The First Appearance of the Monster in the Closet

I never shut my closet door. Occasionally I will notice this, and close it on the way by, but for the most part it's generally open. I also rarely sleep with covers on- and tend to dangle my feet/hands over the side of the bed. For some reason I find this comfortable.

Let me tell you a little story to prove how our little princess has evolved.

Picture it.
Winnipeg.
1981.

Once upon a time there was a little wee princess whose mother enrolled her in Brownies.

The little princess has pretty much no clue what was going on, but every Monday at 6:00 she would walk half a block to the community club with a bunch of other little girls and do crafts and sing songs and generally be....well kinda bored.

Then Halloween happened. The little princess was 6 years old.
She walked into the community club for what was sure to be a lovely party filled with candy and music, and bobbing for apples. She doesn't really know for sure because she never made it to the end of the party.

At the beginning of the night the leaders told all the little girls to sit in a circle. Then they turned off all the lights to it was pitch black. They said that a vampire had died, and they were passing around it's body parts.

They passed around something that felt like spaghetti and called it the vampire's brains. They may have passed around more, but at this point the little princess demonstrated that being a delicate flower started early on for her.

She burst into tears, and was nearly hysterical. Needless to say, the game ended. One of the adults took her home, and the princess's mother was not impressed with the choice of game.

She was put to bed early that night, with soothing coos and kisses from her mother. However, before the Queen mother left, the little princess made a request she had never made before. Please shut the closet door. There are monsters hiding in there.

For years afterwards the princess could not sleep with the closet door open, nor could she dangle her feet over the edge of the bed because of what might be hiding underneath waiting to grab them. She had never thought about monsters before- but after that night, she never forgot about them.

xo