Irrational Fears (an inspired post)

Today I read a new blogger - Haley's Random Thoughts - check her out - she's new and she's cool. (Oh, and she's Shari's totally awesome little sister.)

She inspired me to return to my roots and talk about a little bit of the crazy anxiety that got me started on this blogging thing. Her topic today - Irrational Fears. So here are my top 10 ... today ... (yes there are many more).

1. Under bed storage. Seriously. There is something about the weight of the bed over me as I squeeze under the box spring to grab a shoe or some random item that has been kicked under the bed - totally freaks me out. Unexpected benefit - space is pretty clean (well at least there's nothing under there but the dust bunnies and some pull out shoe storage containers).

2. Airplane landings. Considering the travel I've been doing lately - it's kind of a hassle, but I have to say I never think that damn plane is going to stop when the flaps go down and the brakes screech. (Sometimes I feel like this in my car too....momentum is not my friend).

3. Going backwards fast. Okay - this is similar to Item #2 (except hopefully my plane is not landing backwards), but I have a theory on this one. See story after list - it's a doozie.

4. My oldest brother. Okay - this is not a fear so much as a dread - an anxiety - an uncomfortable state of being. - an extreme annoyance. Needless to say, just thinking of him brings on heartburn. I'll need to gear up for a future post on this one.

5. Getting old and sick. I'm sure many people have this, but I dwell a little too much on this. You know that movie "Driving Miss Daisy"?? FREAKED ME OUT. Had nightmares about ending up in nursing home dribbling my food for weeks. Ugh.

6. Disc Jockeys. When all my friends were calling in to request songs from the radio, I never would. I think this is actually a fear of being embarrassed or made a fool of in public...but I do some public speaking now without too much anxiety...and DJs still intimidate me.

7. Getting Lost. I have the worst sense of direction on the planet. My husband literally uses me as an anti-compass. "Which way should we turn?" he asks....my reply "Right"...his reaction - immediate left turn. Times we've gotten lost through this process. Z-E-R-O. It's uncanny.

8. New & Unknown Medicine. Last time I took a new antibiotic I ended up in the emergency room with a body temperature of 94 degrees. Yeah - 4.6 degrees below normal - and these bizarre flowing chills and heat waves up and down my body. Why? who knows - my body just didn't like the drug. Once it was out of my system I was fine.

9. Face with Block. Okay, you know the shots. When some stupid news segment is talking about obesity, or fashion don'ts, or ugly feet, or sagging boobs, or something like that and they show these random people walking down the street with a little black block across their eyes and nose to stop you from recognizing them. The fear is that I'll be watching and RECOGNIZE MYSELF! It's a vanity thing.

10. Getting Caught in a [White] Lie. Is there anything more embarrassing? I mean I really make every attempt not to lie - and I DO NOT LIE about important things. But there are those moments, when you just need to make a SLIGHT adjustment to the truth to save someone's feelings, or graciously avoid some noxious event, etc. Anyway, I hate it when the tangled web gets exposed.

DETAILS ON ITEM 3:

So here's the tale of the Labor Day Trip. When I was a baby and people had not yet figured out that car seats should be in the back seat and facing backwards - I was in the front seat/center facing forward. My grandparents (god rest them) were in the back seat. My mother parked the car and went into a building to pay a bill.

Well, the car had some kind of problem with it and somehow released park and went into gear. Note: I claim no responsibility - I was under 6 months old and should not have had the strength or reach to move the gear shift...but maybe...it might have been...me?

We were parked on an incline and the car began to roll backwards down the hill. Imagine then, my sweet but elderly grandfather trying to open the back door and climb out to try and stop it and my sweet but elderly and freaked out grandmother yanking him back in screaming something about how he would kill himself.

Car keeps rolling and somehow (no lie) slides backwards through the busiest intersection in town ("on Labor Day Weekend no less", my Mom always interjects) bounces off a parked cadillac and hits a building (or vice versa - the family story has gotten a little garbled.)

Then, imagine if you will, my mother coming out of the building and seeing a telephone truck parked where her car used to be...looking down the hill and seeing my grandpa walking up shaking his head back and forth.

"To this day," Mom always says, "I have no idea how I got from standing there looking at a telephone truck to standing beside the car and holding you. All I remember is this guy screaming about his cadillac and me losing it and saying - who cares about your damn car - my baby and family might have been killed." (Go Mom, you don't mess with Mary Lou)

End result - Don't ever put me on an amusement park ride that goes backwards fast. I regress to a 6 month old with screaming grandparents in the backseat and a cadillac in my path. Gets freaky fast.