R.I.P.

Ding dong, the "buggy monster" is dead! At least in the eyes of Rylee, who came home from school the other day, concerned because none of her fellow classmates would believe her tale of a small creature that lives in people's noses waiting to prey on unsuspecting fingers. It is a story told to her by me, her mother, in an attempt to dissuade the disgusting habit of digging for buggers.

I did not make up the story. In fact it is one I was told, as a small girl, to explain away my Grandfather Max's missing finger. Later I would learn it was the casualty of a falling bucket of cement on the job site. However, my Grandfather had been quite convincing, as he held up his hand with the missing digit while he told me about the monster that bit his finger off while he picked his nose. It was, he said, the reason that little boys and girls should never stick their perfect, plump little fingers into dark scary places. You never know what's living up there!

The story was so apart of me that I did not think twice when passing it along to my trusting little children. It started with Mitchell, who told it to Rylee, who told it to Tess. (Tess has never cared much. She regularly risks danger to avoid the long walk to the bathroom in search of a kleenex. She can also usually be found with finger in nose when coming out of a deep sleep.) But, I was quite surprised when 8 year old Rylee had to ask me why all the kids at school didn't believe her. I never knew she had believed so implicitly. I came clean and tried to explain why Mommy had ever told her such a thing.

I tried to explain to her that it wasn't really a lie. Just a tall-tale. A Bryan family myth. A myth, you see, is simply a story that people refer to when they are trying to explain the world around them. It was passed down from one generation to the next to the next by an unconscious process. I had never intended to cause her embarrassment among her classmates. I just didn't want her to pick her nose.

In my opinion, it wasn't anything different than the story of George Washington cutting down his father's cherry tree or the story of the first Thanksgiving. In fact, it was a lot tamer than the myth of Mrs. Skuffalump (the haggard, old woman who would arrive to babysit with humped back and warty nose, if the children wouldn't behave themselves). But, that's a whole different story!