"Alright you two little monsters, in to bed!" Mary gently swapped one of her kids on the butt as he climbed into bed. "We have to get up early tomorrow for your first day at summer camp."

- "Mom, tell us a story first!" Her oldest, Michael, who was already in bed, held onto her arm and shook it. "Story! Yeah, story!" Her youngest girl, Sally, cheered at the idea. Mary shook her head and sighed. Her husband chuckled lightly and wrapped an arm around her. "This is all your doing. You have the wildest imagination." She grumbled but giggled soon after. "Alright, fine." She left her husband's embrace and walked towards the chair between her children's beds. Mary thought long and hard about which story she'd tell her little ones. "Aha. Have I ever told you the story of the time I defeated the monsters in my closet?" She grinned. The kids gaped at her incredulously. "What!? No way!"

- "You defeated the monster in your closet all on your own!?"

- "Sure did!" Mary gloated. "But I didn't do it alone, no sir. When I was just a little girl, after my mom would tuck me into bed, I would be woken up by the reptile monster in my closet. He was ugly and purple but he could blend in with his surroundings. The monster had an ugly grin and loved to scare me. Every night, he'd sneak out of the closet while I slept and then... RAAAAWR!" Mary roared like a ferocious beast and Michael and Sally jumped in fright." I'd scream very loud and he'd immediately slither away into my closet, before anyone could see him." 

- "He's evil!" Sally harrumphed and Michael nodded in agreement. "Oh yes, very evil! But one night I grew sick of it! I was not gonna give that dumb ugly monster the satisfaction of scaring me anymore, No way! Once my mom tucked me into bed and closed the door, I kicked the blanket away and jumped out of bed. I quickly tiptoed towards my toy box and pulled out as many toys as I could and spread them all over the floor of my room." 

- "You booby-trapped your room to catch the monster!" Michael exclaimed and Mary nodded. "Then, I hid under the bed. I stayed there. I waited... and waited... and waited. But there was no sign of him." Mary spoke in a lower voice. "Then what, mom?" Sally whispered. "Well, the monster was nowhere to be found. So I decided to look for it."

- "Look for the monster!?"

-"What are you, crazy!?"

- "Why would you go looking for it?" All three of them turned to the third voice. Mary's husband, who was by the door frame and clearly very invested in the story, cleared his throat. "Sorry, continue." She smiled and did just that.

"I crawled from under the bed and slowly tiptoed towards my closet without disturbing my genius trap. Once I reached the door knob, I breathed in, then out. Then, I swung open the door! And you'll never believe what I saw..." 

-"What! What!" 

-"What did you see!?"

-"I saw... a big empty factory!" 

-" WHAT!?" All three of them, Michael, Sally and Mary's husband exclaimed. "A factory in your closet? How!?" 

-"I don't know! So I went to explore. There was no one there. All that was there were lots of desks and giant yellow batteries everywhere. But no monster... yet. When I decided to go back to my room, guess what I saw." 

-"The monster! It was the reptile monster, right?" Michael raised his hand as if he were in school. Mary shook her head. "I saw a monster, alright. But not the purple monster. I saw maybe the biggest, fluffiest monster I had ever seen!" Everyone in the room gasped. "He had hair everywhere! He was big-no, huge! His fur was blue with purple spots and he had horns and a dinosaur tail!" 

-"Was he evil?"

- "Oh no. This monster was different. I went up to him and when he turned to  see me, would you believe it- I had scared him silly!" The kids laughed. "He looked like a giant cat-"

-"A scaredy cat!" Sally teased and Mary giggled. "I thought he was funny and I wanted to play with him. But the monster didn't want to play, so he took me back to my room. He dropped me back into my bed in a rush and the poor thing fell into my trap!" The kids laughed once more.

"When he fell to the floor I got out of bed and climbed his big fuzzy back. The blue cat monster ran back into the closet and closed the door behind me before he ran away, with me hitching a ride!" Mary proudly pointed at herself with her thumb. "Once the cat monster thought he was in the clear, he sighed and walked slowly. I tapped him on the shoulder, to see if I could scare him again, and I did! I began to understand the appeal of scaring- it was quite fun! The blue monster climbed on top of a nearby bench trying to get away from me and I pointed and laughed. But when I wasn't looking, the monster trapped me in a bag! I couldn't see a thing! But I knew we were moving."

-"Where did he take you, Mom?" Michael asked. "He took me to a fancy restaurant." 

-"Huh!?" They all exclaimed. "My thoughts exactly! I wasn't even hungry! So while he sat at a table with two of his monster friends, I snuck away while he didn't look. Now that I knew that monsters were afraid of me, I decided to have a little fun, and scare these monsters for a change to give them a taste of their own medicine! Once I had the opportunity, I scared everyone in the restaurant with a loud BOO!" 

-"Were they scared?"

-"They were terrified! All the monsters in the restaurant ran around like a bunch of chickens! Sweet payback! But the cat monster thought I was being naughty, so he put me in a box and took me home."

"To your room?"

-"No, to his house! We had a fun sleep over. Well, it would've been fun if him and his other monster buddy weren't so scared of me."

-"What did his monster buddy look like?" Michael asked. "His monster buddy was smaller. He was green and round like a yoga ball, and had just one eye!" Mary said, pointing at her opened eye. "He's ugly, Mom." Sally grimaced and Mary chuckled. "Maybe so. But he was the funniest monster I've ever met. He was always making me laugh. After the sleepover, cat monster, one-eyed monster and I were best friends and they were no longer scared. The next day, they gave me my very own monster costume and we took a walk through the monster city. We made it back to the factory so I can go back home, but when we got to the door to my bedroom, the evil reptile monster appeared again!" Everyone collectively gasped.

"He captured the one-eyed monster and took him away. Now it was up to the cat monster and I to rescue him!"

-"Where did he take the one eye monster?" Mary's husband quickly sat down on one of the kids' beds as he listened tentatively to the story. "He took him to a secret lab deep within the factory! When we finally found him, we watched how the reptile monster and his evil red minion tied the one-eyed monster to a chair. Suddenly, a giant machine descended from the ceiling! It had many yellow batteries attached to it and they were going to use it on the one-eyed monster!"

-"What did the machine do?" One of the kids pressed and Mary thought quickly. "It... sucked out the happiness out of you! The purple monster wanted to use the machine to end happiness for good." Sally gasped. "So that's what those yellow batteries are for!"

-"Oh no, he really is evil!" 

-"But we weren't going to let him do that to our friend! So we hatched up a plan. When no one was looking, the cat monster disconnected the machine, and when the reptile monster was distracted with trying to get it running again, we jumped the red minion and tied him to the chair instead before running away!" The children cheered.

"We ran all the way to go tell the monster boss about the reptile monster, But... the monster boss had other plans. In a sudden turn of events, the monster boss revealed that he was behind everything all along! He pushed the cat and one eyed monsters out of a steel door and the reptile monster closed it shut!"

-"Oh no!"

-"And what happened to you, Mom!?"

-"I was now a prisoner! They took me back to the lab and tied me back to the chair so that they could suck all the happiness from me!"

Sally was now in Michael's bed, both kids holding onto their father, all staring intently and hanging on Mary's every word. "I was very scared and I screamed for help! I screamed for my friends. And just when I thought I was a goner...ROAR!" Mary shot up with her hands up and her audience jumped. "The loudest, mightiest roar came from the shadows! It was the cat monster! He pushed the machine away as hard as he could and rescued me. We ran as fast as possible, but the reptile monster caught up to us! And in the blink of an eye, him and the cat monster began to strife!"

-"Monster fight, monster fight!" 

-"Who won, Mom, who won!?"

-"As the reptile had a tight grip on the cat monster, the one eyed monster finally arrived and helped beat the reptile monster! But only for a moment, we had to hurry! I was then picked up and we ran back to the factory as fast as we could! We ran fast, but the reptile monster was once again on our tail! There was no way we were going to make it to my door in time, so the cat monster was forced to improvise; we climbed on top of a random door and a long pole pushed us up like an elevator. The door latched onto a metal line and took us down a dark tunnel deeper into the factory and what we saw next was amazing!"

-"What, what did you see!?" 

-"We saw... an entire world of doors! Doors from all over the planet and one of those doors was mine! We had to work quickly, so we hopped around from door to door to find my own but the reptile monster had not given up just yet! In between the door jumping and hopping, the reptile monster grabbed a hold of me! He slithered into a random door with me in his grasp and closed it. He growled at me, he was angry! And he spoke to me for the first time. You better be worth the effort, you little twerp, he said with an ugly finger in my face," Mary made a grumbly voice as she pointed a finger to Sally. "He put me down and climbed up on the ceiling of the room we ended up in and when the cat monster came to the rescue, the reptile monster then- BOOM! Kicked him on his face! And he went flying back! He was holding onto the door frame for dear life, we were up so high and if he fell, it could be the end of him!" 

-"Oh no, the cat monster!" Sally cried. "I was very afraid... but I had just about enough of being scared! With a mighty huff, I jumped onto the reptile's back!" 

-"Whoo! Go Mom!"

-"Whoa!"

-"I grabbed onto his slimy antennae and pulled on them as hard as I could manage! He wiggled and wailed in pain, trying to get me off of him, but I wasn't going anywhere, no ma'am! He dropped us on the floor and when I could, I grabbed hold of a nearby baseball bat and bonked him on the head, bonk, bonk, bonk!" Mary swung her fist up and down, as if hitting her husband on the head with an invisible bat. "My attack gave the cat monster enough time to climb back up and finally pin the evil reptile down and defeat him!" The boys cheered gleefully.

"Finally, I was able to go home, but not yet. The monster boss was still left, we had to get past him. So we came up with a plan. One eyed monster would act as a diversion while cat monster and I went the other direction. So there we were, on our way back to the factory, and we were suddenly surrounded by the monster police!" 

-"My God, you had a whole society in your closet!" Mary's husband exclaimed in exasperation. "And our plan was in motion! With my monster costume as the decoy, one eyed monster distracted the police while we made our escape. Cat monster then pushed some nearby batteries to the floor and the monster boss caught up with our scheme... which was all according to plan! He chased us all over the factory and we finally made it to a fake door with a fake room and tricked him into confessing for his crimes! He was part of a secret plan to kidnap kids and steal all their happiness! And the police heard it all, and the monster boss was arrested and never hurt anyone again!" The kids jumped and cheered, Mary's husband clapped and laughed. 

Mary smiled from ear to ear before sighing and sitting back down on her chair. "Now that the monsters were defeated, it was time for me to go home." The kids settled down and listened. "Cat monster took me back to my room and tucked me into bed, just like my mom did before this crazy adventure began. He gave me a huge monster hug... and said goodbye." 

-"Aw, did he really have to go?"

-"Yeah," Mary sighed sadly. "Kitty had to go." She whispered this to herself. She stood from her chair and picked Sally up to take her back to her own bed. "Once he went through the closet door and closed it, I clicked my blankets off and ran back. But when I swung the door open, all I saw was my own closet." 

-"Were you sad, Mommy?" Michael snuggled closer to his father. "Yeah, a little," she played with Sally's jet black hair while she sat on the bed, "But I was also happy because I was brave and defeated the bad monsters in my closet- and became best friends with the good ones. Now. You two, time for bed." She kissed Sally and and stood up to kiss Michael. "Goodnight," She and her husband walked towards the door frame and switched off the light. 

-" G'night, Mom." The two kids said together. Mary smiled and closed the door. Mary's husband exhaled and wrapped his arm around her. "That was some story, honey. You really do have the wildest imagination." Mary smiled knowingly as they both headed to bed themselves.