[HPFGU-OTChatter] Irrational childhood fears

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

At 5:51 PM +0000 10/26/03, Tracy wrote:
>Since it's Halloween season and time to talk of all things scary,
>here's a topic.  What basically harmless things scared you as a child
>(for example, a certain toy or household item)?

My parents had a laser disk player very early on, before very many 
movies had been released in LD format.  One of the early disks they 
bought was an interactive mystery story - sort of like a game of 
_Clue_, only with different frames and clips on the disk instead of 
the cards.  One of the very early sequences on the disk, one of the 
ones you got every single time you played the game, was of someone 
with a gun sneaking down a dark hallway, poking the gun through a 
barely-ajar door, and firing.

I had to make sure all doors were either wide open or firmly closed 
after dark for *months* after seeing that the first time, and again 
for about a week every time my parents played that particular disk 
after that.


I'm also deathly afraid of heights, small dogs, and jellyfish, but 
none of those are irrational - all three of those things have managed 
to hurt me pretty consistently every time I've let my guard down 
around them.  (Only small dogs, though.  Big dogs - retrievers, 
German shepherds, huskies, wolf-crosses, etc. - either like me or 
ignore me.)

On the other hand, I kind of like spiders and snakes . . .

-- 

  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles(at)earthlink.net
"It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the 
act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. "
	- Gauss, in a Letter to Bolyai, 1808.