighboring driveway and a group of three or four men were making their rounds with their shovels. I pondered approaching them for assistance but decided I wasn’t that desperate just yet while secretly hoping that they’d see us, be overcome by curiosity and after hearing our tale of woe offer to help us.
While imagining a small crew of men digging out the common area for me I began another pass but my rescue fantasy was interrupted halfway through by a flicker of something black under my broom. Swishing over the spot one more time revealed the lost keys.
It ended up taking us only about 15 minutes searching to find them so I was glad I insisted on helping. Now we just need to get the keys back to my sister and her husband over an hour drive away. They said they’d meet us halfway tomorrow and owe us big time. We’re wondering about the key fob on the chain offering a reward if we mail it in. Hmm, spend gas money and time to drive the keys back and get a big hug or drop them in the mailbox at the end of the drive and get a thank you hopefully in the form of a little money.
Sometimes it sucks being a good person.
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