Ghost Stories Should Have Ratings On Them...

Sometimes I make crap parenting decisions. Like tonight when I decided to tell ghost stories to my 7 and 4 year old children. In the middle of a severe thunderstorm. Grand idea. 


The setting was just "oh so right" for spooky stories, and from time to time I forget to be the adult in certain situations.

I begin the night off after dinner by telling them the classic story about the girl with the ribbon around her neck. You know...that age old story about the hitchhiker/prom queen/dead girl. I forget all the variations, but I stick with dead prom girl.

Totally appropriate for a four year old.

They appeared to handle this story okay, so I pull out the big guns. "The Golden Arm."

This story used to scare the pants off of me as a kid. Actually it still does.

Side note: I am a big fat scaredy pants. When I wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom...I typically run back to bed full speed, eyes closed, and take an extreme dive into my bed and under the covers because I convince myself something is following me. I am supposedly a grown up! This is pathetic. 


So, back to "The Golden Arm." I pride myself on awesome story telling and this ghost story is no exception.

 For real...I am the mom that will use a fake British accent in a Dr. Seuss book for one of the characters if I think it suits them. This may prove to be extremely annoying in the years to come for my poor children. For now, I'm a rock star. 


I am pulling out every ounce of theatrics I have in me to make the story seem even more frightening. Because I am an awesome mom that likes to scare the crap out of her kids.

If you are not familiar with "The Golden Arm", let me summarize it for you.

Dude marries a chick with a golden arm. She lost her arm as a child in a horse riding accident and her rich father bought her a golden arm. (Wouldn't this be EXTREMELY heavy???) Chick tells dude repeatedly that  this arm is all that she has left of her father and even when she died she wanted him to promise that she would still have it. Long story short, chick dies, dude runs out of money, digs up dead wife and takes her arm. Chick ghost comes back to haunt him, because she is PISSED! At this point in the story you say in a spooky voice, "Where is my golden arm?" repeatedly and gradually get louder until you stop on one of listeners...go silent.....and then say, "IT WAS YOU!" while grabbing them suddenly.

Epic.

Except, I chose my youngest to scare the crap out of with this tactic. And he promptly did his "I'm going to repeatedly blink my eyes because I am about to cry and I don't want to" bit.

Shit. I suck at parenting.

I immediately pull him in for a big hug and tell him it was all just pretend. He asks me never to utter the words "Golden Arm" again. I agree this is for the best.

As we get ready for bed, I have two children glued to my side. I tuck them in and reassure them that the story is fake, Scooby Doo is fake, and every other thing involving monsters, zombies, or ghosts is fake. Long conversation that I totally deserved.

I think they are sleeping now. Fingers crossed that I didn't cause my children night terrors...

I am just glad I didn't go with my initial thought of showing them one of those videos that has a demon pop out at you suddenly...

(THOSE SUCK AND I HATE ANYONE THAT SENDS THOSE TO ME!)


(I DON'T KNOW IF I AM BEING CLEAR...BUT I LITERALLY WILL HATE YOU IF YOU SEND ME A LINK TO THAT SHIZ...)

Sweet dreams all. Don't tell stories about ghosts and death to your children. Trust me. You will feel like an ass later.