Childhood Fears

With Halloween only a day away, I thought it would be cute to fill you in on my geeky childhood fears.

1) My closet at my parents house. As a child my bed faced the closet and it had slatted sliding doors. The doors could never close properly and there was always a little piece open. NOw instead of being a mildly normal child,I wasn't scared of monsters, I was scared of ostrichs. Yes I said ostrich, the giant flightless bird. For some reason I imagined that an ostrich was in my closet. Now I have no real life basis for fear of ostrichs, never a bad run in that might have scarred me for life. But as a child I would be scared to fall asleep in case the ostrich might come out of the closet and not in a sexually identifing way.

2)I am scared of the dark. Ok, this fear transends my childhood. I'll admit this, but at least this fear is founded. Like all little kids I was scared of the dark. But as a senior in high school, I was a cabin counselor for a science camp that was a week long with 6th graders. One of the nights at the camp is a night hike. Great way to show my authority to the 6ths grade. Take the high school senior to wander out in the dark with a bunch of 11 years old. Guess who was more scared??? At one point of the hike, the kids were asked to be four feet apart along the trail. The idea was for the kids to relax, listen to the forest at night. Well as we got up to go after siting still for 20 minutes. I am standing in the rear of the group to make sure we don't lose anyone. Well as I am picking up kids to follow the rest of the group, something furry ran across my foot. I kid you not! We had no flashlights so the best I can guess is that something the size of a small racoon run across my foot. Some poor 6th grade boy ( who by the way was taller and bigger than me) got the surprise of his life when I jumped in to his arms. After I climbed down and swore the boy to secrecy, we walked back to the camp. To this day I swaer some small furry animal is stalking me to get a big laugh out of me.

3)Clowns. Now this fear doesn't border absolute panic. But I watched Stephen Kingn's It, I know the true story about clowns. Freaky things. And obviously its true, because "Saw" has a freaky clown in it. There is something odd about them, I mean really. Something about the make up and creepy smiles set me on edge. Also the field of clowns are predominantly male, what does that say about them. They are drawn to make up and screaming children. I am sure there is a medical term for that.

So Happy Halloween!