In honor of Gibson, I thought I would tell you, and hope you share any irrational fears you have.........here is mine.

In our town, the tornado sirens go off at 10am on the first Tuesday of the month. My fear is that there will be a tornado that day and I will not take cover.

I am also terrified to go to the Grand Canyon. What if we stop at the Grand Canyon and my kids are so excited to see it, and they run to see it and they go over the edge? Too risky.

I have some more about zoos and spontaneous human combustion, but I will save those for another time.

I would love to find a haunted house, or encounter another lifeform - I am always scanning the skies for UFOs and would welcome aliens.

Mice - Ive tried to tame them. I prefer them outside; oddly, my cats prefer them inside.

Bees - like them. Roaches - never encountered any, but from the 'burger-eater' description, I am not looking forward to that close encounter!

BUT besides the terribly logical understandable sensible fear of underground parking garages, I get the heebie-jeebies if I think of the ways I could die...not of being dead, or what (if anything) is after, but the dying process itself. Of course, if I become zombified, I know exactly who I will stalk!

readysteadygo,

That really sucked. Your mom must have been pretty calm. If this had happened to my older daughter she would completely freaked and drove off the road or into another car. She'd definitely bug-phobic!

And that poo thing, your poor dad, that would have totally grossed me out. Doesn't have to ruin vacations just no more RVing!

When my DH and I were first married, we lived in an apartment that had paper thin walls. We had new neighbors and when they came, they brought their roaches with them. We decided to move, and didn't want the roaches to come with us, so we were really careful about boxing something up and then taking it to the new place.

Once we were in the new place, I was still terrified to see a roach. Once night I was unpacking, it was hot and I had been sitting on the floor. I got up to go to bed, and there was a roach attached to my leg. I started screaming and my DH told me to hold still and he would get it. It turned out to be a penny that had been on the floor and it had stuck to me. My DH teases me still. He calls it "the illusive Penny Bug". It was scary!!!

I am also afraid that my kids will fall into the Lion/Monkey/Bear pit at the zoo. I could happen. I watch the news.

Here's another one of my biggest fears - anesthesia. I have heard that there have been people who appear to be anesthetized but can still feel everything. They go through surgeries feeling all the pain but are paralized and unable to tell or let anyone know they can feel.

That's one reason I had to think really, really hard about whether to have this surgery or not.

HappyOne,

Believe it or not, I actually asked the anesthesiologist about that. Ever since I saw it on a talk show I've been freaked out about that. He said they use new anesthisia medication that works in a different way and so they are able to determine if you are in distress better now. Definately something to ask your surgical team about but doesn't seem to be the issue it once was. Even then it was extremely rare.

Mhaz...,

I was the same way after I moved out of my Roach apartment! It makes you paranoid. It was an old one near the city so there was no way of controlling it, just leaving. We bombed all our stuff before we moved into his mother's but I was always worried that they'd still be in boxes. And believe or not I gave away a lot stuff for free because I knew there were roaches living in it. All my living room furniture was given away. You can open up a cookbook from back then and see a dead one, I know TMI, but that's how infested this place was. I was dumb to move there but it was close to the subway and cheap!

I'm afraid of the lion pits at the National Zoo in Wash DC. It's been a while since I've been there and now that an incident happened, I forget at what zoo and what animal but they can get out. Also they have/had a gorilla house and it's all glass and these huge guys will come right up to you face to face and pound on it and I remember screaming and running away thinking they could break through! dandy brandyII.

Mhaz...,

I was the same way after I moved out of my Roach apartment! It makes you paranoid. It was an old one near the city so there was no way of controlling it, just leaving. We bombed all our stuff before we moved into his mother's but I was always worried that they'd still be in boxes. And believe or not I gave away a lot stuff for free because I knew there were roaches living in it. All my living room furniture was given away. You can open up a cookbook from back then and see a dead one, I know TMI, but that's how infested this place was. I was dumb to move there but it was close to the subway and cheap!

I'm afraid of the lion pits at the National Zoo in Wash DC. It's been a while since I've been there and now that an incident happened, I forget at what zoo and what animal but they can get out. Also they have/had a gorilla house and it's all glass and these huge guys will come right up to you face to face and pound on it and I remember screaming and running away thinking they could break through! dandy brandyII.

Paragraph one: :tt2:

Paragraph two: That was actually out here at the San Francisco Zoo. It was a tiger cage.

readysteadygo,

That really sucked. Your mom must have been pretty calm. If this had happened to my older daughter she would completely freaked and drove off the road or into another car. She'd definitely bug-phobic!

And that poo thing, your poor dad, that would have totally grossed me out. Doesn't have to ruin vacations just no more RVing!

If they ever wanted to go I might go. But if you mention vacation my moms eyes get real big and she changes the subject:lol:

RE: Closet monsters

Back in the '90s when movie rental stores still charged late fees, I was always the designated returnee. One freezing winter night I raced to return the movie before the store closed, dressed in my sweats, Ms Piggy slippers, and a heavy winter coat.

I got home, and went to hang my winter coat in the entry closet. The closet door and the front door were across from each other, separated by maybe 10 feet. I opened the closet door, and my husband burst out from behind the coats to scare me.

I don't remember the rest, but the family story says I dropped the coat, let out a little-mouse "eeeep", and bolted--right into the closed front door! Yep, knocked myself out cold. Bloodied my nose. I bounced off the front door all the way back into my husband's arms.

If he hadn't caught me, I'd have hit my noggin on the marble floor and he would have had to explain to the police why his wife of a dozen years was dead on the floor in a puddle of blood and pig slippers.