Tickle Me Hideous

Hey Friends, want a surefire Halloween prop to scare the begeezes out of all the kiddos who come tramping up to your door? Great, because I know exactly what will do the trick!

Ghosts? No, not ghosts. Bats? Yes, black flying rodents can be scary, but they are way over-used. Witches? They are so last (and every) year. Skeletons? Not scary, just watch a few episodes of 'America's Next Top Model' and the fright factor goes way down.

No, this Halloween if you need to bring the fright to a whole new level, you will need to get your hands on one of these guys.



Yes, a "Tickle Me Elmo"!

Lukas has developed an odd facination with Elmo that he could have only picked up from the dancing chicken Elmo at daycare - which he loves. No, Elmo had never reared his ugly head in our house before tonight. But, he caught a glance of an Elmo in a children's catalog and began immediately chanting 'Ah-mo', 'Ah-mo' (this coming only days after 'mama'). So, we decided it was time to break out the "Tickle Me Elmo" that a gracious friend had gotten for Lukas as a Christmas gift, but which we had yet to give to him (hoping we could postpone the inevitable).

At first he was very excited to see Elmo, but what was to be a fun reunion with his fuzzy red friend quickly went south. We set it down and Lukas began to dance, expecting it to 'do the chicken, bock bock bock!' Instead, Elmo rolled on the ground insanely laughing, shaking and banging its little furry red head repeatedly onto the floor.

After witnessing this seizure-like behavior, Lukas started to shake his head 'No-No'. Then, when Elmo didn't stop a look of fear crossed Lukas' face that we have only seen in bad horror flicks. You would have though TME had sprouted a pair of horns, a tail and his head had spun around. (We've only seen this look of fear on Lukas' face once before - when a scary-looking old tatooed waitress picked him up and held him at a local eatery). The horrified face, a beat, then our boy began to scream bloody murder yelling "NO! NO! NO!"

Mrs. LIAYF quickly took Lukas to the other room to dance with him. I hid TME and chucked the packaging. Lesson learned: to a toddler, TME is no less than Norman Bates meets Chucky in Texas wielding a rusty chainsaw! We hope he sleeps through the night.