Friday, June 23, 2006

Phobias

Do you have any phobias or fears? I'm scared to death of bees. I will scream and run around and get hysterical. I can't help it.

Bill and his friend, Paul, went fishing the other day at Minersville and fished late into the night. They spotted something in the water towards the end of the evening and went over to take a look. It was a snake! They watched it climb up their motor and wrap itself around the top of it, and went on fishing.

Bill said he knew it was just a blowsnake and he's not scared of them, but Paul sure was nervous the rest of the night. He kept looking back to see if the snake was still on the motor and not headed toward him in the boat.

Then as they headed back to shore, they saw another snake! Another blowsnake. Bill got his net out and fished it out of the water, leaving it in the net till they got to shore. Then he just reached in, grabbed it by it's neck (do snakes have necks), and let it go to safety.

Then they wondered how to get the other snake off the motor. Paul had just spent a week at his ranch doing repairs and had killed four rattlesnakes. He was leery. So he went around the back and nudged the snake with a stick and when it stuck its head up, Bill grabbed it, unwrapped it and they let it go to safety, too.

It gives me chills just thinking about it. Also, I think Bill is very brave. Also maybe stupid, what if it were a cottonmouth. But he says they're not in the west.

7 comments:

A. Nonny Mouse said...

My biggest fear in life is of dying in an incredibly stupid way. I mean, doing something so incredibly stupid that somebody would say, "Boy, he was a real Einstein, wasn't he?" Something like leaving a gas stove on and open but not burning and then lighting a match to see in the night, or holding my head outside of a bus window to get a better view of something behind the buss and being decapitated by an oncoming tree branch, or chancing upon a bear cub in Yellowstone and playing with it until being snuck up on from behind and eaten by its mom.

Something like that scares me.

Eric Nielson said...

I have a general fear of negative public scrutiny. This has shown up as panic attacks in my past. I have learned how to cope with this fairly well, but sometimes....

Anonymous said...

Spiders. Huge fear of spiders.

Reading this post this morning just reminded me there was one in the hallway last night but everyone was asleep so no one got rid of it, and now I don't know where it is in the house.

Starfoxy said...

Though I'm not afraid to deal with spiders, I do think I have some deep-seated fear of them, because they show up in my nightmares a lot. My mom thinks it comes from watching that episode of Gilligan's Island with the huge spider when I was really young. She says I came unglued when I saw it, and that night I had my first spider nightmare. I sorta like that I can honestly say that Gilligan's Island gave me nightmares.

Stephen said...

I'll tell you, those snakes ...

Ever since I had one come out of the luggage conveyor belt at an airport I've been more careful of them.

a. nonny spouse said...

I am deeply afraid of having a blowout on the freeway (and by "blowout" I mean a tire blowout, not a diaper--just thought I'd clarify). To combat this fear, I have purchased a special outfit (a mechanic's jumpsuit) to wear in case it ever does happen.

It hasn't worked. I'm still scared.

Elizabeth-W said...

I'm a little phobic about bee stings. I've never been stung, and believe about 99% that I will go into anaphylactic shock. I have this fear b/c whenever I get a bug bite I get a huge welt. I keep benadryl on hand.
I am a little phobic about getting lost on roads I don't know. For example, my husband and I went on a three day trip by ourselves and he wanted to come back on roads the GPS system couldn't even find. I worry that we'll get lost, or worse lost and run out of gas and get attacked by bears, or stuck in a freak June blizzard, or something bizarre like that, and my girls will become orphans.