fears, Irrational

The other day, while in the shower, I got shampoo in my eye. Wasn’t paying attention and apparently could not feel the shampoo sliding down my forehead and all of the sudden I was blind in one eye.

Side note – when I was typing the previous sentence, I originally spelled forehead “fourhead” perhaps subconsciously because my forehead is four fingers tall. This past Christmas at my family’s annual Christmas party, several of us sat around my aunt and uncle’s living room and compared forehead sizes. Some members of my family apparently have a fivehead. My uncle Chuck has a onehead – one middle finger tall. Love my family…

Anyways, so I was blind in one eye and squeezing both eyes shut, because it’s easier to do that then just squeeze one eye shut. And for about a milli-second, maybe longer, I thought, “This could be bad. It’s gonna be worse than that time I had the crazy eye. I’m going to have to wear an eye patch.”

Because one time I did have the crazy eye. It wasn’t pinkeye, it was an allergic reaction to my cheap-o contact solution that apparently only infected one eye. It was all swollen and runny and disgusting and I had to wear my glasses for a couple weeks and change out the contact I’d had in when I apparently contracted said crazy eye.

My main concern though was my contact. I’d put my contacts in before the shower and as I was alternating between holding my hand over my eye and putting it directly under the flow of water , I was worrying that whatever was in the shampoo could have some crazy reaction with my contact solution and this would not end well.

I must have stood there for at least five minutes just letting the water hit my eye and trying to stay calm. Because every time I opened my eye it stung.

I wish I had a better ending to this story, maybe one that involved an eye patch and me fighting the urge to talk like a pirate to friends and family, but really all that happened is I had to change my contact and throw away the one with shampoo on it.

I share this story to tell you another one – I have a few irrational fears.

I don’t think I’m alone in this. While they may not share my specific fears, I know there are some things my friends and family are afraid of that are a smidge on the irrational side.

Now, I realize I wouldn’t have really gone blind from getting shampoo in my eye, but for a second, it was scary. Sight is a pretty valuable sense to have and when I couldn’t open my eye without burning pain, I got a little nervous. And I also wondered if anybody had ever gone blind from getting shampoo in their eye. It’s not like I stood there with the bottle of Herbal Essences Hello Hydration aimed at my cornea, but it was enough to really hurt. And it hurt for the rest of the day.

But enough about the eye. We were talking about my other irrational fears.

I am afraid that the fan will fall on me while I sleep if I have it on at top speed. I think it’s loose and it’s been making rattling noises lately – yes, I sleep with my fan on in the winter, the noise helps me sleep – and that doesn’t sound promising. The fan in my bedroom is over the end of my bed, so the worst that could happen is it falls onto my legs and I get some pretty massive bruises. For a while I over-exaggerated and thought it could cut my feet and/or toes off but realized the way I sleep that’s impossible. I sleep on my side so there are no vertical appendages at that end of the bed. I’m a light sleeper and the sound of it breaking from the wall would probably wake me up before it actually hit me, but still, I don’t sleep with the fan on high.

I have a fear of my apartment catching on fire because I didn’t turn something off – don’t freak out, I always turn stuff off, or unplug it, plus check it seven times – most often its my toaster oven, the appliance I use most in the kitchen. I don’t know what it is, I just worry about that one more than anything else and when my OCD was really bad, it was one of the things I checked before I left the house to make sure it was off. Don’t judge. I said was.

Bordering a little more on rational is the fear that if I forget to put my parking brake up – or think I forgot to, again with the OCD – my car’s gonna roll down the steep hill that is my church’s parking lot and either hit other cars in the process or go over the bottom of the lot. I always put my brake on when I park at church, but I still sometimes question once I’ve gotten out – “Did I put the parking brake on?”

Last, but not least, I worry that I didn’t sign my check when I mail a bill. I have a fear that I’ll forget to fill some part of it out and then it’s sealed and mailed and someone can fill out the spot I missed and get some of my money. Ridiculous, I know. Guess who saw “Blank Check” too many times as a kid. Tone Loc is in that one…

I’m not adding my fear of clowns to this list. That fear is completely rational. Clowns are evil. Want proof? READ STEPHEN KING’S “IT.” Oh, and watch that E-trade commercial where the clown’s just hanging out in that baby’s room…nothing normal about that.