As a single mother to a young kid, I've done a pretty good job of monitoring my daughter's usage of TikTok, Youtube, Roblox, etc. I know I can't be around all day policing her, but I want to make sure that she's safe enough. That's why limiting screen time with Phones, IPads and the like is really important for me. Outside of a couple of hours where she can use some of those devices under my supervision, the rest of her "fun time" is reserved for watching kid's shows on cable TV. Yes. Cable is in fact still a thing, and I've still got it. What I love about it - I can overhear it loud and clear, and I know exactly what the programming is. It's safe, predictable, and nothing like some of the more random and occasionally traumatic videos that end up auto-playing anytime Casey goes down a Youtube rabbithole.

When it came to TV time, I always prioritized channels that I knew would play hour after hour of kids shows back-to-back, to avoid a situation where something more mature would accidentally play. Most of the shows were super tame: kid-friendly animated shows, educational shows, nature programs, that kind of stuff. One that my daughter really seems to love is called "Palace of Friends". It's a Sesame Street-style show with a cast of both animal and anthropomorphic puppets living in a large castle together. It seemed like a wholesome, musical show with some pretty good production value. Casey seemed to love it, and I could always tell when it was playing in the background.

I was setting up for dinner the first time I heard one of the weirder songs from "Palace of Friends". It was a song that was all about exploring the house, with the chorus mentioning all of the fun to be had "under the sink". Weird lyrics like - "When mom's not around, you'll find a whole town, beneath the kitchen sink!". I had to shake my head at how stupid and potentially dangerous that premise was. As I came into the living room to call out the silliness and to tell Casey to ignore the message of the song, the song wrapped up and one of the puppets started doing something akin to a PSA, saying: "Now, while there might be a town underneath the sink, there's also some scary stuff you shouldn't drink down there! So be careful!".

Well, duh. It was annoying to think of how big of an oversight this was on the part of the writers and creators of this show. I mean, really, what kind of moron thought that telling kids to go to the undersink area when mom isn’t around was a good idea? Rather than doing that weird PSA at the end, they should've just scrapped the whole song in its entirety. Jesus.

As much as I wanted to take "Palace of Friends" off rotation after this event, the rest of the show was wholesome enough that I reconsidered. I took moments from time to time to see exactly what was happening on the show, and most of the time, the show featured activities for kids that seemed genuinely useful. One of these activities was called “Draw Time!”, which is exactly what it sounds like - a point in the show where all of the puppets in the castle would gather around and motivate the viewer to draw on pieces of paper, get creative and have fun with it. While the characters on TV would draw along at first, most of the time they would just enthusiastically watch and cheer on as the kid viewing the show would draw. Really felt like an activity that would be good for my daughter's development. Even got a couple of cute drawings that Casey made of me that I could put on the refrigerator!

The other wholesome thing about Palace of Friends that really stuck out to me was some of the more meaningful lessons. Beyond the standard "treat others the way you want to be treated" and "isn’t friendship amazing?" stuff that you see in these kids shows, it felt like they would sometimes dig a bit deeper. They had this whole story about this character named "Friend" who was too shy to come out and join the others, so he'd always hide behind a curtain. The other puppet characters on the show would always try to convince “Friend” to come out of hiding, but they would also, rather sweetly, choose to love him and accept him even if he’d never feel comfortable getting out from behind the curtain. There’s this whole cute arc to the show about how the Palace of Friends would find the “Perfect special friend for Friend!” to finally get him to overcome his shyness. Cute stuff. Though, pretty lazy on the writer’s part to call this character “Friend”. Jeez.

I was pretty happy with the set-up I had for Casey. It felt like I was giving her enough time with modern apps on her phone to ensure I wasn’t completely silo-ing her from real life, while still giving her as much of a “healthy” upbringing I could for a seven-year-old in this age of technology overload. It felt like cutesy cable TV stuff was the perfect call, and that I’d done everything as right as I could’ve as a parent.

That was, until the incident.

I still feel ashamed about this. I've noticed that I sometimes use TV as a "second parent" when I feel overwhelmed with how much I have to juggle. Between work, raising Casey, and all of the chores and life balancing that comes between those two, having some “me time” is very necessary. I was getting lost in a novel when I first heard a series of thumps on the stairs. I ran immediately to see Casey at the bottom of the staircase, holding her leg and crying. From the TV in the living room, I was able to catch the last moments of the song that was playing on Palace of Friends. It went: "If you're brave, roll as fast as you can down the stairs! Don't be afraid, we know that you'll be okay!" What in the actual fuck.

I tended to Casey, and as I was checking up on her to see if she’d broken anything, I could hear one of the characters on the show doing what appeared to be another after song PSA, saying: "Just remember, don't go too fast! If the stairs are really long, you could get hurt! It’s always important to be very careful!”

Thankfully, Casey was okay. Palace of Friends was DEFINITELY off the rotation, which Casey was really frustrated about, but I had to do it. The TV channel that played Palace of Friends seemed specific to my area and public access-y enough (despite the show genuinely looking like it had a solid production budget), and so I wanted to quickly put together a case for the show to be canceled and for the channel playing the show to be held liable for the severe risk it was bringing to kids. At best, the folks creating this show were incredibly oblivious, and at worst, they were actively malicious.

As I was starting up my case, I noticed something really weird. I’d found a new cable channel with kids programming that I left on for Casey, one that I’m POSITIVE didn’t have “Palace of Friends” in rotation. There I was, working in my room one afternoon, when I heard the familiar sound of those characters coming from the living room. I wandered in to catch the final moments of “Draw Time!” on Palace of Friends. Lots of paper strewn around the living room, courtesy of Casey. Fun little signs and insignias and the like, and more pictures of mom. I have to admit, she was becoming a better artist. As Draw Time wrapped up, the puppets on TV were all looking at the curtain where “Friend” was hiding and talking about him. "Maybe one day we'll find a special friend for Friend," said one of the characters. It was a pretty dorky catchphrase I'd heard a few times in the show at this point.

As the puppets started breaking into song again, I turned off the TV. Casey was miserable, so my scolding her about changing the channel when I had strictly told her NOT to probably wasn't a wise move, but I just had to. She kept swearing that she never changed the channel and that her "friends” had just found their way back to her, but I called bullshit. Her TV privileges were revoked for a week. She had to learn the hard way.

As a sanity check, once I'd condemned her to her room and forced her to find something to do that didn't involve screens, I turned the living room TV back on to notice that the channel she was on when I turned off the TV was the same new one I’d selected after banning “Palace of Friends”. It was odd that this new channel had suddenly pulled this lawsuit of a show into rotation, but whatever.

At this point, I should mention… Casey’s room does have a small TV in it. It’s not a Smart TV, and it’s definitely not set up with cable, but there is a DVD player and a bunch of classic animated movies and kids show DVDs strewn about that Casey was free to put on at any time.

So, you can probably imagine my surprise when, smack dab in the middle of the night, I heard the familiar voices of the puppets on "Palace of Friends" coming from her room.

Beyond being frustrated that Casey was watching TV way past her bedtime, I was confused on how she'd managed to get cable onto the TV in her room... and, more importantly, why Palace of Friends was playing on TV this late in the first place. I left my room, turned on the hallway lights, and walked towards Casey’s room. As I made my way there, I noticed bunches of crumpled up pieces of paper littering the hallway. More signs and insignias that I’d noticed before from Casey’s other “Draw Time!” sessions, but there were also more and more drawings of me. These ones looked a bit more demented than the usual ones that Casey had drawn for me. Almost felt like she was regressing as an artist or something. As I got to her room, I heard the following through her closed door:

"This draw time is extra special. It’s just for you. For being so smart and so brave. When your drawing is just perfect, it’ll be enough for Friend to finally get out from behind the curtain!"

I tried opening the door to her room. It wouldn’t budge. I called out to Casey, but she wouldn’t answer. I kept trying, pushing against the door, moving the handle in multiple directions, and eventually, out of desperation, trying to run against the door to break it down, but nothing was working.

The show continued.

"Do you know someone who is special enough to be a friend to Friend?"

I slammed against the door.

"Can you draw that special person just right? In the special way we want you to draw them?"

Huh? What in the world was this?

“Casey! You need to let me in right n–”

My shouting out to Casey was interrupted by the sounds of all of the characters on Palace of Friends excitedly cheering. They started breaking into song. It was just one line, repeated over and over, over the backdrop of some very strange and almost tense-sounding instruments and arrangements. It sounded more aggressive than it should’ve.

“You did it Casey! You did it Casey! You did it Casey!”

What the fuck was happening. In an instant, I ran back down the hallway to my room. I needed to grab my cell phone and I needed to call the police immediately. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

As I got to my room, my light in the hallway turned off immediately. Without me switching it off. I slammed the door behind me, out of instinct and fear more than anything else.

The sound of the show coming from Casey’s room was completely gone.

A moment of complete stillness and silence in the house. And then -

A violent knock on my door. Over and over again. I heard Casey's voice -

"Mom! I did it! I found a special friend for Friend! It's you!"

The knocking continued. It was much, much, more powerful and aggressive than Casey could knock. Than any little girl could knock. As it continued, she kept calling out to me.

“Mom! Mom! Open up! You’re the special friend!” with that same aggressive knock completely rattling the door.

More worrying than the force of the knocks on the door was the fact that Casey, never, ever, called me mom. Her nickname for me since she first started speaking was always “Ommi.”

In the dark of my room, I noticed something strange with the curtains. It felt like there was something behind them, ever so slowly inching its way out of them.