Wednesday, July 15, 2009

I have recently gotten a Facebook account and through all of the silly little quizzes there was one on "The 5 Things Which Scare Me The Most". Mine were; roller coasters, heights, Alzheimer's, death and dragonflies.

When I was little I had a child's fear of roller coasters. At around the age of 12 my brother in law, who had taken a psychology course, and instantly thought himself Freud, decided he would "cure" me of my fear. He offered to take me to a local kiddie amusement park where he would go with me on the little bunny hop roller coaster there.

"I'll be right with you. I'll show you how safe it is and that there's nothing to be afraid of".

I trusted him and went along.

We sat side by side on the car waiting for it to start. "See, no problem, right?"

"Sure", I said, white knuckled holding onto the safety bar for dear life.. Adrenalin pumping through my veins as the anticipation grew.

Then the car shook as the chain underneath began to tug at the car. The car was also shaking because just at that moment my brother in law was climbing out leaving me alone to face my fear. As the car pulled away I looked back incrediously at him waving from the safe and stable platform.

I started screaming and didn't stop until halfway back to the parking lot. I don't know what I yelled at him; if I said I hated him or actually called him a son of a bitch. I do know all he said was, "Oh, grow up!"

Through my adolescence, summers which should have been spent on trill rides at Rocky Point Park were now limited to the Merry Go Round, kiddie car rides and the most daring ride I would venture, the Tile A Whirl. To this day I can not even watch the shows about roller coasters on the Discovery Channel without hyperventilating.

The only time I got on a roller coaster recently was on a trip to Disney with friends. My son was growing and I knew he would soon be asking me to go on these rides. I figured I could trust Disney and we chose Space Mountain.

Thanks to years of watching "The Wonderful World of Disney" I knew what to expect. However, the universe decided to screw with me a little. As I was making my way through the staging area there was a problem with the ride and they shut it down for a few minutes. Whenever they do that they turn on these flood lights with make a usually obscured ride completely visible. I did not need to see all of the scaffolding and the actual size of the entire ride.

All was fine and we got into our cars. As the car made it to the top of the first hill I knew what was coming and clamped my eyes shut tightly. I didn't want to see a thing. And, just like my ride on the bunny hop coaster, I started screaming. This was 20 years later and I now had a louder voice and much larger vocabulary. As we got off the ride I was horse from all my yelling and my friend came up to me and said, "You know, they usually don't allow that kind of language at Disney!" We quickly exited the ride before any of the other guests could complain about my sailor-like soliloquy.

Since then, I have gone on many virtual reality ride which give me the same scare as a roller coaster. However, I keep having to remind myself of the mechanics and special effects that are actually holding me only a few feet off the ground and that there is no reason to scream like a school girl. I also lve the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney; although I still clamp my eyes shut at the very end during the drop.

A fear of heights is something I actually talked myself into. I had no problem with heights as a youngster until I can clearly remember acting out one time in the back seat of my parents car as we were driving over the Jamestown Bridge which straddled Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. The original bridge has a center span with an open grate section about halfway across. As your car sped across ypu could look down and see the water underneath. I threw myself into the part of a scared little kid to either entertain my parents or get their attention. Each time we drove across the bridge I went into the same over-dramatized fit of fear. Eventually I forgot that it was play acting and I began ot actually get scared as we drove across. Any time I got into a high building my adrenalin would race as I imagined falling the same way I did as I pictured myself falling through the steel grate of the bridge.

Alzheimer's and death itself seem to go hand in hand. I fear the loss of control and memory that comes with Alzheimer's. My only hope is that continued research with lessen its affects by the time I reach my "golden years". The thing I fear most about death is the moment itself. I have a very low tolerance for pain and there are very few ways of dying that don't involve some major aspect of discomfort.

Dragonflies?

When I was a youngster, maybe around 9 or 10, I was swimming at the city pond with my cousins; amongst them my cousin, Tommy. As we walked around the pond we came across a swarm of dragonflies. I couldn't remember ever seeing them before and was leery of the over sized insects. Tommy saw this and offered this tidbit of information; that dragonflies were also known as "sewing needles, not just because they looked like sewing needles but because when they stung you the would do it over and over again like a needle on a sewing machine". To drive home the point he poked into his forearm over and over again with a maniacal grin on his face. Needless to say, I was horrified and did everything I could to stay away from dragonflies.

Flash forward to 1994 when I was working at the local newspaper. I was in the break room with my supervisor when a dragonfly made its way inside the building. As we stood there talking this gigantic demon bug slapped itself over and over again into the low hanging florescent light fixture a mere foot above our heads. As it banged into the light and swung back again I would duck over and over to avoid coming into contact fearing the never ending attack of the Sewing Needle.

"What the hell are you doing?" My supervisor asked as she stood motionless in the direct flight path of this dangerous bug with a look on her face as if she was watching some addled mental patient.

"That dragonfly!" I gasped as I ducked from another kamikaze flight dove towards me. "Watch out for it!" I warned her.

"Think about it, Jack", she said as if she were explaining the wheel to primitive man. "Dragon FLY...like house FLY. It's a harmless bug. It won't hurt you." She sighed, shook her head and walked away. Well,at least she didn't laugh.

Since then I have done research and know, on an intellectual level, that they are completely harmless, I still have to stop myself from diving for cover when ever I see one and I almost bit my tongue off to stop myself from screaming outloud during the opening credits of "Men In Black".

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