What are you afraid of?

 

{me, this morning- smiling and clearly pre-near-death pigeon experience.}

Today while walking downtown with a friend of mine, a pigeon flew up and swooped down, dangerously close to our heads...and almost gave me a heart attack. Yup, I'm scared of birds. Oddly enough we had the sweetest cockatiel growing up and I don't remember ever being afraid of her, but as time went on I found myself shuddering when a crow would come hopping along the sidewalk, or I'd see a mass of seagulls at the beach. I attribute this fear to two things: one, watching Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds too many times, too young...and two, turkey vultures.  If you don't know what a turkey vulture (aka a buzzard) is, google it, but I promise you, it ain't pretty. My Mom taught at an elementary school that had a large soccer field in the front area, and turkey vultures used to sit atop the goal posts everyday. The adults would tell us to never, ever, ever lay down on the ground for fear the vultures would think we were food and swoop down and attack us. Really adults? You want to tell impressionable seven year olds that huge birds with up to a six foot wingspan might attack us? Whether they would in fact, fly down and think we were prey is up for discussion, but regardless, it terrified me. And I am still scared to this day. Pigeons, crows, seagulls, woodpeckers...heck, even bluebirds scare the living daylights out of me and I WILL cross to the other side of the street if I see a gaggle of particularly menacing geese down by the pond. Not even kidding.

So with that said, I am so curious: what scares you? Do you have a fear, rational or irrational? I have a friend who is terrified of cowboy hats, another who is scared of the ocean, and an ex-boyfriend who didn't like the feel of soap (that relationship ended quickly, haha). But really, I'm curious!

If you'd like, share your fears below, or post about them and link me back here. This should be interesting!