Things that go bump in the night - #MFRW 52-week Blog Challenge

This week's blog challenge prompts participating authors to discuss their irrational fears. Mine are pretty common: spiders, rats, cockroaches, and wasps/hornets. In short, if it's vermin, it makes my skin crawl and I want it and all 17 gazillion of its relatives to die. Now.

That goes for those nasty critters that don't make me freak out, like mosquitoes.

Take me on a trail ride that has me passing through spider webs, and I'll turn into a quivering wreck. Luckily, my horse pays no attention to me when that happens. God forbid a spider--not just its sticky web--should actually land on me. Catastrophe for sure.

Yes, i realize the desire to assuage my irrational fears would decimate several species of animals that depend upon vermin for food. I prefer to ignore that consequence because it will never happen. Strangely enough, snakes don't bother me. When I was 19, I worked in a pet store for a summer and was one of the few employees there who would handle the snakes.

That, of course, brings me to a memory that still makes me smile. A coworker at that pet store grew up in Africa, the son of missionaries. He related an incident when he was fishing out a tarantula for a customer. The tarantula dropped to the floor, and "BUG!" went through my coworker's mind. Without thought, he stomped on it. The customer was displeased: "You just killed my tarantula." "I'll get you another," he replied.

If one determines irrational fears by what populates our nightmares, that gets really personal and more than a little weird. I fear an utter lack of control. One of most disturbing themes in my nightmares is having absolutely no influence, no impact, no effect upon the events around me and affecting me. Since I'm an admitted control freak--is there a support group for that?--the sense of utter helplessness inspires absolute dread and despair.

Another distressing nightmare trend involves former bosses and sometimes former classmates. My subconscious brings up the conflicts and rehashes old pain and humiliation. Nights reliving those mutated memories are never fun.

I generally don't write about my fears in my books because I prefer not to relive them. I'm not all that eager to read about such things in other books, either. What about you?

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