The other night I was sure I was going to die in my sleep.
This is not a joke.
I had the worst stress headache, and as I lay in bed, torturing myself with thoughts of an imagined tumor taking over my brain, I melodramatically turned to Marc and whispered, “This may be the last time I ever see you.”
There was a pause before my (loving) husband turned to me and responded, “Okay then. NIGHT NIGHT!”
Then he kissed me on the forehead, and turned off his bedside lamp.
Please don’t think any less of him. He knows well enough to ignore me when I am at my most dramatic.
And what do you know?
I woke up just fine.
But dying in my sleep is one of my most irrational fears. You know the ones – the ones prone to poking their heads out of the ground, always at the least opportune moments, like little satanic thought gophers.
The ones that once you know that they’re there, you are hard pressed to stop thinking about them; until, of course, you go slightly mad (just like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.)
In short, they are the absolute worst.
But as we all have them, I would like to take this time to share few others of mine – fears that always, always know how to get the best of me:
Balloons.
URG.
Just don’t.
Ever.
I hate balloons.
They are terrible, and they make me want to vomit.
I hate the feel of them; the smell of them. I hate the way they sound, and I hate knowing that someone’s spittle is trapped inside of them, just waiting to break free.
I hate when they pop, but more than that I hate when they become sad, flaccid demi-balloons – not yet depleted of their disgusting saliva-soaked oxygen supply, but empty enough to just sag about, hovering inches above the floor.
Above all else however, I hate balloons because of the story my mum told my sisters and I about a young boy who came into her ER (many moons ago before she became a lawyer), who almost died because a balloon had become lodged in his throat.
You see, while trying to blow one up, he had taken a big breath in, and along with the breath went the balloon.
How scary is that?
How scary is that hearing this story when you’re five years old?
So I hate balloons because they, like my imagined brain tumors, are trying to kill me.
Airplane toilets.
I’m not the biggest fan of flying any way you slice it, but I’ve done so much of it in my life that I can deal.
What scares me the most, however, are the toilets.
Call me crazy, but I am super sure that one day I will flush one of them and then be sucked down into the recesses of the plane.
Just think about that.
IT’S TERRIFYING.
And it is because of this that I never, ever flush one without having first washed up, and then having my hand ready to go on the door lock/handle for the quickest escape possible.
Because after I press that button, I need to be out of there like a flash.
(Like a flush?)
Not knowing what the future holds.
It can be a little scary, right?
Not airplane toilet scary, but a little frightful nevertheless.
(Especially for a control-freak, compulsive planner, like me.)
BUT I’M WORKING ON IT.
And I’m slowly seeing how exciting not knowing really can be.
…
What about you dudes?
What scares you?
I promise to hold your hand as you tell me.
Rant and Roll 