The Thursday Three

Irrational fears. We all have them, as much as we might wish we didn't. Sometimes the more irrational they are the harder they are to shake. The Midwesterner who is terrified of sharks, for example. Are they afraid of the idea of sharks or the sharks themselves? And does the fact that they live in a place that won't easily allow them to face their fears make it worse? Why would you be afraid of something you'll most likely never run into?

Why do our brains do this to us?

Three Irrational Fears...


#1. Snakes. Not just poisonous snakes, like the
fine upstanding specimen to the right, but any snake, any size, anywhere. If I lived in the Amazon Rainforest and I was afraid of snakes that would be a sign of intelligence. But lets be honest here. I don't run into too many snakes on a daily basis. Sure my three boys have all expressed an interest in a pet snake, but that one never even made it into the discussion stage. They probably heard my "NO!!" in the Amazon.

What makes me crazy is if you put four legs on them and call them lizards I have no problem at all. We've had several pet lizards and they were great. They didn't bother me a bit.

I've been really big on the whole "Face your fears" bandwagon the last couple of years, and this was the first thing that came up to challenge me. We were at an animal exhibition when someone came walking around with a fifty foot long snake that weighed about two tons. It had fangs longer than my leg and made the basilisk in HP look meek. One of my reptile loving kids, I've blocked out which, looked at me evilly and said "Face your fears, mom" and the next thing I knew I had both hands on the snake, because I'm damned if I'm going to give my kids that kind of ammunition. Thank god the handlers didn't want anyone to hold it or "Face your fears" would've turned into "Run like hell out the front door and let the kids fend for themselves." Ugh.



#2. Siamese cats. When I was about four my mom and I visited one of her friends in St. Louis. This woman had two Siamese cats and they weren't thrilled about me being on their turf, so they just kind of cat vanished during out trip. I never even saw them.

Until...

Our last day there they pounced on me from the top of the fridge and tore my face up so badly I had to go to the doctors. I've been terrified of Siamese cats ever since.

What makes this irrational is that I've had one dog run in after another and I'm not even remotely afraid of dogs. I've had bones in my left hand bitten through trying to stop two German Shepherds from fighting. I got bitten by a dog that hadn't had its rabies shots and I had to sweat it out while they quarantined the dog for ten days. I've been bitten at least four other times that I can think of off the top of my head, mostly as a kid. Yet I have no fear of dogs whatsoever. I will admit that the sound of dogs fighting freaks me out, thanks to a certain aggressive Shepherd from my past, but my dogs never even grumble at each other so it never comes up.

But Siamese cats scare the living crap out of me. It goes without saying that if there's one within twenty feet it's all over me, purring and rubbing up against me. Sadists. They smell fear.

And they like it.




#3. Small, enclosed spaces. Now seriously, how is a space going to hurt you? Is the wall going to punch you in the head? I don't think so. This is one where it's all about the idea of it. I don't like cramped spaces. They make me very nervous.

The summer I was repeating the Face your fears mantra we drove to California for the summer. In South Dakota there are caves. Lots and lots of caves. Everyone else was all gung ho to see this one particular cave that had something stupid about it that was special. I was not big on this idea, but, you guessed it, my little mantra came back to bite me in the butt. I need a new line. I did the tour through the cave (all sixty minutes of it) and only got through because I never looked up. I looked at the ground directly in front of my feet and the shirt just ahead of me. Not very exciting as cave tours go. But I got through it.

But it isn't anything I plan to do again. Ever.

Your turn...