He has a face that scares small children.

Pepe is one of my favorite Muppets, okay? I found a photo of him and saved it on my computer as desktop background. But one morning at breakfast, Colson was looking a bit worried, and kept nervously looking into our office. After he finished, he walked over to the door and peeked in, but refused to enter the room. Turns out he’s afraid of my picture of Pepe. How does that happen? Pepe’s so small and harmless. (But don’t expect to beat him at a game of poker. “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em….”)

I think it’s his bug eyes.

Anyway, I’d pick up Colson and go sit with him at the computer, but he would cling to me like a baby monkey (saw one of those at the zoo today, by the way) and refused to look.

Eventually, we found some funny commercials from Long John Silvers that star Pepe. We watched a few of those, and now I think Colson’s desensitized. No more peering around the door frame to see if Pepe’s still there. He’s still cautious, but he doesn’t cling.

Maybe I’ll have to dig out our “Muppets in Space” DVD to watch with him.