Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” He obviously never walked a mile in my shoes. Here's a list of ten things that frighten me. If these things didn't keep you awake before, after you read this, they will.
Pre Fear
When I was a younger man, I wasn't afraid of anything. Heck, what was there to be afraid of? I was young, strong, and smart, it was simply impossible that I could be hurt or killed. It just couldn't happen. So, I took risks that I look back on now and shiver in fear. What in the world was I thinking when I jumped out of the barn into the piled up hay? What if I landed on a pitchfork? What if I missed? In those days, pre fear, I didn't think about it, I just did it.
I'm not really sure where the fear began to kick in, but I think it was about the time my son was born. He was allergic to something in his mother's milk so we had to feed him formula. Well, all I could think about at two in the morning after changing his diaper was that I would get the formula too hot. Then it might burn him. What if it was too cold? Then he might cry and wake up my exhausted wife. What if I didn't get his diaper on right? Finally, I'd get him fed and rocked back to sleep, disaster averted, for now. But, then I was in bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking about SIDS, crib suffocation, choking and any number of the apparently (according to the books and Internet) fifty-thousand things that can kill your baby, forty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety of which are your fault.
So, I think that's where the fear started to kick in. Now, my son is a little older and I don't worry about him quite as much. I only have to worry about ten thousand things that can kill him, so I have a little extra time to think about other things. Here are my top ten terrors.
Health
I'm thirty-five so I'm at that age when things start to go wrong. Sure, there's no reason to assume that something will go wrong, but it could and that's where the real terror begins. I don't have heart disease or cancer in my family, but that doesn't mean that it can't happen. Whenever I get a twinge, anywhere, it could be cancer. Heartburn? Surely it's a heart attack. Sore legs? Bone cancer. Headache? Brain tumor. Blurry eyes? Glaucoma. Dizziness? Diabetic shock.
It is completely irrelevant that all of these symptoms occur on the same day and it's usually the day after I go out with some friends of mine to the local Mexican restaurant and stay until two in the morning eating greasy tacos, drinking margaritas and shots of tequila. That doesn't matter. See, once the fear sets in all logic goes bye-bye. It's kind of like a gambler and money. Speaking of money…
Money
I don't have any. I want some. I have things I would like to do. What happens to my little boy if I can't get some money? Will we lose the house? What if one of the cars breaks down? What if the furnace goes kaput? The shingles need replacing, the eves need to be painted and I can't afford to pay for anything. Good lord, what am I going to do?
This is a great terror. You can keep yourself up all night just on this one alone. I spent the entire night so worked up from worry about money that I was too tired to go into work the next day and was fired. So, now I sit around the house and watch TV. Which brings me to…
Terrorism
This is a really good one, because I don't have to do a thing except watch the news. By the time the five o'clock news is over I'm completely drenched in sweat and my heart hurts (BONUS!! see Health). If I watch the news all day, I am blasted out of my chair by terror alerts, suicide bombings, weapons of mass destruction and every other kind of possible carnage. I have to turn it off and go outside. Crap.
Outside
Have you been outside? Do you know what can happen to a person out there? If you happen to live in the US, there are Lyme disease carrying ticks, West Nile disease carrying mosquitoes, spiders, snakes and every raccoon in the country has rabies, let alone the squirrels. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, lighting, hail, good heavens, man, the SUN can kill you. Not to mention all of the plants that cause hay fever, bees and wasps that sting, I mean a tree could fall on you. Nope, I ain't going outside. Back inside.
