Scary Things My Toddler Says

I’ll be honest with you: I love my little girl, my cuter-than-a-button offspring, my tyrannical “no” saying minion, but sometimes she says stuff that, quite frankly would scare the shit out of Jason Statham. And she says these things, these scary things, while staring blankly over my shoulder as if there is some hideous beast lurking there that only she can see. These snippets of terror range from “funny, but not ha-ha funny” to “she’s possessed, I’m going to die in my sleep tonight, tell my family I loved them.”

Here’s a sampling:

“I farted and you didn’t laugh.” – Not so much the phrase that is scary in this case, but the words have such menace and hatred that you can be damn sure I will be laughing any time anyone farts from now on. Even if the sound is just couch cushions settling or a chair scooting across the floor—you’ll find me laughing until they haul me away.

“We’re all here except our elbows.” – When she says this, I feel like we’re living in a creepy Outer Limits episode written by Harlan Ellison, which means I’ll be sued at any moment.

“There are balls all over you, and now you’re gooey.” – This one scares me for several reasons that are personal, and I won’t discuss in a public forum.

“When I blink I see the butterflies.” – Kind of cute at first, but the longer I thought about it the more I realized this could easily slide her into the starring role of a Japanese horror film.

“Alex ate a crayon and choked. He’s fine.” – Because the second sentence was said with the sadness usually reserved for a Christmas morning after Santa failed to deliver the goods specifically asked for, you will now see me do a finger sweep of all my food and drinks for broken crayon parts, marbles, LEGO blocks, or Strawberry Shortcake doll shoes before consuming.

Who lives in the driveway so that nobody drives in our way and don’t hit us?” – An unsolvable Cthulhian riddle that is surely a precursor of doom. When they find my body, these words will be written in blood on the walls.

“I’ll shine your eyes black and then you’ll be gone!” – Holy crap, I don’t know what to think. Am I being sent to the Phantom Zone if I don’t let her have a cherry popsicle right before bed?

Do all little girls have evil powers?

I’m going to say, “yes.”