what do you fear?

Each morning as I am taking the kids to school I listen to my favorite radio station, 107.7 WIVK. It is a country station because you all know how I am about my country music and all but anyway.....I listen to this station in the morning not for the music but for the information. This station is the first to announce important closures, traffic reports, weather reports, urgent news articles or what have you. Not only are the up to the minute on all the important details of life, they also talk of weird and/or odd things that you usually wouldn't hear. Today they were talking about weird things (fears,phobia's,superstitions..etc..) that has stuck with us from childhood. They were talking about fears/phobia's that are most common which are spiders and snakes. There was a woman that had emailed in and told them that if she is watching tv and sees a snake(s) that she can't sleep that night and if she is walking in a park and sees a snake she will never go back to that park from fear of seeing another snake. She said that her husband wanted to take her to a pet store that had snakes so that she can get up close and personal with them to help her fear but she refused, her husband calls her crazy over her fear of snakes however, she calls him crazy because he thinks that if she were around snakes it would take her fear away.

I can relate to this woman because I have a very deep ingrained fear of snakes, as a matter of fact snakes are my worst fear. There are a lot of things in this world that I fear but snakes top the list for me. I have had this fear of snakes for as long as I can remember so there wasn't one incident that put this fear in me. If I go to a pet store, which I often do to pet the puppies, kittens, & birds, I stay away from the snakes because I will have nightmares about them that night. I can watch shows about them like "Venom 9-1-1" and sometimes I do not have nightmares but more often than not I won't sleep well that night. If I am driving down the road or riding in the car with someone and we see a snake slithering across the road I will have my feet on the dash before you can blink and for our remaining time in that vehicle I will keep looking in the floorboard to see if the snake slithering across the road has somehow got stuck around the tire or caught near the motor and is making it's way out via near my feet. Sounds crazy and is funny to some but this it is real to me. I honestly believe that snakes are evil and as Kathy Bates' character in "Waterboy" says about everything, "they are of the devil." Now if I am walking in a park and I see a snake, that doesn't keep me from going back to walk at that particular park but it does make me hesitant when I come upon the area where I previously saw the snake and most times I will not walk near that area until someone else comes along if I am alone.

Another fear I have is of heights. When I was pregnant with our oldest child, Chesney, the farther along in the pregnancy I got the more I dreamed of a glass staircase going up into nothing with no hand rails and nothing below it and that is where my fear of heights came from. Before I became pregnant heights didn't bother me at all but the older I become the worse it gets for me. I love Tennessee Volunteers football and I always wanted to go see a game at Neyland Stadium, better known as "The Big House", so finally Mr. B took me and the next year he took me one more time, I have not been back and don't see myself going back because when I get in that stadium my equilibrium goes berserk and I am left unbalanced and disoriented. Mr. B likes to sit up higher in the stadium but each time I have been if I stand up I start falling sideways but I think I am standing straight, also when it is time to go or if we are taking a bathroom break I have to close my eyes and hold on to Mr. B while walking down the stairs because those really throw me off, we probably looked like a couple of loons walking down those steps when we went because here I am with a death grip on Mr. B with my eyes closed and he is telling me to step now, step now, go to the right for this group of people coming up and so on.

Everybody always laughs about it but I am a double checker. When we leave I double check curling irons, straighteners, lamps, tv, computers, windows, dryer, dishwasher..etc... to make sure that nothing is left on, open, or running, I do a repeat before bed. Another fear for me and this one sounds somewhat silly but I fear uncleanliness. To explain my fear of uncleanliness here is are some examples. 1..I am busy cleaning house all morning and wait until I complete what I am doing to shower but before I get to shower someone calls with an emergency and I have to leave. Not only do I have to leave but on my way to or from where I was going I end up in an accident and have to be taken to the hospital, they wouldn't have to worry about injuries from the wreck killing me because I would die of shame at not having took a shower. 2...I am busy or tired and don't get the hardwood swept or the kitchen mopped or the dishes in the dishwasher immediately so that I can take rest a moment then while I am resting someone stops by unannounced. Mr. B tells me I worry too much and that as a child I shouldn't have taken the saying "never leave home without clean undergarments on" so literal.

So now you know what some of my fears are, what are some of your fears?