Poor Kylie

Long story...but worth reading...

Yesterday Kylie was telling my Mom that her friend's mom had found a little hobo in her bedroom. My mom went on and on about how at this time of year hobo's come in the house and out of the fields and hide in our rooms. They especially like to hide in dirty laundry that is left on the floor, or blankets left out. My mom told her that they can't climb up walls or onto beds unless the blankets are touching the ground. Kylie asked how they got in her room and she said probably from under the door. So in other words, my Mom was trying to get Kylie to clean up her room so there wouldn't be any hobo's around.
Well Kylie immediately started to cry. She said that sounded really scary and that she didn't like hobos. We told her that we can by some traps and we can catch any if they are in our basement.
After about 5 minutes she finally stopped crying. (For those of you who don't know Kylie very well, she doesn't cry very often. She's quite a strong little girl.)
That night, as I was putting her to bed, she told me she was scared and said that there weren't any hobos around. I told her that tomorrow I would for sure get her a trap. Not ten minutes later she was coming upstairs crying because she was so scared. Pete and I were trying to assure her that there weren't any spiders in her room.

Kylie said, "What Spiders? I'm talking about Hobos!!!"

Oh my gosh...that poor little girl! This entire time she thought we were talking about hobos (homeless people). That would have scared me too...homeless people coming in my room and hiding under laundry or climbing up my blankets onto my bed. Can you imagine the images that were going through her head about hobos coming in her room from under the door!
After a lot of explaining that hobo's were a type of spider that we have in Idaho she "kind of" understood. But the only thing that got her to go to bed was to say a prayer about safety and good dreams. She ended up sleeping in my bed...then in her bed...and then ended up on the couch with the TV on.

The reason why she was thinking about hobos was because my mom had just taken Kylie to the American Girl, Kit Kitredge movie. That movie is in the twenties or thirties during the depression and it had a little homeless girl and they used the term hobo.
Kylie talked a lot about the movie. I think she is old enough to understand some of the sad things...not just the fluffy stuff.

Definition: Hobo is a term that refers to a subculture of wandering homeless people, particularly those who make a habit of hopping frieght trains. The iconic image of a hobo is that of a downtrodden, shabbily-dressed and perhaps drunken male, one that was solidified in American culture during the Great Depression


I guess we need to more discriptive in explaining bugs verses people.