Boggart

[Vivienne O'Regan]

No: HPFGUIDX 1119

> On  Wed, 06 Sep 2000 15:03:57 -0500 Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer <linsenma at hic.net> wrote

>
> >The boggart question is easy for me: it would turn into a palmetto bug,
> >which is a large (2-3 inches) flying cockroach common to the Gulf States
> >in southeastern U.S.

I am right with you on that one! When I lived in Florida they were an ongoing horror for me so
much so that even the sight of large cockroaches on TV can make me almost sick. Is this a
specific phobia as with spiders?

I had heard that cockroaches have a secretion that some people are extremely allergic to and
that creates the fear reaction (some revolting experiment I read about).

One vivid memory I have from when I'd been in London about 5 years was of waking from a
really bad daymare of a cockroach being in the room with me (I'd fallen asleep during an afternoon).
going out into the kitchen to make a cup of tea to find a somewhat sleepy but very real large
roach in the hallway. We though afterwards it may have been imported in some
fruit - came home with the shopping though heard that area of London did have some
problems with large roaches that had escaped from university lab or the zoo or something.

This may have been urban myth though in that specific neighbourhood I did have a few roach encounters
which were never repeated in other areas of London.


Vivienne