There is an age in the lives of all children when they wish their parents were invisible. Everything about them is acutely embarrassing. How many parents have had to park the car around the corner while picking the kids up after school, because to be picked up by one s parents is, of course, the ultimate admission of wimphood? If there is anything worse than parents who are hopelessly outdated, it is parents who are somehow cool. Imagine, for example, the humiliation of having a father who is the host of the midnight monster bash on the local TV channel, and appears in ghoul makeup with blood dripping from his fangs, or an ax embedded in his skull.