The Sheila Variations

The "S" is dead and his relatives have no doubt fled in terror from your Lizzie Bordenesque rampage. Your domicile is safe to return to.

I'm the same way with snakes, BTW. They cause such revulsion in me that I invariably take off in the opposite direction.

Oh Bill, I hope so.

I might have to move.

Ditto the snakes thing.

Why don't you invite a friend over for drink or a dinner or a movie, to help you relax and get comfortable again?

That's a good idea because I feel like there's gonna be an "s" at every turn now. I know it's silly, but there you have it.

I second having a friend along. A light to shine into the darkness, so to speak.

I'm not primally afraid of anything - some things still make me jumpy - but your description of "the encounter" was positively unnerving.

-bp

My eldest daughter has the same irrational fear of those little buggers. I used to think she was over doing it (she's quite the drama queen and a flaming red head to boot). But I've come to realize that they just scare the living crap out of her in a way that I'll never understand. So, if its 2AM and there are screams coming from down the hall, I don't grab a gun. I grab a slipper.
Squish. Goodnight honey.

I never had ap roblem with spiders. In fact, I had one basement apartment that was so overrun with carpet beetles, I brought in a couple spiders and a centipede on purpose. Cleaned 'em up in a week.

I like snakes, too.

But miller moths? When I was eight, I woke up to find out crawling OUT of my mouth. My dad's house was infested with 'em. Since then, if I see one, I won't sleep until it's dead. Dead dead dead. Completely. Blech.

Thanks a lot, Mitch. I'm gonna have shrieking nightmares tonight over that last image there.

And please. While on my blog - DO NOT USE THAT WORD. :)

Please say "s", like any other normal well-adjusted person would.

And yes - these "s"s must DIE. There will be no sleep until there is DEATH.

To sleep ... perchance to dream
ay, there's the rub.

I had to go read the explanation...for a minute there I thought it might be cicadas you were talking about! I was cornfused...

Skillzy, fear of cicadas is perfectly rational. I mean, if you don't believe me, read this:

http://www.cicadaville.com

(Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan. Note to the truly dense: it's a joke, people.)

I'm right there with ya Miss O'Malley. I can't even say the word either. I call them "paooki" (that's the Russian word).

I hate them. I hatesssssss them! In fact, I hate them so much that I will have to read this post in the morning, when it's daylight and I don't go to sleep and get nightmares.

Disgusting creatures! Birds can eat the bugs!

"Paooki!"!!! HAHAHAHAHA

A very good friend of mine's mother called them "manoo" (a made-up word) - just because the real word was too scary.

"Please do not be alarmed, but there is a manoo hanging in the corner."

Maybe when I have kids, and they are terrified of manoos or paooki, I will lose my own fear - because I will have to be "the one" who will kill them. And one will do anything for one's children. Kill a manoo? No problem. Take a bullet through the heart? Let's go.

You know, I read an interesting thing about arachnophobia - which I actually can't even deal with - because it's too direct about "s"s in general - but the theory behind arachnophobia is not that one is afraid of "s"s. It is that one is actually afraid of the dark.

I thought of that last night, in my terricloth robe, with my chunky black shoes. Because it was this feeling of overwhelming chaos, loss of control - not the "s" really.

Deep breath.

Dave J: I'm not afraid of cicadas, but I am afraid of the paookie.

There's something about the legs...

Can't speak of it. Already won't sleep tonight!

That's it, red. The legs.
There is some racial memory at work here. Something about the legs.

I'd speak more about it, except that you already know better than I ever could.

So stamp. Hard.

"S"s, I can deal with. Snakes, I can deal with. But rats -- God help me!

You won't have to kill the S's when you are a Mom, Sheila. Meredith (my sis) has this weird thing about bums. She refuses to take a rectal temp, so her children have had to exist with a hand to a fevered brow, or a kiss to the forehead for her to decide just HOW feverish they are. PS Her husband has the same skeevey feeling about thermometers and hineys, so he is of no help either... SO, there you have it. No need to deal with S's in motherhood if they can get away with not knowing a child's fever.

My Spousal Equivilent is just as terriffied of those things as you are, Sheila. Not me, though. Funny, considering how many things truly scare me (fire, storms, the dark, rodants....which include squirrells, dogs, etc.) but "s"s have never been one of them. In fact, I'm one of those revolting people that will scoop them up, put them in a glass, and let them outside. I actually will do that with anything in the house: Flys, Bugs, insects....anything.

Yet.....show me a cow, and I see a Big Mac.

Mmmmmm...cow. :-)

Alex -

Funny because I have always longed to show you a cow. I guess I won't now. :)

Beth,

Your sis never heard of mouth or electronic ear thermometers?

's' don't bother me, but I can recognize that same paralysing fear - I have it about enclosed places.

when I was having my house inspected before I bought it, and the house-inspector went down into the (tiny, vermin-infested, dark, damp, under a house weighing many tons) crawl space to inspect, I had to walk into the backyard where I couldn't see him and the tiny opening, so I didn't become physically ill.

when I had a rodent in the attic, I just let it run around up there after I climbed a ladder, live-trap in hand, and stood there, my head and shoulders through the crawl-hole, but unable to force any more of my body up into that...space...with just one opening, just one way out.

I don't ride elevators either. I claim it's because I need the exercise of taking the stairs, but it's really that they make me freak out.

Even airplanes and having to ride in the backseat of a car crushed between two people bigger than me gives me the willies.

Congratulations on facing up to the fear and killing the spider! I'm have this complete and total fear of needles (as in ones that are used to inject things or draw blood out of the body, not those used on records or for sewing) and have been known to pass out from just seeing others get stuck by them. Yes, I'm a total wimp and it's so bad that doctors have made up this condition for me so I can tell other doctors about it and they know--hey, I could pass out so take me seriously, dammit!

OK, I think I've shared a bit too much. Got to keep remiding myself--internal monologue! Keep it internal!

Michael:

I love it when people share their random internal monologues. Stuff like that makes worth living. Of course, if your inner monologue was something like: "I yearn to chop up my neighbor with an ax" I might be concerned.

But sharing a fear is very cool. At least I think it is.

Ricki:

I felt a shiver of sympathetic horror at the thought of sticking just your head into a crawl-space. I don't know if I could do that!!

oh sheila...you could've called me. i would've been there to help you overkill the poor thing. i, too, hate HATE spiders. the single worst nightmare i've ever had (and believe me i've had more than my share) involved me thinking i was waking up to a spider the size of a full-grown labrador retreiver was crawling all over my body. my boyfriend at the time was in the living room watching tv and i sprang out of bed emitting barely human blood curdling screams and ran into the kitchen where my poor terrified boyfriend (who thought someone had crawled through the bedroom window and was attacking me)met me. i could not stop screaming (i think i was still half-asleep) and he grabbed me by the shoulders as i fell to my knees. he still has no idea what's happening and he kept saying what happened what happened? through my screams (and i firmly believe that i have never ever in my life made those kinds of sounds before or since) i shrieked "DID YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT SPIDER?!" he just looked at me as i rocked back and forth on my knees, screaming, my eyes wild with terror on the cold kitchen tile. then he started to laugh. eventually i was able to laugh, too. but not for a long long time.

Allison - I can't believe I've never heard that story!! Some of my worst nightmares have been "s" nightmares too.

sorry i said the whole word...from now on out they're just "s"