Scare Tactics

Things have been a little slow over here for the last few days, and in my anhedonia I've had no choice but to turn to scaring my children for entertainment. At first it was softball kind of stuff, like hollering "there's a giant spider on your head!" or telling bedtime stories about a President Rick Perry Supreme Court, but all the rain started to really depress me so I had to go bigger. Lately my favorite thing to do is to hide somewhere and yell for the girls, then jump out and scare the living shit out of them. AD has 8 years of living with me under her belt so she just usually squeals and runs away, but the RM, being relatively new to the scene, positively freaks out. It's excellent. She tends to lock up and fall over, like one of those fainting goats you see on YouTube. Sure, she's subsequently developed a pretty oversized phobia of blind corners and draperies, but I'm sure she'll be fine. This sort of behavior - both the need to scare as well as the hair-trigger startle reflex - runs in my family like a Hapsburg jaw.

I mostly blame my dad. He never missed a chance to scare Cslos and me when we were growing up, and as a physician and therefore the owner of an endless supply of terrifying medical journals and magazines, his arsenal was mighty indeed. To be fair, it was usually in the name of safety and/or discipline; he'd show us a picture of a morbidly obese earless man covered in pustular acne, for example, and very solemnly tell us "....and look what happened to THIS poor little girl when she decided she wanted a skateboard...". He was not, however, averse to revulsion as sport, and for that reason we knew that when a new "Lancet" or JAMA arrived in the mail it would be prudent to steel ourselves for photos of Thalidomide babies or battlefield amputations hidden under our pillows or in coat pockets.

don't say the word "motorcycle" three times 



 

I think I took it all better than Cslos did. She emerged from childhood a relatively nervous person and being the loving big sister I was, I hopped on that like a duck on a junebug. She was so high-strung that at times you could just be sitting across the table from her and say "boo" in a totally normal tone of voice, and she'd jump like you'd taken a cattle prod to her. One time I pulled a pair of pantyhose over my head, snuck outside, pressed my face against her window and promptly shaved ten years off of her life. When she saw me she turned milk white and did her best Fred Sanford "Elizabeth I'm coming to join you" chest-clutching before collapsing against the wall; it was a while before she spoke to me again.

 

When AD was four I had a window into what it must be like to have a hysterical temperament; Carol, my mother-in-law, sent her a walking Elmo mylar balloon for Valentine's Day that made me as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo. Let me just say that I was not too shocked to hear about the allegations against Kevin Clash because this Elmo was a serious asshole. He would wait until my guard was completely down (usually in the evenings after a glass of wine. Very opportunistic, this Muppet), shuffle noiselessly up from behind and have me blindly lunging for a butcher knife. It was as if we were constantly being burgled in a Fellini film.

 

 

the original Red Menace of Birchwood Drive.  It really needs to wipe that fucking smile off its face.

 

I had no choice but to use Elmo's powers for my purposes, so I started hiding it from JHP. One morning he found it in the shower, another time he opened his closet to find a tie and instead, out ambles Elmo. I always knew when he'd been discovered because JHP screams like a falsetto child. Quite distinctive. I really got him when I belted Elmo into the driver's seat of his car one night - I think he peed a tiny bit. Shortly after that, Elmo was somehow mysteriously flattened which I was okay with because my hair had started coming in gray from the lifestyle.

 

The girls better hope this weather clears up soon, because I know where to get an Elmo balloon, and a "Lancet". Not to mention a pair of pantyhose.