Which Is Scarier: Green Cloud or Ants in Dishwasher? You Decide.

Well, I guess we had our first major experience with a scary show, but in all honesty, I had no idea a silly kid program would scare my son so much. He'd been dying to watch some stupid TV show that had been advertised on a kid channel, so I let him watch it and it turned out to be about a bunch of teenagers who encounter a ghost. I had no idea what the storyline would be; all I knew was that Spears gal's little sister was in it, so I figured it would be kind of dumb. Anyway, said ghost appeared as a mysterious green cloud and made things move around a room. The acting was predictably terrible and the special effects were oh-so-lame, but the kiddo was getting spooked halfway through and I had to turn on the baseball game to clear his mind. Lot of good that did. He kept asking me about the green cloud and begged me to keep some lights on. I tried telling him how lame the show was, described how the kid actors had to fake everything because the computer animated cloud had to be added later (he knows a little about how cartoons are made, so I thought he might get this) -- basically criticized the show for a few minutes, totally going against my intention of never criticizing a show he likes (after my dad killed one of my favorite shows many years ago with his negative comments). Then I started talking about the ballgame we were watching, asking lots of questions and getting him to talk about the players and the strategies. I finally thought he was fine, and thought he was falling asleep...and then he asked me again about the green cloud. Thankfully, though, he did fall asleep and hasn't woken up during the night so far. I can't imagine what would have happened if I'd let him watch something even scarier, like the movie that Flea's kids begged to see. (I think she wound up putting the kibosh on it.) I know there are a lot of kids who love scary movies and who don't suffer any negative effects afterwards, but I guess my son isn't one of them. It's just as well, and I definitely will be reading the descriptions of any new shows he wants to watch.

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Since I was putting the kiddo to bed for such a long time, answering questions and trying to steer his thoughts toward more wonderful things, I wound up falling asleep with him for a few hours. When I woke up, I stumbled down to the kitchen and, on a hunch, opened the dishwasher. Sure enough, the ants were back in full force, going for the one dirty dish I'd set on the bottom rack. Lovely. I ran the rinse cycle, then opened the thing back up (ants were temporarily gone), loaded the rest of the dinner dishes, threw in some detergent and turned it on to wash properly. I still saw a few ants on the outside of the dishwasher, but killed those. Blech. I'd really thought the ants had disappeared for the season. I think they live around the dishwasher, though. A Google search revealed more ants-in-dishwashers stories than I had a tolerance for, it turns out. I'd thought I could pick up some advice, but I ended up feeling...itchy. Yep, my personal scary movie features ants in my kitchen. *shudder*