I've finally unearthed the fascinating answer to a question long pondered by many great men before me--a question, in fact, that has probably stymied the finest minds evolution has ever produced: namely, why Frankenstein's monster walks the way he does; arms outstretched stiffly before him, huge feet treading large but unsure steps as he (apparently) sleepwalks through popular cinema reels into young children's nightmares. Are you ready? The answer, obvious enough once you think of it, is that the Monster (dolt that he is) always walks around IN THE DARK. Probably he likes the dark because it covers his hideous green complexion (also his yellow hair--green and yellow don't mix well), but the fact is, this predilection for walking around in the dark makes him look like an idiot, which he can't very well afford, seeing that he also looks like something the cat has drug in.

I discovered his problem when I tried traversing the maze that is our basement with the lights off (not personally my fault--someone turned them off on me, with malicious intent). When you're afraid of bumping into things, and even more afraid of tripping over skates and toy cars and scooters and whatnot that the kids blithely leave around, of COURSE you're going to walk with arms stiffly outstretched and take those large (but unsure) steps, relying on the well-known fact that if something IS there to be bumped into, it's better to do the bumping with your hands than with your face. Also that the larger steps you take, the more ground you cover, and thus the less chance you have of coming down on a foreign object.

Moral: never walk around in the dark, even if your face doesn't match your hair (and if I ever find out who it was that turned the lights off on me, I'm going to teach them this lesson personally.)