The Monster at the End of this Post

[create_destiny]

Certain health care professionals have accused me of having undue anxiety. What's that saying, "If you're not confused you're not paying attention?" How about "If you don't have an anxiety disorder you weren't paying attention to the books you were exposed to as a child."

Take, for example, The Cat in the Hat, a godless recipe for anarchy. This book wrecked me as a child. My hypothalamus most certainly shrank, marinated as it were in a toxic bath of stress hormones, while my mother read this book to me. A trickster cat hops on a ball while performing a circus act of balancing objects. Don't You Realize That a Goldfish Could Die and a Perfectly Good Cake is About to be Ruined? Not to mention the demonic flying of kites in the house by the perverted twins --"Thing One" and "Thing Two!" Holy Christ! Will no one heed the goldfish, crying like a voice in the wilderness, urging the children to chase the Cat out and restore the house to sanity and order?!?

Even worse was Grover in The Monster at the End of This Book. Each turn of the page brings Grover and the reader closer to the monster at the end of the book. Grover desperately scrambles to prevent the reader from turning the pages. He ties the pages together with rope, he builds a brick wall, but nothing is strong enough to stop the ceaseless turning of the pages.



Even as a child I knew this book was written to prepare children for the end of the world. Each passing hour is the turning of another page, bringing us closer to the horror of eternal bedtime. Yes, the monster at the end of the book turns out to be Grover himself, but this was no consolation to me. I knew that was just a sugar-coated ploy devised to trick children into going to sleep, into living an unconscious life where we dare not question God or Dick Cheney.

Yes, give me Wellbutrin and buckets of TrimSpa, Baby. Give me new pills all shiny and green -- striped ones, piped ones and a Prozac machine! For these green house gasses are killing us, Lasses. There's a Bush in the house and our Mother stepped out. Turn the page! Turn the page! Turn the page!

Comments

[petunias-petals.livejournal.com]

yes i wonder what is wrong with me now. i have never found any depth in these kids books. is it because my depth was found in other areas or do some children not need to confront the anxiety in books ot maybe some of us just dont read it like that, not to say that i didnt have my probs. i mean my stuffed animals used to be in "intensive care" for weeks on the brink of death, at the time i had no idea why. i just knew that i needed to take my brothers pampers box and turn it upside down to create a confined warm dark space for my fav. animals who had suddenly fallen ill. deathly ill. one time when the family was in crisis ( i remember that i tended to be unawaress of this stuff) we wnt for a speedy cruise in my dads new porsche, us in the back, me, my bear, and my bro (who i have no recollection of). i let my parents in the front aware that my bear was going to die because my dad was driving to fast on the curvy road. my bear died and i was crying in the back, i was feet below them, the back of the front seat towering above me.
i can readily give stories like these were i know i experienced suffering and such, yet i dont feel it still affects me, i can tell you how messed up it was, with that i agree but yet.... i am doing ok with the oast or i am i that much inflicted by it that i am now callused?
woo hoo, for long ranting posts.

[createdestiny.livejournal.com]

That is so fuuny! I used to do stuff like this, too. For some reason I constantly played doctor with my Raggedy Ann doll ---VAGINA doctor, that is! She was always on her back with her legs in imaginary stir-ups.