Curse You, William Shatner

I often hear parents, and read Facebook status updates from parents, complaining about having to watch a show or movie that their child wants to watch.  

"I couldn't watch Lost last night because little Billy wouldn't stop watching Shrek the Third for the 700th time!" 

"Man, I totally have every Dora, The Explorer episode memorized because Jenny has watched it so much!" 

I am constantly in awe of this, because, well, my parents watched whatever they damn well wanted whether we liked it or not.  Don't get me wrong; they were usually busy, you know, taking care of us, so we got to watch Full House and Perfect Strangers most of the time.  But if they wanted to watch Rescue 911, we either watched it or went elsewhere to watch something else.  Usually, we ended up watching Rescue 911 with them. 

And that is why I have psychological problems.  

5 Reasons Rescue 911 Ruined My Childhood

• I thought I would die.  Every day.  I vividly remember my dad mixing Miracle Grow on the front porch to feed the flowers.  A minuscule speck of water from the jug of mixture splashed out and landed on my bottom lip, and I instinctively licked my lip.  I proceeded to ask my dad at least 20 times if that was enough poison to kill me.  I didn't believe him, so I drank as much water as I could for the rest of the day, hoping for the best, silently imagining what my funeral would be like.
  
  
• I spent time at sleepovers plotting escape routes instead of having fun.  Convinced my friend's house would catch fire in the night, I walked around each room of the house trying to figure out the best way out.  Surely my friends didn't watch Rescue 911 and couldn't see that their house was clearly a death trap and they really should get a better fire safety situation going there. 
  
  
•  I ruined everyone else's fun because the activities weren't safe.  I actually just exhibited this the other day upon hearing of a senior prank in recent years that involved throwing hundreds of bouncy balls from the second floor onto the passersby below.  But being the safety police when you're 10 isn't what gets you invited back to play kickball in the middle of the road.  Good; I didn't want to get hit by a car anyway!
  
  
• Sirens?  They MUST be going to my house!  Hearing sirens caused some major anxiety for me.  MY house was obviously the one on fire, and my whole family was obviously dead and I'd be an orphan forever.  This fear was a direct result of hearing those terrifying sirens on the Rescue 911 theme song.  One time I heard them while I was at my friend's house around the corner.  I followed them, and the fire truck stopped RIGHT in front of my house.  It turns out a building across the street went down in flames.  I definitely didn't leave home again for a while.  Which brings me to #5.
  
  
• Instead of playing "house," we played "severe storm preparation."  The combination of Rescue 911 and the 1991 Ice Storm led me to believe that our family just wasn't prepared enough for such events.  So I forced my sister into playing "hurricane" or other such awesome and enlightening games.  We would hoard away fake food, light pretend flashlights, and hide under tables.  Yeah!