PSA: "Should I tell my child panic attacks come from the devil?"

Not long after I started this blog, my friend John Wiswell pointed me towards Sitemeter.com. It's a free [re: no technical support], functional way to keep up with your website's traffic, and with a little detective work or a copious amount of free "thinkin' time" you can tell a lot about the kind of people who are checking out your site.

It also, with some regularity, tells you what was searched when people locate your website from a search engine. Over the years, I've gotten some odd visitors looking for odder things [Tandoori to go, Monique Powell's Save Ferris spin-off band, etc], but I recently had a referral that I felt warranted mentioning.

"Should I tell my child panic attacks come from the devil?"

Now, obviously all they discovered here on my blog was the entry "Video Games and Panic Attacks" -- which is mostly me talking about how I self-medicated my unquieted mind with hours of the video game equivalent to super-powered cock fighting [re: Pokemon]. But I'd just like to say, to the person who searched that, if they search it again and find this entry, or if you're searching for an answer to that question on the internet for the first time:

No. No, you shouldn't tell your child that.

Look, I know how it is. You're young. I bet you probably haven't hit thirty yet. You work a couple of eight or nine hour shifts, because the same religion that won't let you go out and get your kid a prescription for Xanax probably didn't want you using birth control. And you come home, and you're tired. Exhausted even. And the last thing you want in that time period you've set aside between beating the living incarnation of your broken dreams and watching "Two and A Half Men" is the little bastard freaking out because our culture dictates that anytime someone unclenches their sphincter for a minute the evening news needs to replay footage of planes crashing into the World Trade Center. It's hard. But deep down, I think we both know, you're just looking for someone to blame.

But trust me. It's not the devil. And all you're doing by telling your child that, other than scaring the holy bejeezus out of them, is investing in those first four years of life-long therapy they'll need under your insurance plan, while at the same time guaranteeing yourself an extended stay in the most sub-standard of nursing home facilities come your twilight years.

And now you know.