Thriller came out when I was six, the same age Seconda is now. Next to Whitney Houston, and Madonna, Michael Jackson was my absolute favorite -- he was everyone's, of course -- and my backpack sported no less than four or five Michael Jackson fan pins. So, I loved the song Thriller.
Luckily for me, though, I never saw the music video. We didn't have MTV and of course there were no computers so it was easy enough for me to miss it. It was a good thing, too, because I was the world's wimpiest scaredy-cat and that video would have caused me to pee my pants. I have managed somehow, in the past 31 years since the song was released, to entirely avoid watching the video, and though I know it's a historic piece of work which changed the face of music videos forever, I can't say I mind. Zombies - even the 1980s variety -- freak me out.
Seconda, however, has not been as fortunate. Taking full advantage of the fact that David and I were away this weekend. Primo -- avowed zombie lover -- decided to show the music video to his sister. My parents were on duty, and thus he could have showed her The Shining and they probably wouldn't have noticed as long as the kids were quiet. Primo had seen the video at school, on Halloween Day in music class. This surprised me a bit but hey, from what I hear, there's some pretty revolutionary zombie dancing featured in the video and nine year-olds today are probably steely enough to handle some 1980s-era fictional undead.
"Don't worry," Primo assured his sister, "It's not scary."
Which is why, at 10pm on my romantic getaway, I got a call from Seconda shrieking, "I CAN"T SLEEP BECAUSE PRIMO SHOWED ME THE DANCING ZOMBIES!!"
"What are you talking about?"
"First, the guy turns into a werewolf and then there are all these zombie and they have bloody mouths and zombie eyes and they climb up the side of the house and smash through the windows and THEN THEY GO IN THE HOUSE TO GET THE PEOPLE!!!!!'
This didn't ring any bells for me but David recognized it right away.
"Did Primo show you Thriller?" he asked.
"Yes! Thriller night!"
Then of course we tried to explain how it was all makeup and special effects and you can imagine what good THAT reasoning did.
When we arrived home from our restful, idyllic weekend away we found Seconda had stopped sleeping completely. SUCH a treat to come home to.
"Do you think it might have been an error in judgement to show your sister the music video for Thriller?" I asked Primo, "I mean, in hindsight?"
"But Mom --" he protested, "It says at the end that all the characters are fictional, including the undead."
Oh, in THAT case . . . .
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