I Believe in the Boogie Man by Jackie Uhing

Go to bed or I will put you outside for the Boogie Man said my mother to the three year old girl that was me. That one simple little phrase would in fact put me into such a tizzy that I being a three year old would kind of but not really tinkle in my little three year old night gown. Now what would drive a grown single stressed out mother to put her little, tiny, mischievous, and not so keen- to- listen daughter into such a state of mind that she would almost tinkle her nighty with fright? I myself still don't know to this day, but one thing I can tell you and do know for certain is that I a grown, almost womanly sixteen year old am terrified and do believe in the Boogie Man.

Why would I someone who has a good grip and if I may say so relatively strong grasp on reality believe in such a childish and imaginary thing? Well I think that the answer to this question starts back when my brother and I where were young children, toddlers actually. My mother had just gotten out of a horrible and let's just says not so loving relationship. However determined not to let the fact that she was a single mother with two children who had no home, no father, no respectable car, and little to no money get to her, she being a strong determined women quickly got herself back onto her feet and found a suitable house for her family. Well, as you might imagine raising two children, while balancing college, the babysitter, and a job stressed my mother out a lot. While she did have a little, if not a lot of, help from family and friends who where sympathetic to her family's situation she was in no mood to put up with an incredible stubborn, and nosy three year old girl that hated to go to bed. So after putting in to play a couple of tricks which she had learned from other helpful neighborhood mothers and seeing them fail night after night, my mother, being a crafty woman, decided that the only thing that would keep her daughter in bed at night was something that I like to refer to as The Scare Factor . Knowing that her young daughter was deathly scared of one of the characters in a Dr. Seuss book, she decided to make this character her weapon, a deadly monster. One night at story time while her children where cuddled up in her ever so welcoming lap, my mother took out that Dr. Seuss book and began to read. She read with such character and enthusiasm that the story came to life for her children and when she came to the page with the sinister character on it instead of skipping over the page and continuing with the story as was usual my mother took a moment, cleared her throat and then said with her finger pointing to the picture on the page And this is the Boggy Man that lives under the rug. And that was it; the end of the story for it was bed time.

From that moment on my childhood imagination which was full of pirates, flying robots, and talking cows, became obsessed with the Boogie Man, so obsessed that in fact I had vivid night mares about this sinister monster. My mother, finally finding something that kept her three year old in bed instead of sitting on the stairs by the kitchen used the Boogie Man as a monk would a sword. Meaning that while bed time was a stressful time that me mother found a little challenging she remained calm and patient, but sometimes if driven to it she would pull out her weapon and wield it with such poise and talent that she would eliminate the threat of an unruly not so bed ridden child. I being just a child would fall into bed curl up with my stuffed ducky and hope to my imaginary friend that the horrible Boogie Man would not come in from outside and kidnap me from my bed and take me to his evil lair where he would tickle me until I shared with him my coveted candy collection.

However my mother could not stop my young three year old mind and body from developing and as I got older and more obedient to my now parents simple rules she simply stopped using the Boogie Man as a tool to get me to go to bed. Maybe because I did not say anything about the Boogie Man my mother might have thought that I forgot about him, but I did not no I did not forget about my Boogie Man. He was so real to me that by the time that I was seven years of age I had made a trap to catch the Boogie Man if he ever decided to come and take me in the middle of the night. That one little trap though was not the only thing that I had in store for the Boogie Man if he got past my trap which I set up every night before I went to bed I would not so nicely whack him in the evil head with a small bat that my father had bough ten for my youngest brother at a Yankees game. By the time that I was ten I had so many traps and alarms set up in me room that a bug could have scurried across my bed room floor and I would have known. Luckily for my stressed out child mind one of my teachers read a book all about how to get rid or at least scare off a Boogie Man and the way to do this was to squirt a little bit of water around your bed before you went to bed, something that was so simple it just had to work, and it did. As I grew older and turned eleven I decided that the Boogie Man did not like to tickle older children so I quit squirting water around my bed at night a slept a little restlessly. Then at the age of thirteen I all together quit worrying about the Boogie man, but he was and still is present in the back of my mind.

The Boogie Man is a monster that terrorizes children and pre-teens every night. He helps stressed out mothers keep their children in bed, but is an evil monster that will take you to his lair and tickle you until you give him all of the things in your secret collection. The Boogie Man is a monster that you need to set traps for, in order to keep him from getting you. I believe in the Boogie Man and so should you.