Gallons and gallons of adult drinks and I still remember this

I got away with one. Quin likes watching ET, but Sarah doesn't want him seeing the traumatic parts. Well I got lazy and let the movie roll right on through and Quin saw all the drama. How did I end up winning? What did seeing his favorite Extra Terrestrial dried up and near dead in a ravine do to Quin?

Quin told me: "ET drank an adult drink and he got sick and doctors had to help him."

This is such a win/win that it's hard to explain all the benefits. First, Quin saw ET drink the Coors out of the fridge, and now he equates that do ending up sick in a ditch. Second, the scary part with the scientists bursting into Elliot's home has been turned into a benign house call. And thirdly, he'll never drink Coors.

Oh, and there's the part about his daddy ending up near dead in a ditch and daddy worried as all heck that his surviving only means there's payback in the kids.

But there's a lot of depth here, stuff that goes back to Sarah and my childhood.

Sarah is big on protecting the boys from nasty stuff on TV. I'm with her, but not as vigilant. And these days, with every football game showing up with a four-hour erection and a bloodlust for violent gaming, it's good to be on the remote control. My only hesitation comes with the fact that growing up without a TV made me, well, soft. I see even a preview for the latest creepy movie about possessed children and I'm lying awake certain she's going to grab my foot.

This is a cause and effect that has come with plenty of life research. I don't think Sarah was able to watch a lot of bad TV--her parents didn't even get cable until all the kids were gone--but she grew up in Baltimore. On the other hand, I had to drive three hours to see a homeless guy vomiting. I woke up to the crisp silence of cold mountain mornings, and went to bed with layers and layers of stars twinkling me to sleep. Until I saw Poltergeist and would hide under my covers wondering when a tree was going to burst through the window and eat me.

I kid you not, after seeing Poltergeist I didn't sleep for a week. My belief is that a world without horrific images left me pretty sensitive to even the meekest of scary fare. I'm sticking to this because it's the only reason I have for sleeping with my friends parents during his birthday slumber party.

It was 1985. As part of the evening's festivities we watched Friday the 13th part 1 and part 2. I was mortified. My heart raced with every chase, every machete hacking and pretty much throughout the entire thing. After the second movie was over all the other kids drifted off to sleep like they'd just seen Yentl. That left me alone with my imagination in a wide open living room lit only by an aquarium. I did an elbow crawl over to the wall and slid the curtains closed with my toes. For the rest of the night I stared at the window wondering if there was anything looking back. Well, for the rest of night up until I sprinted to his parent's bedroom and asked to sleep with them. They were caught off guard, but my overall desperation convinced them it was serious. My friend's dad went and found some other place to retire, and I unwittingly chiseled my name in Walden Elementary lore by sleeping with my friend's mother.

And by "sleeping with" I mean crying and needing to be held. It was not an easy time to be me.

So I'm just a little scared for my boys. I want them to be a little tougher. I want them to be seasoned just enough to know that the psycho killer in the hockey mask is just a desperate actor who needed a gig. And if either of them ever need to share a bed with their friend's mom, it's because she needs the comfort.