Thursday 9 August 2012

What was your childhood monster?


So, there is this lady called Christine Rains who writes paranormal romance novels. She is celebrating the fact that her new novel Fearless is available for download on Smashwords for free or on Createspace as an actual, real, physical book for $3.99. If paranormal romance is your bag (my wife certainly digs it) click the links and do Christine a favour. 
She has also asked folk joining in the blogfest to tell of their particular childhood monster, so I'll tell you of mine. 

The monster from my youth was called the Foomf. It lived under the stairs and would allegedly take you away if you were particularly naughty or generally didn't do what Mam or Dad said. Now, I'm not sure where "away" was, but my six year old self was assured that it was pretty nasty and there was definitely no Lego there. This was enough to convince me that I didn't want to go. At all. 

Also, the Foomf didn't just live at my house. It appeared that the Foomf wasn't averse to travel and could often be found at both sets of grandparents houses and also at other relations places as well. One time, when I was particularly restless when we were at a department store the Foomf could be found in the changing rooms of the men's clothing section. The Foomf was my bad behaviours nemesis. I had no defence against the Foomf, for the Foomf was all powerful and was everywhere. My mother would arch her eyebrows in a knowing way when she said that and it terrified the young me into submission every time.

Now I am nearly forty and absolutely understand that the Foomf was the last line of defence in my parents psychological arsenal against a small child that had to touch everything he shouldn't and was the proud owner of just a little too much sass at times. I have considered using the Foomf on my two kids. Rocco is now six and Jasmine is three and a half and they are perfect Foomf fodder, but I can't bring myself to do it. They are sensitive little souls and I couldn't bear either of them lying awake at night scared to death. Also, my wife doesn't agree with it and she wears the trousers in this house where psychological warfare is concerned. But that's another blog for another time. She would know if I had brought forth the Foomf, because she, like the Foomf is all seeing and all knowing. 

She is my new Foomf. She is Foomf 2.0. 

Christine Rains Blog can be found here. Its pretty good. Go read some stuff. 

5 comments:

  1. The Foomf. Awesome name! I have considered using that sort of scare for my son, but I can't bring myself to do it either. Like your kids, my boy is a gentle and sensitive little guy. Thanks so much for sharing your monster with us and for helping promote my book and blog. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Foomf is an excellent name! My version of that was the Coca, of Portuguese extraction (I blogged about this on Tuesday). Dude, don't do it - threaten to take stuff away for bad behavior rather than spook your kids with a...well, with a spook. Kids learn soon enough that the world holds enough *real* terrors.
    Some Dark Romantic

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with Mina. Rather withhold a special privilege or take away a favourite toy, instead of scarring the kids with images of the "all-knowing and all-seeing Foomf".
    You had me in stitches with Foomf 2.0... *still chuckling*
    It's a wonder that we've all grown up as normal, well-adapted adults, considering the crazy monstrous mages we were subjected to as kids...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the responses guys. It was fun blogging about this. I now have loads of colleagues in work recounting their childhood monsters too!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Foomf 2.0...fantastic! Hahaha! Yeah, I haven't been able to use the fear factor to control the kids. It just seems so cruel. Yet so many of us went through it and came through okay...I think...

    My monster: http://thewarriormuse.blogspot.com/2012/08/childhood-monster-blog-fest.html

    ReplyDelete

Wotcher. Comments are welcome and make Wayne happy. Please post some. Spammers on the other hand, I hunt down, kill and eat.

Five Sentence Fiction - Bubbles

Here we are again with Five Sentence Fiction from Lillie McFerrin. The word du jour is Bubbles...