Decaphobia

Day 10: Something You're Afraid Of

Apparently I'm afraid of deadlines. Clearly this is not actually day 10, that was like a week and a half ago. Check out the new poll, by the way.

Something I'm afraid of though? Hmm.

Oh, here's a good one: I'm afraid of cars sometimes.

I even know where the fear came from, it was my parents. They always taught me, perhaps a little bit more than absolutely necessary, that I should never get into the car with strangers. You know, kidnappers and rapists and all that.

See, they were right, it's important to not do that- but problems arose when I started to assume that every car I didn't immediately recognize was filled with murderous child-snatchers.

I managed to keep this whole mental ordeal under control, but even now if a car pulls up next to me on the sidewalk- even if it's parking, and even if it looks like this:

my mind will try to convince me that I'm actually seeing this-and I'm not kidding, I seriously do get tense and ready to fight anyone who comes out of the car if they start coming for me. It's an automatic response. I mean it when I say it could even be my parents in the car and until I see it's them I'm in standby/attack mode.

So there you have it. If you want to play sick mind games with me, pull up next to me in cars I don't recognize. It'll set me on edge.

Although I doubt it would be worth the trouble.