To: Readers of the Imperfect Parent blog

From: Maureen

Re: Exorcism

Dear All:

Can anyone recommend a good exorcist? I, myself, have no connections to those who can communicate with the demonic world, but maybe one of you does.

Please. It’s urgent. The power of Christ compels you.

Looks innocuous, right?

Keychain says: “I will destroy you.”

The dark spiritual activity started a few months ago.  Ryan likes to play with a toy keychain which makes car and siren noises. The fact that the car sounds like a dying baby seal and the siren a clown horn is irrelevant.

It was annoying enough when my son decided to press the clown horn every fifteen minutes during a five-hour car ride to visit my in-laws.  Now the keychain simply goes off by itself.  Usually around 3:30am or when I’m in a room alone.

I’ll be reading my new US Weekly, laughing at photos of Lindsay Lohan and her “water bottle,” happy for a few quiet moments after my son is asleep and my husband is taking out the dog, when I hear what sounds like Bozo the clown playing the trumpet.

I’ve logically checked to see if the toy has batteries I could remove. It does not. It seems to be powered via an internal motor or something. Or maybe it runs on lead paint. Or maybe it is fueled by the hatred of damned souls.

I immediately suspected the “TV people,” and avoided all television static. It didn’t work.

So, either the toy itself is posessed, in which case we should give it to our neighbor who left dog crap on our front door, or our house has a ghost who likes to drive us nuts. Either theory is fine, but I’m hoping we have a ghost since I’d like to train it to do helpful tasks like fetch me beer, find the remote, clean up my son’s diaper explosions and hand me bon-bons while I’m watchin’ my stories. Or maybe I could teach Captain Howdy to be entertaining, like Beetlejuice, and it could amuse our drunk friends at parties by forcing them to dance to calypso music.

If it is posessed, I know I can’t just throw it away or hack it into tiny little pieces without it re-appearing on my bed five minutes later.

So what’s a parent to do?

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