As some of you know, I make a habit of haranguing you readers about getting out and doing things that scare you. To avoid becoming a crusty old person whose big excitement is rocking on the porch and knitting one of those items that no one will later be able to figure out what it is.
Don’t laugh, I got a pair from my grandmother many years ago, and I still haven’t figured out what they’re supposed to be. Slippers? Gloves? Ear warmers? Bikini tops?
Anyway, that’s not what I came here to talk about. I’m talking about being a big fat clucking chicken liver.
Knock on doors in crime-ridden neighborhoods at midnight to ask about a shooting? Check. I’ve done that. Ask an important person if he embezzled money? Check. Done that. Yell back at a local public official who’s berating me unfairly? Done that.
But this is the part of the column where, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that I’m a big hypocrite. Because there are plenty of things that scare me, and I will simply never do.
For example, go to a horror film. My young adult daughter, Curly Girl, just can’t get enough of scary movies. Which is amusing because they terrified her when she was little. Now, however, the more spine-tingling the show, the more she likes it.
Nowadays, though, I find that adulthood is constantly full of opportunities for terror that cost nothing and don’t require popcorn or admission tickets. Actually, Knott’s Scary Farm doesn’t even invite me to theiir media previews anymore, after I kept writing about how real life was more terrifying.
10 things that scare the bejesus out of me
Opening a letter from my homeowner’s insurance company. Are they cancelling my policy? Raising my rates? Someone slipped and fell in my front yard?
Weird noises from my car. When you’ve reached a certain age, you’ve long since learned to dread those weird squeaks, squeals, taps, dings, rings and chugs that make up a musical called “Expensive Car Repair.”
Picking up a phone call when the person on the other end says “Do you have a son (or daughter) named so-and-so?” Trust me. This is never, ever good news. No one is calling to tell you that your offspring just won a prize from the Publishers Clearing House. Or has been invited to the White House. In my life, it usually means one of my kids has ended up in the trauma center with injuries, which is not as much fun as it sounds.
Once it was about my then-teenage daughter, Curly Girl, who went to a party at someone’s devoid-of-parents house after school and was plied with so much liquor that she ended up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Naturally, she refused to tell me who did this, so I couldn’t make myself feel better by kicking some teenage butt. Nowadays, ironically, she tends bar but doesn’t drink.
Thrill rides. There was something so bizarro about the fact that I spent years covering Disneyland, considering I get motion sick on any ride faster than Pirates of the Caribbean. Roller Coasters? I hate and fear them. When my kids were little and they’d try to sit in the front row on Space Mountain, I’d always shout, “NO, that’s the decapitation seat!” Apparently, the longstanding rumor that someone was decapitated on Space Mountain at Disneyland isn’t actually true, but irrational fears by definition don’t have to make sense. I have been involved in covering theme park accidents, so I’m not as blasé as most riders. Also, I barf without warning. Especially when the ride goes upside down. It mystifies me why anyone thinks this is fun. Which is fair, because it mystifies most everyone else that I think going to El Salvador is fun. So we’re even.
Driving on the freeway when it’s raining. My car once spun out when I swerved to avoid a piece of metal and it started hydroplaning. Luckily for me, it was early on Sunday morning and there was almost no traffic, so neither I nor my old Nissan 300-ZX were injured. Still, whenever it rains, I drive white-knuckled with my heart pounding. And don’t even get me started on fog or ice …
Going down steep stairs in a sports arena. Eeek. This used to be such a simple thing but now it makes me look like I’m … old. Which of course could not be true.
Picnics. I once came down hard with food poisoning from fried chicken and it turned me into a private detective. “How long has this been sitting here? Is there any mayonnaise in it? Has it been in the sun?”
Any worrisome sound in my house’s plumbing. If you’re a homeowner, you fear strange sounds in your house, which can mean anything from rats in your attic to roots in your drainage pipes. Trust me, the latter is both troublesome and expensive.
Then, there was the Big Kahuna. The call from my doctor to tell me the biopsy showed I had cancer. I went to bed in the fetal position to cope with that one, and metaphorically sucked my thumb. I’m happy to say, though, that was five years ago and I’m still being annoying.
What did I leave out? Tell me at mfisher@scng.com
And watch those fireworks. Did I mention that I also fear those?
Related links
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: Things I’ve learned from my cancer, part one
Fisher: Halloween scares can’t compare to frights of daily life
The space shuttle is quieter than my kids
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: I’m afraid to mow my lawn because of the bees
Frumpy Middle-aged Mom: I lived through a Zumba class. Yes, I really did.
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