I once dated someone who was deathly afraid of sharks. But it wasn't an applied fear; it wasn't like he was a swimmer, surfer, or even spent time in the water. He was afraid to actually see a photo of them. At the time there was a big shark exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, so billboards of sharks with their enormous, razor-tooth-stuffed grins were plastered all over the city: at busstops, on buildings, in subway cars. He couldn't bear to look. It frightened him to the core.
When I was younger, I had the normal childhood fears of my long hair being cut off at night through the crack in the bed, or my feet being tickled while I slept (of course, by the same guy who was waiting under the bed to cut my hair). At least I think those are normal fears. But while those disappeared, there are three fears that have lingered in my subconscious to creep the crap out of me every time. No logic at all involved, it's a pure visceral reaction.
1. Tidal waves. This is what my nightmares look like:
I have a feeling I'm not alone on this one. And truthfully, a lot of my nightmares do involve a tidal wave scenario. But. Like my sissy shark-fearing ex-boyfriend, I am actually afraid to look at photos of them. Every now and then, I'll watch a program about tsunamis or tidal waves the way I'd watch something like The Ring. I can't watch and I can't look away either.
2. Large apartment complexes. I have no idea what this is about. They don't scare me the same way tidal waves do, but there's something that makes me really nervous when I see them. My heart races and my palms get sweaty. I'm not talking skyscrapers, either. I mean the buildings with about 2,000 apartments that look like they're really three apartment buildings attached to each other. I. Don't. Like. Them.
3. Raccoons. Now this fear can be traced, but should probably have been shed in childhood. When I was growing up, raccoons were rampant in my neighborhood. At twilight in summer, just as our kickball games were moving into full gear, those nasty little creatures would come out of the shadows and begin their night's work of ransacking garbage cans. We'd have to call it quits and head inside. Not the end of the story.
We soon found out that there was a family of raccoons living in our porch roof. There was a small hole that they'd all climbed into, set up shop, and invited their friends over. At the time, I shared a room with my younger sister and we each had a window behind our beds and our windows sat atop--anyone? anyone?--that's right, the porch roof. Remember, this is summer, so we have screens in the window. At night, those damn raccoons would crawl up to our windows and scratch on the screens. We'd wake up petrified. Now it's one thing to be afraid of an actual demon in front of you, but as time went on, I was more afraid of the possibility of raccoons appearing. I was afraid to go to sleep, afraid to walk past my window, kept the shade down, afraid of those beady eyes staring back at me in the darkness. But it didn't end there. Once fall came and the screens were out, the raccoons would still come calling. Tap, tap, tap on the window pane. Tap. Tap. Tap. They were my own personal Freddy Fingernails.
My parents tried, unsuccessfully, a couple of times to extricate them from the porch roof, and finally they were able to. But those pests still lurked on our block. And now they lurk in the recesses of my mind. They don't incite the same inexplicable fear as the apartment buildings or the thrill of staring a tidal wave down (well, a photo of a tidal wave), but I really, really hate them. And I am convinced the feeling is mutual.
So what about you? What makes you want to pull the sheets over your eyes?
