The Revenge of the Chucka-Chuck Monster

...in which a harmless bath time story goes awry, at the expense of yours truly....

So, once upon a time, there was a little girl who liked to take baths. I mean, she REALLY liked baths. She could soak in them for hours, and, if there were bubbles in there, for days. Sometimes her mother would put her in there so she could finish the novel she was reading or make a quick trip to the hairdresser's. NO, no, nothing like that! Anyway. Sometimes, sometimes, her mother had some problems getting the kid out of there. In fact, anyone passing the house when this lovely, kind and patient mother was trying to end bath time would have thought a mass murder was being committed, so loud and terrible were the screams. So the mother (who was lovely, kind, patient AND clever) made up a story. She said, "OK, you can stay in if you want, but I'm gonna pull the plug. And once the plug is pulled, the door to the Chucka-Chuck Monster's dungeon is open. And he may just drag you down there. Mwa ha ha!" And yes, she did make that evil laugh. Because the Chucka-Chuck Monster's creator is evil.

At first the child was not frightened. She was worldly beyond her four years and would say, "yeah, whatever mom," in that kind of bored, teenage tone which she must have picked up from television. But slowly, slowly, the Chucka-Chuck monster's persona began to grow. He was green, slimy and an orphan. (He'd eaten both his parents one day in a burst of hungry outrage after being sent to bed without any supper.) He had long, slithery tentacles that were just skinny enough to slide through the drain and drag small children down. Sometimes he even went for big people, as he did one day when the little girl's mother was in the bath. The mother had cried and yelled, and her big toe had already been sucked down when the little girl came to the rescue and, screaming hysterically, helped pull her mom to safety. Yah, OK, the mom felt a little bad about that one, especially when she saw the tears on the girl's face and the terror in her eyes half an hour later. But hallelujah, it certainly wasn't an issue getting her out of the tub anymore! When that plug was pulled, that little girl was jumping out of there faster than a ham hock can say bacon!

I don't know what that means either.

Anyway, one night, the little girl had a dream. You guessed it, it was about the Chucka-Chuck Monster! Although the details were kept scarce, it was pretty obvious that it had scared the bejesus out of that young child. It sent her over the edge! She crawled into her parents' bed and clung to them for the rest of the night! And (this is the part that sucks) she refused to go to the bathroom by herself in the middle of the night ever, ever again! Which means the lovely mother of our story, the kind, patient STUPID IDIOT MORON mother of our tragic tale had to drag her sorry butt out of bed to accompany the little girl on her nightly two o' clock-in-the-morning throne visits every night for the REST OF HER LIFE!!!

In terrible despair, she lived unhappily ever after.

The end.