Fears and Phobias

Since I just aired out Monte's sensitive gag reflex issues involving,

among many other things,

pumpkin guts,

it seems only fair that I would tell on myself,

to make it all fair and tidy,

in this thing we call marriage.

Plus, Sophie over at BooMama wrote about the subject of phobias in her blog a few days ago and it was just fascinating and funny.

She has a fear of clusters of circles

and that phobia has an actual name

that doesn't involve the word crazy.

Who knew?

If I have made mention of this topic before

and I am too lazy to research if indeed I have,

forgive me.

My main phobia is of heights. 

I do not like being close to an edge of anything high up. I can look out onto a pretty horizon, like the view from the top of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis.

But I couldn't go to the edge and look straight down.

I don't even like it when I see a straight down view in the movies.

It makes my hands sweaty.

I went all the way to Paris and would not go up into the Eiffel Tower.

When we drove out west on those little tiny narrow curvy roads all up in the Tetons and Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, with cliffs on both sides of the road,

I was all kinds of phobia-induced 

hand sweats, 

screams, 

closed eyes 

and major root beer cravings.

When I was in college, my brother and I went on a road trip with my grandparents that involved a stop at Niagara Falls.

We walked on some bridge over part of the falls that had holes all in it so you could feel the mist of the falls and see the water below.

Sophie would've had trouble with the circle clusters.

I had trouble with the straight down view.

I fell to my knees and started crawling towards…somewhere.

My grandfather,

the sweet, compassionate man that he always was,

tried to reason with me to get up.

But that is the whole thing about a phobia, 

there is no reasoning with it.

My grandfather just slowly walked beside his grown granddaughter as she very shakily crawled her way off the bridge.

Not my finest hour.

Now, I am not sure this is a legitimate phobia or just a fear, 

but hillbillies make me uncomfortable.

(No, not you, Carisa.)

Let me clarify:  rednecks and hillbillies are different.

At least in my book.

(There is no real book, but you know what I mean.)

No, I mean like that Ernest T. character in "The Andy Griffith Show". 

When he'd throw bricks at people's windows and holler out, 

"It's me, it's me, it's Ernest T," 

and he'd laugh all maniacally.

Then he kidnapped the school teacher to force her to marry him 

and then his "people" would play the jug and washboard as musical instruments 

to try to get Sheriff Andy on good graces again.

This is worse than a scary clown.
WAY worse.

My hands are starting to sweat.

Then there is a whole different level of fear when you talk about Jodie Foster's character in the movie, "Nell" where she literally lived in the hills and was so isolated she had her own language 

and oh my, my heart is beating fast.

I think it is the complete isolation of it that I fear.

That and the thought that a hillbilly will come down out of the hills 

and kidnap me or someone I love.

So there's that.

And now Monte and his 

sensitive gag reflex 

and fear of clowns 

and certain dolls, 

is sounding pretty normal to me.

I need to lie down.