When you were young, what kind of monsters lived under your bed? Or did they live under the bed?
Mine didn’t.
I had two monsters. One lived in the closet in my bedroom and had eyes that could see me through the door. The other lived in the basement, behind the furnace. But it would lie in wait at the top of the basement stairs, behind the door—just waiting for the unwary to descend.
I lived in fear of those monsters. And my dad could rationalize with me all he wanted, but those monsters were real.
The Monsters Under Jakob’s Bed
Just as real as the monsters under the bed of a Prince George, British Columbia boy are to him.
Seven-year-old Jakob Garfield had been sneaking into his parents’ bed for a while, and mom Heather was getting desperate for a solution.
She told CBC’s Radio West,
“He’s been having some trouble with fears at night and what lies in the darkness, what’s outside his bedroom, what’s under his bed.”
Her older son had dealt with the same type of fears and had come up with a solution of his own. He developed a homemade “monster spray” that he would spritz around before going to bed, and that was sufficient for him.
But Garfield knew that wouldn’t work for her younger son. There was no way he would put trust in some homemade remedy.
“He’s a little too smart for his own good sometimes,” she said. “So I had to make it quite official.”
A Trip to the Local Pharmacy
Garfield headed to her local Shoppers Drug Mart. The company operates more than 1,300 drug stores across Canada. According to their website, the brand has a reputation for good customer service.
“These conveniently located stores are owned and operated by the Company’s licensed Associate-owners who have helped build a brand that is synonymous with exceptional service, value and trust.” – Shoppers Drug Mart
Garfield can attest to this level of service. She boldly took her strange request to the pharmacist. She wanted a bottle of monster spray or something that looked like it.
According to her Facebook post,
“I asked the pharmacy if they could make me a monster spray label and even though they were busy they were happy to do it.”
Pharmacy Manager Jepal Patel told CBC,
“She told me that she had one kind of weird request. I wanted to help her … I really loved her idea.”
Just What Mom Ordered
Well, when talking about filling a prescription, we’re talking about what the doctor ordered. In this case, mom got what she ordered—or requested.
Pharmacists have a solid backing in chemistry, and this pharmacist/chemist went to work preparing a concoction that would ward off any and all monsters under the bed.
What’s the secret ingredient guaranteed to annihilate monsters big and small? Well, we don’t know that. The only clue the pharmacist shared was that one ingredient was water.
But mom had her own secret ingredient she added before giving the spray to her son. Maybe she knows something the pharmacist didn’t—because moms are like that, aren’t they?
Garfield added some lavender oil to the bottle. And lavender oil is known as a bug repellent. And we know that some of the worst monsters mutate from common bugs, don’t we?
Jakob Isn’t Entirely Convinced
Garfield gave her son the spray, which came with the instructions to,
“Spray around bedroom at night before bedtime and repeat if needed.”
According to her Facebook post,
“…he is so excited for bed tonight…and so is mama lol.”
But she found him at her bedside again that night. She told CBC,
“He looks at me and says, ‘Mom, I think it’s just water.'”
She says it took some convincing, but she got him back to bed and back to sleep. Eventually, he took her word for it that the special spray would keep him safe.
But he did have a parting observation for her. He said,
“Well mommy, if monster spray is real that means monsters are real.”
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
