Irrational fears

Everyone has them. Even if we don't talk about them. Other people's irrational fears are funny, our own, not so much.

My sister, Angie is afraid of praying mantis'. Can you believe that? She is so afraid that once when we lived in an apartment, she went to go outside and there was a praying mantis on the screen door so she called maintenance to come remove it. Our friend Marianne managed the complex at the time and thought that was the funniest thing she had ever heard so the next day when Angie came home from work there were plastic praying mantis' everywhere, on the chairs on the porch, the doorknob, it was hysterical. Angie didn't think so.

She is also afraid of tumbleweeds. She almost killed us all when a "herd" of tumbleweeds ran across the road. That's what she called them, a herd.

I'm afraid of clowns. I never used to be, but now that it's dark in the garage when I go out in the morning I know that clown from It is out there waiting for me. My friend Joyce thinks it's vampires that are waiting for her. I told her vampires aren't real, how can you be afraid of something that isn't real? She's afraid of midgets too.

Mo's afraid of the dark. When I get up in the morning every light in the house is on because she can't walk down the hall to her bedroom with the lights off.

What makes one person afraid and another not? I know my sister was never attached by a praying mantis or a herd of tumbleweeds. I've never encountered a clown hell bent on killing me and nothing lives in the dark in my house. Yet we are afraid.

I love Stephen King, I've read everything he has ever written, at least twice, except It. What the hell was he thinking? Give me cars that want to kill me, a cemetary that brings animals and people back to life, telekinisis, rabid dogs, anything but clowns.

Maybe that will be the story line of my next novel, saving the world, one clown at a time. We could use praying mantis', vampires, tumbleweeds and midgets to get rid of them. I think I'm on to something............