What is it about otherwise normal, sensible women that transforms them into horror-tale spinning banshees as soon as they have kids?

A mom friend of mine sings in the church choir, speaks softly and sweetly to everyone she knows, doesn't allow her children to watch cartoons for fear they contain violence and, yet, when pushed by the sight of her toddler straying a little too close to the road becomes a screaming lunatic, weaving tales of terror that would make Stephen King clutch his binky and sleep with the light on.

As her 3-year-old played in our front yard, this gentle mom paused in the middle of a story about a canned food drive to direct her attention to the kids: "Hey!" she boomed. "If y'all get close to that road, a car is going to hit you and turn you into hamburger and it'll take a dozen of us using SPATULAS to scrape all your guts off the highway!"

The kids moved closer to us, their faces drained of color. Turning to me, my friend said brightly, "You know we've started our coat drive for the homeless if you're interested ..."

I couldn't really hear her because I was still in shock at the mental picture of hamburgers and spatulas. Plus, I think I wet myself.

She isn't the only one, of course. Another friend smugly recalled that when her 7-year-old kept darting across the street in their subdivision, apparently without looking both ways, she purchased the largest pumpkin she could find, a 26-pounder, called her son outside and ran over it with her minivan, back and forth, creating a mass of stringy orange goo.

"There!" she called to him triumphantly. "That's your head after you've been hit by a car. Any questions?"

He plays indoors a lot now.

You could ask if this is a good idea, this notion of scaring kids into being more cautious. But then we'd know you don't have any kids. Because when you have 'em, you Do What You Gotta Do.

It doesn't matter if you're the biggest granola-head on the street, sooner or later you're going to say -- as I did just one time to my toddler-daughter, who was barely balanced on the arm of the sofa and hopping on one foot -- "Hey! You fall off that thing and your brains are going to start pouring out of your ears and the cats are gonna be licking them up!"

She carefully lowered herself from the perilous perch, ran to me and announced that she was quite "saw-wee" and would only do such dangerous things on her "birfday" from now on.

Better. Much better.

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