I Am a Tough Chick, But These Two Things Always Frighten Me

If you've known me for any length of time, you'll know one of these things is fish.

Aquarium fish, in particular. 

Especially ones with no top to their aquarium. 

I don't want them to jump out and flop everywhere. That is literally my worst nightmare. 

I kid you not, as I type this, just thinking about it (and you know I can't even picture shit, so I'm not 100% how this terrifying fear stuff in my brain even works) makes my pulse rate go up. I'm normally rocking around 68 bpm on my cute lil Fossil watch and right now I'm at 101!

Over fishies!

That I can't picture or feel or recall any memory of. 

Except for the banging or beating sound of their heads and tails hitting the waterless surface repeatedly. 

Why am I doing this to myself?! I'm at 103 now. 

And yes, before you can ask me, yes, I did used to organize fishing trips pretty regularly. 

I tried to be pretty good about confronting my fears whenever possible, because as the 80s taught me - fear makes you weak. 

Plus, my brother and/or "adopted" brother Ace were the deckhands 99% of the time, so I knew I would not ever have to touch a fish and that they would let me know to gtfo of the way because a fishie was comin' a-floppin'. They were good like that. 

Plus, there was unlimited beer and, at that time, me and my friends were pretty professional drinkers, so that made a $30 fishing trip an easy sell. 

It was honestly very fun and you could get your fish cooked at the restaurant right at the dock. Mm, mm, I have had some really good trigger fish at that spot. 

Ok, so I can't think about fish anymore because my heart rate is still up there. 

Here are some of my favorite thrill-seeking things:

• Roller coasters (I told y'all about the Thrill Seekers Club, right?)
• Bungee Jumping
• Zip Lines (especially when they are not attached to a ropes course)
• And sort of drop ride
• Scary movies
• Getting up on stage sometimes (maybe one Wednesday? We shall see.)

Ok, but here is the other thing I do not like. 

Anything having to do with toe nails or fingernails. 

And this one's new. I started noticing it in the past few years when I started, you know, paying attention to my feelings and not shoving them to the side or under the bed or whatever. 

I cannot go to sleep if I have a snag-y nail. I will fixate on it until I have to get up and either cut it or, if the break is too low down, cover it with a bandaid. 

If I don't do this, my brain will convince itself that my nail will get caught in the middle of the night and rip completely off. 

Has this ever happened? Definitely not. But I am hypervigilant about it, so that is probably why it has never happened. 

One time that sticks out really big to me with this fear didn't even happen to me!

One day, I was in the living room in the Florida house and Mickey was in the kitchen making chickie nuggs and tots or something or other, when all of a sudden, I hear him yell, "OW!" but, in like a big scary way I had never heard it before. Concerned, I asked, "are you okay?"

His only response was, "My toe!" so I went in there to investigate. 

He was still hopping around when I got in there and he started explaining that he hit his toenail on this one spot on the lower part of those cabinets that, when you do that, makes your toe feel like it is going to split in two (I later did it myself).

He asked me if I wanted to see it...

And that was all it took - I felt light-headed, like I was going to faint, which I had felt only once before after I gave blood for the first time, so I got on all fours and, like, crawled to the living room. It was SO embarrassing and I haven't felt anything like it since, not even when I casually chopped the tip of my finger off on a mandoline (although I definitely needed Mickey's help to change those bandages because it made me panciky to think about what it looked like in there, so he did it for me and I very much appreciated it.)

This morning I stubbed my toe in a weird crack-y way and I got that same panicky feeling and had to actually take, like, 15 minutes before I looked at it to make sure my nail wasn't cracked or anything. 

I did not, but it is still sore hours later. 

Damn my clumsy ass.