x-files & wetting the bed

A few weeks ago, my housemate had me revisit one of the X-Files episodes that I was most scared of as a kid. All I could think about was all the times I wet the bed because I was too scared to go to the toilet at night.

Even now, the theme music is a cue to get scared. Go on! Listen to it and tell me that you don't feel a little tingle shimmy down your spine!

So picture this. A short, dark haired man with a broad face, who builds lairs using human livers. He can dislocate any part of his body in order to fit into the teeniest tiniest space, and has eyes that light up a luminescent green when hunting his victim.  Cue 3 minutes of X-Files music.

Can you blame a kid for wetting the bed now? Picture a young girl sharing a room with her older sister who needs the bedroom door open in order to let the hall light beam through.  Imagine her horror having to walk down the long hallway past two empty, dark bedrooms sheltering potential killers and creatures. She never looks in those rooms because she fears too greatly what her eyes will meet.  She flicks on the bathroom light and imagines the horrors disappearing with a 'click' and gingerly sits on the cold, cold seat. 

Now, in the time it takes to relieve myself, my feet swinging about the floor I imagine those green, glowing eyes and the clawed hand as it slivers through the toilet pipes and reaches for the glowing crescent moon of my bottom. As soon as I'm done I am up and out, the toilet roaring after me as I stumble through the hallway and back to my bed.  The whole experience was terrible for night time nerves.  One time, I even wore an itchy pink scarf my grandma has made to bed wrapped tightly around my neck in case I was visited by Dracula.

Being a child is so crazy! So many unknowns in life! The monsters, the strangers, the crawly  dark  spaces. Men with bald heads, mean old ladies. Kids just need a little light shed on the situation, just a little kindness. This world's too crazy for that. They don't need The X-Files and Dracula to plague their lives when they're just struggling to learn to tie their shoes!

But when your mad that your kid is still wetting the bed after years of toilet training perhaps ask yourself why that might be. What demons are guarding the bathroom doors for them?