It was shower time. The usual routine. I asked her to get undressed and brought her one of her blue and white striped towels. She was tired, and so I asked her if she wanted me to turn on the water and get the temperature right. “Okay, it should be just right.” She pulled back the curtain.

What happened next was ungodly. Ellen, in the highest pitch and with virtually no inflection, let out the loudest and most deafening scream I have ever heard. More than when she fell on her head, or that time I said “boo!” in the dark hallway while she was on her way to the bathroom. The longest, fastest crawling three hundred ninety two legged creepy crawly bug dashed up the shower curtain, ambushing us with terror. My first reaction was to scream as well. My second was to be calm, for if I were to scream, I would have left an indelible mark of fear on her psyche. I calmly told her that Mr. Bug couldn’t hurt her and that I would take care of it. I drowned it in water until it was dead and picked Ellen up in to my arms. She was drowning in tears.

Kit and I explained that she had nothing to fear, and I told her a story about my first scary bug encounter, and how I had screamed in exactly the same way. I told her that only a moment ago, I had screamed a similar scream, only she couldn’t hear it, because I only did it in my mind, and she stopped crying enough to giggle at my animated recount.

I left her to her mother, and moved to the bathroom. I looked down at the drown-ed beast and shuddered, shivers down my spine. I grabbed exactly thirteen tissues and fashioned an instrument just large enough to extract the creature from the tub. In an instant, I had him within the grasp of my improvised glove and into the garbage, in my mind, just barely escaping the grisly death I imagined my little foe would ensure through reanimation and unparalleled vengeance. Thus fortunate, I returned to the bedroom to comfort my daughter, saving my own fearful tears for a later date.