Fraidy Cat!

While waiting to dose off to sleep the other night I was reminded of a childhood fear I had. It was highly irrationally but made total sense back then...who am I kidding, I still use the logic sometimes even now.

My fear was that I could NOT sleep without being covered up atleast from the waist down. It could be something as light as just the sheet but I HAD to be covered atleast that much. My theory was that a killer that broke into our house in the night would not stab me in the back as long as I was covered from the waist down. Would not stab me in the back if my waist down was covered. Makes NO sense right? Like I said, completely irrational, but it allowed me to then feel safe and sleep soundly in my bed. To this day, I still do not sleep without the covers being atleast at the waist. I may kick them off my legs from time to time but somehow the waist stays covered. It has too.

I have other irrational fears. I have a HUGE, consuming fear of birds. No, not caused by the Hitchcock classic movie - never seen it, never will! I don't know where this fear comes from. It used to be that they just grossed my out. I would think about their rounded bellies being all full of blood and guts and how if one were to be smashed into the pavement, that is all you would see is all the blood and guts. Sorry, should have given a "reader discretion is advised" warning.

Over the course of my fear of birds, it grew into the fear of being attacked by a bird. I once had a hanging flower basket on the railing of my porch only to discover that a bird had built a nest in it. I came home one day to find said bird sitting in my flower basket, in my mind, blocking my safe entry into my home. So, I got my umbrella out and shielded myself with it passed the bird and into the house. When the bird was away, I moved the flower basket off the railing and onto the patio so that the bird could still nuture it's eggs yet I could get in and out of my house without having to run and at dead sprint. I thought for sure the bird would sense by smell or something where her eggs were, just a few feet away on the patio, but she never found where I had moved the nest and the eggs didn't make it. I think they call that manslaughter when you kill someone accidentally - babybirdslaughter in this case. For days I would look out the window and see that mother bird perched on the railing longing for her babies. I was, at that point, a prisoner in my own home. I would not leave the house if that bird was out there for fear she would attack me. Later I would see a similar bird perched on my neighbor's house overlooking my yard. I was certain it was actually the same bird and had visions of that mother bird swooping down and carrying off one of my small children in retaliation.

Now all of that was just over your garden variety bird of no particularlly threatening size. Well, not to anyone who doesn't have a fear of birds that is. So, imagine how paralyzing my fear of large birds might be? I have read stories in our local paper of people in our town being attacked by wild turkeys. My greatest fear realized! An semi-elderly woman had to climb on type of her car to get away. There also have been cases just outside of our town on a major interstate were wild turkeys have flown into and crashed through windows of traveling vehicles. Crashed into - ending up IN the vehicle WITH the driver.

Let me just stop there for a second to note that as I write all of this...my chest is tightening and my heart beating harder. If something like that happened to me...I would totally have a heart attack and die right there on the spot. My heart would STOP! NO KIDDING!

Once I took my kids to a zoo whose bird exhibit was open - meaning you walked amongst them. You could not get through to the other parts of the zoo without going through the bird exhibit so unless we were going to turn around and go home without seeing the lions and tigers and bears (oh my) thus ruining my children's day, I had no choice. I tried to just look straight ahead and walk quickly. As we rounded a curve in the path, off to my left what before my wondering eyes should appear but the peacock family. Not the largest of the birds in the exhibit....no, that would be the emu I saw to my right. I was fa-reeaked out! I tried to stick to the plan of hurrying through and were almost passed the peacocks when one of them started screeching. I screamed, grabbed my son by the shirt and cowarded behind him, pushing him further along the path crouched below his shoulders. My son was I think 11 at the time who even now at 14 is only something like 4 ft 10 inches tall. And here is his mother putting him between her and this flesh riping, meat from the bone picking creature so that she didn't get attacked. Great motherly instincts huh?! It was that irrational fear that took over. All I could think about was that bird attacking me - I was soooo scared!

Almost as bad as my fear of birds is a fear of cats. That fear is again of being attacked - of being pounced on. 14 years ago, the night before a friend's wedding, all the bridesmaids (of which I was one) spent the night at her house so that we could all go to the church together. This friend had about 6 persian cats. Another girl and I were sleeping on the sectional in the living room as the panthers and mountain lions roamed around us. I would wake up and to find one of the staring at me. I couldn't shake that stare. I got up and went to the bathroom and when I opened the door like 4 of them were sitting in the hallway blocking my save return to the couch. I ran and jumped back on the couch and then woke up the other girl to protect me. I wouldn't let her get a wink of sleep the rest of the night. Whenever a sensed the beasts closing in, I would kick her awake, "Stacy, there are going to get me!". HA. She still gives me a hard time about that night. But the fear had practically paralyzed me. I just kept imagining them all on top of me scratching and biting and clawing my eyes out. Too many of them to fight off - helpless to do anything to save myself.

A few months ago, I went out to start my car and as I approached the passenger side (where I would lean in and turn the key then throw Jace's bag in the backseat), I saw something move inside my car. As I got closer and it came into view...it was a cat...IN MY CAR! I had no clue how it got in there or how long it had been in there. I had left the windows down earlier in the evening but had since left to pick my son and a neighbor kid up from practice. Had it been in the car then and stayed hidden? If it was trapped in there all night, had it peed and pooped in there? EWW! But given my fear of cats, I was afraid to simply open the door and let him out. If he felt cornered, he's probably pounce right?! So, I did what any normal person would do...I opened the door and ran screaming into my back yard and up onto the back porch. Immediately I thought that was stupid, now I am cornered if he didn't come out of the car, how was I going to get back around to the front of the house. I considered climbing the chainlink fence and coming around front but instead I crept down the stairs and peered into the carport. The car door was obviously still open - it's not like he was going to politely close it as he went about his way - but more importantly I had no idea where he had gone, if anywhere. I kicked the door shut and then walked around the vehicle looking in all the windows to see if he was still in there. Totally expecting it to jump up eye to eye with only the glass between us. As I rounded the drivers side, I saw that the back seat window was down about 4 or 5 inches. Then I realized the neighbor kid had left the window down on his side when he got out and I never realized it when we got home. So, that was how the cat got in but I still didn't know how long he had spent in there. Still didn't know if I would discover a nice pile of cat shit in a floorboard or the hatch. Once I decided it was gone, I walked back toward the house to wake up my little one and dress him for day care and too my horror realized the door had not shut all the way behind me when I had gone out originally to start the car. My heart sank thinking, "Oh my GOD - what if that cat ran into the house?!". I came in, turned on some lights and looked intently around a couple corners fearing I would come face to face with this savage animal. I decided I couldn't find it and thought if it's in here, the boys will discover it when they get up for school. Again, scarificing my children so that I didn't have to confront my fear.

Not long after that, I was making Halloween treats for work, my little boy was watching a Scooby Doo movie and all of sudden I heard a LOUD screeching - like a cornered animal. It sounded like a cat. I jumped up on a kitchen chair. How stupid! It wasn't a mouse, it was a cat - cats can jump so the heighth of that chair was not going to save me from anything. And there was my little boy in the living room alone where the animal could eat him. I called the older boys at their friends' up the street and told them they had to come home right now, that I thought there was a cat in the house and they needed to get it. After all, they are the men of the house now you know. In my panic and desperate cry for help, I didn't realize it was the kid whose house I had called that I was speaking too and not one of my sons. Yeah not embarrassing at all. Still they came anyway - all four of them came running. Searched the house and found nothing. I told them about the screech and we decided it must have been a hawk circling in the Scooby movie I heard but we replayed it a couple times and it never sounded the same as what I had heard. With them I'm sure thinking I was CRAAAZZY - we all went about what we were doing. Later when the boys were back home, Dallas was watching me make the treats, we were just talking and all of a sudden there was the screeching animal again. Brendon was in the basement and didn't hear it but Dallas did. I was NOT crazy afterall. I jumped up on the chair again. Dallas was cautiously looking around and Jace was jumping on the couch nearby when we heard it again. It was like it was coming from under the couch cushion. How could a cat have gotten trapped under the couch cushion? How could that even be possible? Irrational right?! I made him and Brendon remove the cushions and even though they were scared too that something would pounce out, I remained on top that kitchen chair a safe distance away. There was nothing there. Turns out my son had left AIM open and someone had changed their chime or whatever you call it to a screeching cat in honor of Halloween. So, everytime this person got on AIM, instead of hearing a door open, you would hear a screech. A sound effect of a cat had rendered me scared for my life shaking and shivering on top a chair.

I also have a fear of something happening to my children - especially the kidnapping or death of. I know that sounds so marose but in today's society bad things do happen to the most innocent of children and I just know I could not go on living if anything happened to any of my kids. It wouldn't be a heart attack this time that killed me. It would be heart ache! My heart would ache do badly that I would die from the pain. I know I am not the only parent to have those fears. Last fall we "lost" Jace at a local store. The store had to do the lock down (Code Adam I believe it's called) and we called 911. He could not be found anywhere! What had me scared the most as it was happening was that he was not responding at all. I just kept thinking if he had wandered off or was playing a game...he would respond...answer to his name...laugh, snicker or giggle, something - yet there was nothing. That, in and of itself, had me convinced someone had him. Someone had grabbed him, covered his mouth and had already gotten away with him. I even went out to the parking lot somehow thinking I was going to see a car speeding away and I could get it's description or license plate. Why did I think that? That happens in the movies! Why would I have wanted to see that? I would have collaspsed in anguish if I had but it atleast would be something to go on. I remember thinking I was never going to see him again. We finally found Jace hiding under the same rack we were standing at when we first noticed him missing. He kneeled there, keeping quietier than you ever thought a 2 year old could be, playing what was to him "Hide N Seek". I was never more relived in my life. I had a 911 operator on the phone when I found him and hung up on her so that I could reach for and pick up my child. I just held him. Hugged him tight and all he wanted to do was hide again. I was shaken for days! You know though, every single person I told the story too had had it happen to them with a child or grandchild.

I used to have a fear of being hit and killed by a drunk driver. I was certain that was how I was going to die. And it wasn't so much the main roads I was afraid of. It was the side roads, the neighborhood streets where someone who was impaired could run a stop sign and smash into me. I don't know why...maybe it's cause I don't get out much anymore - ha...but that fear has subsided a bit. It's more of an occassional nagging now.

So, what are your fears? I'd be really comforted to know I am not the only freak in the world.