Be afraid....be very afraid......

My Grandma used to say "Hiccups are a sign of a healthy baby", I wonder what it means for a 50 year old? I’ve had the hiccups for two days!!! Off and on all day yesterday and still this morning....I’ve read about people who set records and have them for months....oh, please don’t let me set a record! They are most annoying when you’re "hic" on the "hic" phone, I’m quite happy that lying down seems to alleviate them and at least I could sleep "hic" last night.

I think I’ve got the beginnings of an irrational fear ... diaphragmus contractiphobia. I hate to be overly dramatic here (me....never!)but I can’t think of a worse fate than having the "hic" hiccups for the next two months....well maybe I can think of........ one.....(having a miller in my hair while trapped in a car driving on an interstate with nowhere to pull over....miller dust flying.....hairy little antennas slapping against my face........little black eyes staring into my own....one of us fearing death by entrapment.....the other death by....dust?) Okay, I’m sorry .... I’m calm, everything is fine I’ll be alright, I’m in my own safe little office, no millers in sight.....life is good. (Geez look at the size of that thing.....it's a HAND it's sitting on for goodness sake!!!)

I’ve never been particularly fearful...well maybe a little...it took me several years (and a few bad misses) to overcome the fear that something was lurking under my bed. The flying long jumps from the light switch (why DO they put those things clear across the room) to my bed as a teen became something of a nightime ritual. But at least "my" fears are rational.....I mean who isn’t afraid that if you put your hand into the garbage disposal to get the spoon it will spontaneously start of it’s own accord?

People are afraid of all kinds of things, my mom is your typical arachnaphobic.....spiders are her worst nightmare, little, big, they are all the same to her and a cobweb sends her into absolute panic because she knows a spider built the thing but she has no idea where "HE" is now!

I had a good friend who was terrified, I mean absolutely "pee your pants" terrified, of birds...she couldn’t walk by a tree for fear there’d be a bird in it waiting to fly out and ....well you know how birds are......who really knows WHAT they’ll do to you. She couldn’t even eat chicken or sleep on a "feather" pillow, her fear was so complete.

"Nutella" was (is?) afraid of gorillas, monkeys, Orangutans, any overly hairy bi-pedal type. I’m fairly sure it stemmed from an incident when she was small....a friend of mine came to the door on Halloween dressed as a Gorilla (really a great suit!)to "surprise" us. Nutella answered the door and screamed bloody murder! I ran to the living room to find her absolutely beside herself jumping up and down, screaming, her face pale, her hands trembling. He came in and, in an effort to calm her, took the head off the suit..........I thought she was going to faint......she ran back and forth from me to the door screaming "A MONKEY ATE TIMMMMMMM!!!! A MONKEY ATE TIM!!!! Never could stand any type of primate after that, in fact another friend made her a sock monkey and felt terrible when Nutella unwrapped it only to scream "Kill it! Kill it! Hurry! AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!" She wasn’t happy till I rewrapped it and buried it in the back yard.


Daughter number 2 (now 18 years old) is afraid of dolls....we’re not sure where that came from but she refuses to sleep in a room if there’s a doll in there with her and even putting them in the closet isn’t a good enough solution, they have to be bound, boxed and sent to an undisclosed location (If she knows where "they" are then "they" know where she is....BWAAA HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA HAAAA!). It really is sad. I hope she doesn’t have little girls.



As far as I know daughter #3 only has one fear and that’s Squirrels. We DO have a lot of squirrels around our house and they DO tend to be large, fast, and sneaky but to my knowledge they have never chased, bitten or tortured her so I’m not sure why she’s afraid of them. I’ve asked her before but all she can come up with is that they "Look scary and have big teeth" .


Before my totally rational fear of millers I was only afraid of mice (oh yeah, and maybe that thing lurkiing under my bed) . I went to work one day and opened my desk drawer to find that "something" had chewed it’s way through all my snacks, there were little mouse.....ummmmm....tracks all over the place and even my Sucrets (remember those things...for sore throats?)had been sucked on by little rodent tongues. I called the maintenance man to ask him to come up and set some traps and right at that moment the little hairy monster ran out of one of the open drawers, hopped to the floor and scurried (that’s what they do they "scurry") right across my foot! Of course I screamed (with phone in hand this nearly deafened the poor maintenance guy) and he said (in a pretty darn sarcastic tone, I might add) "Well ma’am maybe I should bring my gun." Ha, Ha! Very funny!

Well, "hic" I guess if I consider all the "hic" things out there to be afraid of "hic" having the hiccups isn’t really all that bad. Have a "hic" nice day, go out and "hic" conquer those "hic" fears!