Littlefoot

Sunday morning me and the little ones are up and about early. It’s very cold, so we’re huddled on the floor in blankets and pillows, watching the tube. So what do we decide to watch? The first episode of this season’s Finding Bigfoot, which I DVR’d a few weeks ago.

A qualifier, please. When I was growing up, two spooky things absolutely overwhelmingly fascinated me: UFOs and bigfoot. I’ve written about both extensively here. I get a huge nostalgic kick revisiting both topics, especially with my girls, even though the analytical scientist in me has long accepted the nonexistence of these critters. Unfortunately, Little One is enraptured with ghosts and vampires, much to my chagrin. But I think now that a viewing of the unabashedly low-budget but decidedly creepy early-70s flick The Legend of Boggy Creek might make her at least consider Sasquatch.

Now – Finding Bigfoot. I find the show entertaining, I guess, for what it is, and the participants are true believers. I don’t want to be too cruel here, but that’s about the highest praise I can give it. Long-term, I think it does damage to any scientific theory positing extremely large ape-like hominids roaming about the United States. Short-term, I think it does damage to brain cells.

Anyway, for the season opener they’re trudging around the swamps of Arkansas, revisiting Boggy Creek. That’s why I taped it and that’s why I’m watching it. Our investigators spend a couple of evenings hunting the bayous with their night-vision goggles and whatnot. Nothing really happens, which, of course, leads them to conclude that bigfoot is active and on the move in these here woodlands.

What surprised me is Patch. My little five year old walks into the room (she never sits in one place longer than a minute or two), sees a really bad CGI sasquatch on the screen and exclaims, “Look! There’s bigfoot!”

I had no idea she knew who or what bigfoot was. I guess there’s some truth to that thing about children being sponges and all.

“And there’s Littlefoot!” I exclaim, grabbing her and giving her footpads are thorough tickling, much to her and her big sister’s delight.

Littlefoot.

Maybe she’ll be my cryptid hunter.