Sump Pump Monsters.

• Author: Puterbaugh, Dolores T.
• Position: PARTING THOUGHTS - Effects of self-made up stories - Column

IALWAYS WOULD BURST from the basement as if shot from a cannon, slamming the door behind me. Ten years old and 65 pounds, I could bolt up those stairs toting a heaping basket of wet laundry in nothing flat. It was essential--lingering on the stairs and fumbling with the doorknob were risky. There was, of course, a monster in the basement, sometimes below the surface, but always there, in that shadowy corner--the Sump Pump Monster. Scaly, slimy, burbling--lurking in the dark, behind the cobwebs. It took all of my courage to turn my back on that corner to tend the washing machine. Almost as bad was when, upon leaving the bathroom, you might hear the gentle flap of the laundry chute cover, meaning the Sump Pump Monster had crept up the chute and was about to reach its terrible webbed claws through the door and ... SLAM! I lived in terror of the Sump Pump Monster.

Nearly as ridiculous as my fear of the Monster is the befuddling fact that I had created it. Yes, the Sump Pump Monster (SPM) was entirely a figment of my overactive imagination, inspired by my uncle's campfire ghost-and-ghoul stories. I created the SPM; I scared my younger siblings with it, but I did the most harm to myself, because I ended up terrified and the one most often tasked with going to the basement, since laundry was my chore.

Laugh if you will, but I am not the only person who created a monster to scare someone else and ended up buying into my own imagination. At least I was just a child--a quiet, bookish kid who escaped into the world of the mind whenever possible. That's my excuse.

What on earth explains much of the media--on the left and the right--during the 2016 election cycle? After creating threats of mythological proportions no matter who might win the presidential election, many commentators seemed to begin to believe their own stories. Tales were spun from thin air and meanings elicited, as irrational as examining the entrails of an owl to discern international policy. SPMs are good for business, of course, if business means riveting people's attention because turning their backs (even for a moment) is perilous.

What would be hilarious, if not so pathetic, is the degree to which adults, often with advanced degrees, were as gullible in believing then-own made-up stories as, say, an elementary school student. Nothing else can explain the hysteria we witnessed after the election--and it continues at this writing, more than a year later. If the people who made up...