Phobia @ MindSay

I don't like small spaces or large crowds, and especially don't like the two mixed together.

You usually won't find me at the mall on a Saturday, and any time before X-mas - forget it.

When I go on my frequent thrift score adventures, I'll wear a tank top and skirt so I can try on as many items as I can outside of the dressing room.

I don't care for elevators, usually spending the brief ride with eyes closed and holding the guard rail.

But I always get a bit embarrassed when I mention this to someone and they reply with 'claustrophobic, eh?' 

So tonight so far is interesting...

So I was lying in bed thinking how my room is right across from the stairs going to the deck, which is right outside the dining room next to my room, so like kiddy corner...

anyway, I was thinking about how close the stairs are, cuz they are literally right outside my window, like 5 feet out...and that creeped me out, it'd be a good in, especially if my window was open, cuz screens are easy to get through, that's why you never leave a ground level window open...

 

so I freaked out, then was able to lie down.

 

Then I heard the rocks outside moving, the ones under the deck...CREEPED the fuck outta me...

I'm sure it was just an animal, but it's just weird that I was just thinking about that...

needless to say, I closed my window...and checked all the doors.

 

I am kinda a freak about this stuff though, I might need therapy...oh shit, that'd suck.

 

well anyway, hope everyone else had a good night!

A couple hours ago, there was a tap-tap-tapping on my door knocker.  I knew, of course, it had to be my neighbor, Tiffany.  (I don't get drop-in visitors, and it was way too late for UPS to be making deliveries.)  Now, normally when Tiff summons me, there's one set of knocks, then she goes into her apartment, knowing that I'll know it's her.  This time, a second rapid set of knocks greeted me as I was walking to the living room.  (Because, of course, I was in the bedroom, online, playing City of Heroes.)

So I open the door, and she's standing there on the landing.  At her feet are two paper Trader Joe's bags.  Both open, but empty.  "Can you help me?"

"Um, sure.  Help you what?"

"Help me throw out those bags."

Throw out two empty bags?  I mean, I know she broke her arm, but it's mostly healed.  And besides... the bags are empty!

"Can you see the bug in that one?  There's a bug...  Did you hear me scream last night?  I thought I might wake you."

Was she kidding me?  I peek inside.  "Yeah, there's a bug in there, in the crease.  What about it?" I say, trying to figure out what kind of bug it is.  I pick up the bag for a closer look.

"I think it's a water beetle.  I just... they gross me out.  I'm scared."

Of course she is.  "Well, did you ever think to just squeeze the bag and squish it?"  I begin to demonstrate, and as she's telling me that yeah, she started to try that, I discover why it doesn't work.  The bug's not stupid.  It runs up the side of the bag.  "He's moving," I say, just as it springs up into the air and falls to the ground.

At which point Tiffany (who, unlike me, is wearing shoes and can easily squash it flat) begins to scream.

I'm not talking about the loud, whiny, "Oh my god, get it, get it, GET IT!" that you might expect.  No.  I'm talking full-on, worthy-of-Hollywood screaming.

Which gets louder as the bug darts toward her door.

Her door, I shouldn't need to point out, is locked.  Why?  Because Tiffany is outside and was going to be taking two bags down to throw them out.  And any walk of more than five feet or longer than 15 seconds requires the doors to be locked.

So the bug scoots under the door, Tiffany is screaming, and I'm thinking, Yikes.  She's not happy with me right now, is she?

She opens the door just in time for me to see it zip behind her sofa.  Still freaking out, she heaves the sofa away from the wall, "Get it!" 

Well, I can't.  Because now it's at the opposite end of the sofa.  Tiffany runs to the kitchen to get me a paper towel, while I move the other end of the sofa away from the wall.  But by the time I do that, it's gone.  Damn, she really isn't happy with me right now.

Then I hear, "It's over here!  Get it, get it!"

The little guy, realizing it could never get any sleep here at Tiffany's place, is running for the door again, thinking maybe my place might be more sedate.  I nab it before it's even to the threshold and crunch it in the paper towel, which I then wad up in my fist, to make sure Tiffany doesn't think it's going to escape again.

Despite this, she asks me if I'm sure it's dead.

After she calms down, she says, "I think that was a water beetle." 

I say, "Could be.  I don't know bugs."  Now, maybe she was thinking of a bug that's sometimes called a "waterbug."  Not a water beetle, which is different.  "Waterbug" is a nickname for the Oriental cockroach.  And that's what I think this was.  But I wasn't gonna tell her that.  She'd never get another moment's sleep.

"So...  What was all that about?"

She tells me she just can't deal with bugs at all.  She's afraid of them.

"Tiff... it's an inch long.  What's it gonna do?  Kill you?"

She then tells me that the scream I'd heard "was nothing."  Nothing?  Really?  She tells me about a time she found a dying "m-o-u-s-e or maybe r-a-t" in her bathroom. 

Yes, she actually spelled out the words.  Don't ask me why. 

The thing had evidently come through the water pipes, but not exactly successfully.  Seeing the dying critter, she let out such a scream that her boyfriend thought someone had been lying in wait in the bathroom and was now attacking her.  So he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and entered to find her screaming, but with no one else in there.  "What is it???"  And Tiffany pointed at the waterlogged r-o-d-e-n-t.

At which point he turned to her and said, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

After Mickey was disposed of, she made him throw out the bath mats, because the thing's cute little paws had touched them.  She bought all new ones.

As Lorelei said to me after I told her this little tale, I sure know my share of phobic people, don't I?