fears

I have a bunch of unusual fears and one is passing tractor trailers in the rain. I've had this fear ever since I could drive on the highway.  I panic. It’s not pretty.  But those freaking huge trucks splash a crap load of stuff on your windshield so you are momentarily blinded and could potentially go off the road and die a fiery death! I think that’s a pretty rational fear. Also, I am positive that one of my kids is going to fall out of the car while I am driving on the highway. I have had many a mental freakout over the thought, and have had to actually pull over to just take a minute to chill out. Cod help me if someone opens a window in the backseat, because the sound of the window opening, like just the noise of the rushing air, would make me almost throw up – to me it sounds like the car door opening.  Is that weird? 

I am irrationally afraid of swimming in the deep end in the dark (did you ever read that short story by Stephen King about the oil slick??!!  It definitely took away my ability to ever skinny dip in the dark.  Thanks a lot SK), and irrationally afraid of shark attacks. I am positive I got attacked by a shark in Mexico when I was 16. I didn’t have the actual wounds to prove it, but I KNOW it happened.

I am rationally afraid of the book American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis and the picture of the guy on the cover. I had to hide that book from myself because it scared me so much. Freaking insane, sick book. Not in a good way either. I beg you not to attempt to read it.  I realize mentioning it in such a manner might just make you curious, which is pretty much why I bought it and read it in the first place, but it was a huge mistake.  I am not even kidding guys.

Some odd food fears:  biting into a rotten tomato, biting into an apple and seeing a worm, or even worse - 1/2 of a worm.  Oh em gee.  And I totally can't stand the thought of accidentally eating raw chicken, ew.  I feel like gagging right now.

I am also afraid of pulling one of my kids limbs out of their socket.  Which actually happened once, to my poor little Meg.  She was about 3 and we were at Gymnastics, and she was doing that thing where she would walk up my legs while I held her hands and she'd flip over.  I was totally distracted talking to someone while she was doing it, but all of a sudden, she let out a huge, pain-scream.  And Megan has always been a super mild kid - not dramatic at all.  She literally screamed the entire way to the hospital, and her arm from the elbow down was just hanging there.  Ugh it was awful.  We were lucky they took her right in and as soon as the doctor pulled it back into place (gross sounding but took about 1/10th of a second), she looked at me and smiled and said, "That feels so much better!"  In her little baby voice with tears all over her face.  It totally traumatized me.  


My fears aren't necessarily run of the mill - scared of spider-type fears.  Because I was a single mom for a long time, I had to deal with spiders and bad guys and the dark and all of that scary stuff on my own - I didn't have a guy there to smack the spider for me.  But I did sleep with a hammer under my pillow.  Not sure how I would actually defend myself with a hammer -- I guess I figured I could hammer the bad guy into submission? 

My BIL John, who isn't really a scaredy cat at all, is terrified of snakes.  He screams like a girl if he even thinks he saw one.  It's really funny.  I always picture him like one of those 50's housewives screaming on the chair in the kitchen because a little mouse ran through.  Incidentally, those housewives always wore cute aprons.  And had perfect hair and makeup.

I never wear an apron.  And my hair and makeup is pretty average.  Maybe I should wear an apron.  Hmph.

the scariest movie that I ever watched

A couple of years ago, I was home alone-ish (kids asleep upstairs), and I was clicking around the TV just bored.  I stopped on this movie called Hostel, which had just started - so I settled in and started watching.  I watched horror movies when I was a teenager, I guess everyone did -- you know Jason and Freddy Krueger - that kind of stuff.  To me, that wasn't realistic enough to be truly scary.  You went to the movies, screamed along with everyone else, then went home and forgot about it.  But as an adult, I have no interest in watching horror - I didn't even realize that the movie Hostel was supposed to be in that category. 

I think I went with it because I saw it was a Quentin T movie, and I always like his stuff, it's weird and different - just my style.

Let me tell you, I am still traumatized.  I always had backpacking through Europe on my mental bucket list, but this movie changed EVERYTHING.  I also had scary dreams about it periodically for years.  YEARS. 

The only other thing that ever affected me like that was the book American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.  I literally had to put the book away for a bit (I honest to God hid it from myself under the bed) because it was so horrible and scary that I just needed a mental break.  I remember actually seeking the book out because I heard it was removed from the shelves.  I had to go to a few bookstores before I even found it, and it was in the back stockroom- wrapped so you couldn't see the cover or something.  I hate when books get removed from the shelves.  That's just so wrong.  So of course, I had to see for myself.  And I was subsequently traumatized, and really do wish I never read it in the first place.  The movie version isn't anywhere as intensely sickening as the book, so if you saw it without reading it - don't be fooled.

Just thinking about it makes me feel sick in my stomach, actually, right now.

OK, so I was going to write about the movie Hostel, then I got sidetracked with American Psycho, but now I am all thinking it will give me bad dreams so I am wrapping this post up with this very, very smart advice:  If you like to have peaceful dreams and a good night of sleep, don't watch the movie Hostel, and definitely DON'T read the book American Psycho.

The end.