Glow bug caused a scare

It’s Halloween! There are scary things everywhere. Some places decorate with spiders, bats, ghosts and such. Pumpkins pop up all over the place. But the scariest things don’t have anything to do with the end of October.
I was in Texas recently, spoiling small children and providing some much needed relief to my daughter. She was at work, granddaughter Emma was at school, baby Nicholas was napping and three-year-old Jacob was upstairs watching cartoons. I sat down for a bit and suddenly heard the most agonizing cry.
I raced upstairs to find Jacob curled up under the fitted sheet on his bed. He was crying and wailing uncontrollably. He screamed when I touched him. I asked if he was OK and he sobbed, “No.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Would it help if I held you?”
“No.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his back through the sheet while he continued to cry. I asked him what was wrong.
“I’m sad.”
“You’re sad?”
“Yes,” he sniffled then resumed wailing and crying.
“Why are you sad?”
“The glow bug.”
“The glow bug?”
“On TB.”
Now I was beginning to get the picture. He was watching a cartoon and something bad had happened to one of the characters.  Just as I persuaded him to come out from under the sheet and the crying had begun to subside, the plot changed and something else bad happened to the glow bug. The wailing started again. I silently cursed the writers and tried my best to calm him.
The story finally had a happy ending, as all of today’s cartoons do. My heart rate returned to normal and Jacob’s tears evaporated. I turned off the television.
We went downstairs and played cars. Nicholas woke up and we went on to the next screaming fit as one boy invariably wanted whatever the other one had.
The possibilities of what could have been wrong were so much scarier than any carved pumpkin could ever be. Jacob likes to jump on things and I had envisioned broken bones or split lips. Bumps and bruises are common in childhood. It didn’t even occur to me that the problem was empathy.
The next day he had yet another reason to cry. I was inside rocking Nicholas to sleep while Jacob was outside with his mom. She was taking care of the horses and Jacob was looking for frogs.
He found an ant nest instead and was bitten before his mom could rescue him. I didn’t realize how badly he had been bitten until the next day when I saw his legs. Between the ant bites and the mosquito bites, he was a mess. Texas ants are nasty creatures, much worse than plastic spiders and bats.
Yes, it is the Halloween season. Scary things are everywhere. Spooky pumpkins, bats and ghosts are a fun way to play with fear.
Glow bugs and ant bites may provoke screams but the pain is ultimately short-lived.
We play with fear because it is the one time of the year that we can control that fear. Enjoy your Halloween and beware of cartoons featuring glow bugs.[[In-content Ad]]