The Bloody bloody Mary Mirror Monster

About a month ago, our six year old started to act weird. A few days later we realized she was afraid to go into the bathroom and after a few rounds of questions it came out that she had heard a scary story at her after school program. An eleven year old had been egged on by the other kids to tell a scary story so she trotted out a nasty variation on the legend of Bloody Mary. If you look it up on Wikipedia or snopes, it's hard to establish the exact history behind the story but the short version is if you go into a bathroom at midnight, light a candle and say Bloody Mary three times (you may or may not have to spin around three times before or after) Bloody Mary's ghost appears and eats your face off. Well that's enough to terrify a six year old. 


As I began to talk to people about it I found out that Bloody Mary is lurking in the mirrors at pretty much every school n the Ottawa area. She was even found in some kid's Jello pudding last week. Not only that but she is ingrained in the psyches of people in every age group. I grabbed the movie that came out in 2006 or 2008 and tried to watch it (It sucked pretty bad, I'm talkin' Major league II bad here...) and the funny thing was, my wife refused to watch it with me. These deviation type legends bite pretty deep!

One thing I don't understand is why my kid takes some eleven year old's word for this kind of crazy stuff but refuses to believe me when I tell her we've been living on planet earth for years and nothing's tried to rip my face off near a bathroom (well, there was that dog that one time.. and it was kind of beside the bathroom). I even tried to start a dirty rumor that bananas were about to take over the world by flying into our ears and hijacking our brains and we have to be on our guard but of course she doesn't believe ME! I'll bet if it came out the eleven year old's mouth it would be the gospel! R Gater had a great idea. He had the same thing happen to him and he got his daughter what he referred to as a "Hippy Crystal" which he told her gave protection from all mirror-based monsters. We tried it and it helped, but the fear is still there and it's real as hell and overrides common sense and parental pissed-offed-ness.

Her sister tried to help in her own way by posting a picture in the bathroom downstairs but that didn't work either. I went on youtube and found tons of videos by kids 9 to 12 (the Robinson age they call it) filming themselves saying Bloody Mary in mirrors hoping to show my daughter that nothing happens but OF COURSE half of these vids by the amateur PUNK'D crowd end with the kids slathered in ketchup and wailing when the lights come on. Thanks for nothing you jokers! I was playing L.A. Noire on the Xbox 360 last week and my character passed in front of a mirror and I got her and yelled "BLOODY MARY" at the TV and nothing happened. Not even in the digital world! So tonight when I tucked her in to sleep in her mirror-less room she buried herself under the covers once again and the thought occurred to me that she could use a snorkel to breathe.


My next step is to get some old rotting book and replace the pages inside with aged paper that depicts a medieval version of our family (our ancestors) and shows them doing battle with Evil Bloody Mary Mirror Monsters in such a way that alludes to us having built up a a family immunity..

We'll see if that cuts down on the "Oops I didn't make it to the bathroom because there's an evil witch in there waiting to rip my face off while I go pee" laundry, if you get my meaning.