Did you just growl at me?

Originally released for publication August 22, 2001
(c) 2001 by Steve Martaindale
A neighbor couple both have children from previous marriages. His are grown and gone. She has a pre-teen son and a daughter just starting college, both of who usually live with their father but who spent the summer here with their mother.

Mom told me the other day the kids were leaving, the daughter to college and the son back to his dad for the start of school. “And I’m having a little trouble with it,” she said. “It’s been nice having him around.”

I mentioned we were about ready to see our daughter return to college, just as the neighbor’s daughter pulled up in her pickup truck.

“Oh, her,” mom said in indicating her daughter, “she can go.”

It was said in a joking manner because we both knew what it meant. Once they’re ready to set out on their own, they can be monsters hanging around the house. I mentioned that it would be nice to get the house back on a normal timetable.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “They’re like vampires; they stay up all night and sleep all day.”

Kids in their late teens … what do you call them? Young adults really is not specific enough because it can include those in their mid- and even late-20s. Teen-agers isn’t fair, because even a child of 13 is a teen. Pooling personal experience with the anecdotes of many friends who now have or have had offspring at that stage of development, I suggest we just call them monsters and get it over with.

Monster mash

They are like Zombies when they finally do get up in the late morning, stumbling around and always in a bad mood. The dress and grooming habits of some are no better than the living dead.

At times, you think your monster might indeed be the Headless Horseman. That, at least, would explain some of the brainless things he does. Her tunnel vision when she wants something gives you reason to consider the possibility your child might really be a Cyclops.

Those noises emanating from his room would support the theory your son is a Werewolf and that he’s smart enough to drown out his howls with heavy metal. When you’re looking for a monster to take out the trash or clean the bathroom, you would swear yours is indeed the Invisible Man.

Even though you know you cannot lecture a monster because she is now an adult and is capable of making her own decisions and doesn’t really have to listen to you anymore, etc., etc., you can’t help yourself at times. That’s when you find you’re darling offspring turning into a Gargoyle right before your eyes, blocking out all of your logic with her eyes and ears of stone.

Your monster may have lived through the clumsiness of early teens when his body grew faster than his awareness of the fact, but he is still a regular Godzilla when you let him get into the same room with delicate items. For all their worldliness and cleverness, our monsters almost all have one glaring weakness that they never can see in themselves. They become Ghosts when they start lying to us and we can see right through them. And it seems they never know it.

Whether a Swamp Thing dragging itself home from some quagmire, Extraterrestrials who have no idea how life on this planet really works or a Mummy who dresses in nothing but rags, we can’t help but love them and try to outlast monsterhood.

Why?

Because they really are Vampires. Even though they drain the blood from us, we can’t help but enjoy it

(c) 2001 by Steve Martaindale