Poltergeist

Tonight I was racing Alexander home from my mom's and he mentioned that he's afraid of the dark because Ian let him (or shall I say "strongly encouraged") watch Poltergeist. Now, I've never seen the movie and have no desire to see it. I thought it was rated "R" but Ian borrowed it from his parents and it has a PG rating (can you believe that?). Anyway, they watched the movie and afterwards Alexander needed to go to my parents house to return something for me. It was dark and we live at the end of a cul-da-sac that has no lights. So we turned the outside porch lights on and Alexander sets off on his scooter. Meanwhile I see Ian jump up and I immediately notice the diabolical gleam in his eye. "Don't" I tell him. If you know Ian you know it was too good for him to pass up. Apparently he ran outside and stood under the front porch light by the garage and made a super-evil smiling face (somewhat like the clown in the movie). He couldn't even see Alexander but the next thing he hears is a bunch of crashing sounds and Alexander screaming, "No! No, dad!" and hears rapidly approaching footsteps then sees Alex trip and dive head-first into the dirt right in front of him. Ian tells him, "I wasn't even trying to scare you!" (yeah, right). Alex gets up, dusts himself off and goes on his way to my mom's.

Meanwhile, Ian starts watering the trees and sees Alex coming back and realizes that Alex can't see him because it's so dark. (You all know where this is going...) So Ian says in a high-pitched girly voice, "Helllllloooo". I'm amazed that Alex didn't pee his pants. He yells at Ian and runs in the house (he'd had enough). To Alex's credit he laughed about the whole thing after about an hour.

Ian calls this kind of tortuous behavior "tough love" and I call it scarring your child for life.