Scared? Me?....

David’s (Authorblog) Weekend Wandering question this week is:

The question is: What are you most afraid of?

If you wish to take part here’s what David would like you to do:

Please answer today's question on your own blog, any time until next weekend. Just link to this blog (or to this post) so I can follow the progress of the discussion.

I’m not a big fan of things like slugs, cockroaches and general creepy crawlies but faced with a mouse or God forbid a RAT I would probably drop down dead! Mice and Rats can strike paralysing fear in me even when they’re in a cage. I think it’s the tail – I know it’s irrational but they just have that effect on me, though nothing has ever happened, that I can remember, to instil this irrational fear in me. I think it must be hereditary because my mother was terrified of them too. Is that possible to inherit a fear of something? I remember seeing a contestant on ‘I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ where she had to lie in a coffin like box underground whilst it filled up with water and RATS! I was hyperventilating just watching, how she stood it with them crawling all over her I will never know. I once worked for a pet food supplier and I arrived one morning and opened my desk drawer to get out my comb and found a mouse looking at itself in the little mirror I kept in the drawer - I almost fainted!

I’m not keen on bats either because they look like rodents, but ever since one got in the house I’ve liked them even less. MWM had opened the front door to put the empty milk bottles out (we still have a milkman who delivers) and left the lounge door open too and as he bent down to put them on the step what I thought was a bird flew in. I shouted to MWM “A bird has just flown in” but he came in and announced “It’s not a bird it’s a bat!” You wouldn’t believe the state I was in, I was curled up in the foetal position, screaming and covering my head with my arms. MWM had the cheek to tell me to stop screaming because I was frightening the bat! Eventually I crawled on all fours to the dining room and locked myself in until MWM told me he’d caught the bat and it was safe to return. I know it’s stupid but I can’t help it.

Did I tell you about the time a squirrel chased me? I had spent hours planting 180 flower bulbs in my garden only to find a squirrel digging them up an hour later. I ran outside and ‘shooed’ it away but it just sat staring at me. I picked up a tennis ball which just happened to be lying around and threw it at the squirrel to scare it away only it must have thought I wanted to play and came bounding over to me – s**t I wasn’t expecting that, I ran inside quick and shut the door. It sat there for ages waiting for me to go out and play!

Give me an ogre of a boss to deal with any day, but an animal that could shoot up your trouser leg before you’d had chance to say “What’s that?” leaves me a nervous wreck!