I think this admittedly mad fear is based on a story my parents told me many, many years ago. When I was a kid we would occasionally all cycle together from the small hamlet we lived in to the small village nearby, which had in comparison a cornucopia of amenities, such as a shop from which a Sunday newspaper could be obtained. We would often return the 'back' way, which involved slightly narrower, more-winding country roads than the 'normal' way, and went past a couple of farms. This route led past a very old, wooden railway carriage (what it was doing in the middle of a field I have never been entirely sure...), and then round a couple of bends that were lined with trees and had relatively deep ditches on either side - at least to my childhood eyes. When we reached this corner (which I guess was far enough along the route that my brothers and I would probably be getting bored) my parents would tell us to sing and ring our bells so as to make sure that the puma who lived there didn't jump up in alarm at our coming past and eat us. Because this, my parents said, was Puma Corner.
I think, from what I've managed to glean from my parents since, that this was based on a story told by one of their friends, who had been walking home after a night in the pub, and swore blind the next day that he had seen some sort of big cat in the fields. Whether his was an apparition brought on by too much of the local ale, or whether he misidentified some innocent muntjack deer as a wild cat, the result was the same - even when I was old enough to cycle 'the back way' on my own, I would always sing nervously when cycling round Puma Corner - although I did often internally question whether such singing might actually give the puma good cause to decide to eat me, if he did exist.
At some point, this odd habit, fuelled by an overactive imagination, led me to dash inside as soon as dusk fell whenever I was sitting in the garden alone, checking over my shoulder as I did so and slamming the door behind me - and between me and the imaginary Big Cat on my heels. I think I then read, or heard on the television, that the 'expert advice' on what to do if you met a big cat or other type of predator, was not to run - because then they'd think you were a nice juicy gazelle, or something - but to stare them right in the eye and walk away slowly. So I shifted my dash inside into a very determined, slow walk, just to make sure I didn't look like dinner to the hungry big cats prowling the byways of Suffolk. (For some reason it never occurred to me, given that our garden overlooked a field of horses, that I would probably not be the first choice on the panther's menu a la carte).
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I then proceeded to live in a city for three years, where, I reasoned, the scariest thing you might encounter was an urbanised fox, as someone would surely notice a bally great cat prowling around, but I have since moved into accommodation a little way outside a large town that hardly warrants the appellation of 'city', and which is reached by an admittedly scenic cycle path with a broad view of fields and, at night, the stars. Just the kind of idyllic place I would choose to live if I was a big cat wild in England, especially with the meals on wheels coming past like clockwork every evening...
Most of the time, of course, the 'puma fear' is nothing more than a niggling thought at the back of my mind that I know to be irrational, and the greatest effect it has on my behaviour is to lead me to avoid walking too close to the bushes (because, obviously, pumas hide in bushes, and because, obviously, they wouldn't jump out on me if I was an extra metre away -- too much effort for a relatively small portion of meat). However, there are inevitably times when I'm walking home having had a few drinks, and at that point, I generally find a big "access denied" sticker across the door to my reserves of rationality and sensibleness. At this point, I run down that path as fast as my feet will carry me. Sod having a staring contest with a panther.
My other irrational fear, which, as I said, is more of an aversion than actual fear, is of spiders. It annoys me because it's both terribly clichéd, and also something that I haven't always had - when I was younger, I would often be the only girl left in a rapidly-vacated room on a school trip, shrugging my shoulders and looking for a glass and a piece of paper with which to move the apparently deeply offensive money spider crawling across the wall. For some reason, it seems to have started at around the same time as I got married. Is it some deep-seated evolutionary instinct? Perhaps to increase Mr S's sense of my need to be protected because I cannot apparently deal with something as un-threatening as a spider? The explanation could be more quotidian than that - shortly after getting married I moved into an ultra-modern home for the first time. Spiders make a much starker contrast against a bright white wall in a shiny new flat than they do crawling in and out of the cracks in the beams in an old cottage. They look out of place, and are instantly noticeable, and it's just a bit uncomfortable having an arachnid watching you shower. I always suspect this particularly large one in our bathroom of plotting heinous tricks to play on me - like climbing up my pyjama leg when I stumble into 'his' room in the middle of the night.
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| Mine is definitely bigger than this one. But just look at it. It's clearly planning revenge for all the spiders you ever unwittingly washed down the plughole. |
So, those are my irrational fears: one, of something that certainly could eat me if it wanted to, but almost certainly will never be in close enough proximity to me to do so, and two, of something that is often in my vicinity, but certainly can't cause me any harm. So, in response to my revealing how much of a wimp I am (and in what very strange ways I manage to be one) - what are your irrational fears?
PS: No links to articles establishing the existence either of big cats or poisonous spiders in East Anglia. Please.
