Fear of Flying (Things)

Ok, it’s time for the talk. I know I should be going to bed as I have a moving company coming round at 8am tomorrow to give me a quote, but it’s time to exercise these demons.

For some reason unbeknown even to me I decided to iron today. So I ironed one top and then I did another, except what I did was leave an iron shaped hole in the top and I had a pretty flowery pattern on my iron. So then using a trick from MOTHER and my knowledge of Batik, I put some wax on the iron and wiped it on a big brown envelope. Until I realised that there was something in the envelope and I had a waxy bill. So I lifted up the iron and the wax dripped all over the ironing board. So I now have a ruined top and a ruined ironing table.

So I gave up on the ironing and decided to blog, my computer crashed.

I gave up and decided maybe a bit of telly. No Tour de France today and I couldn’t even complete a lousy sudoku.

Frustrated I went to the loo for a bit of respite only to discover there was no loo roll. I trundled off the laundry room, yanked a roll out the bag, knocked over the washing liquid and discovered as I was covered from head to toe in Woolite that I hadn’t closed the lid.

Then there seemed to be a rest in catastrophes and I had some wine, a few fags and settled down to watch Grey’s Anatomy (a really mind expanding day as you can see). And then things decided to turn nasty again. A moth; a moth fluttering around in my lounge. The light was dimmed for God’s sake. Why are these things plaguing me? I had one come and sit on my desk last night and it took all my will power to get a glass and a postcard and send it fluttering on its merry way out the window. But tonight, tonight it was too much. I fled the lounge egged on by nature’s call and as I undid my belt thought to myself; ‘Hmm that feels funny.’ I looked down and the damn thing had landed on me. Much screaming, arm waving and door slamming ensued and I found myself on the other side of the bathroom door still needing to pee. Ok, so no more Mrs. Nice Guy tonight, these damn things have already plagued my night hours once this week, this time it was vengeance. I got the big spoon and I tried to kill it dead, except I missed and it’s now seeking refuge in my shower. The need to pee was greater than my fear, but my teeth remain unbrushed.

So why? Why do these things scare the shit out of me? I know, they are small, I am bigger. They flutter, I don’t. Why when given the chance to go to the biggest butterfly sanctuary in all of Mexico was I driven to reply: ‘That’s my idea of hell, I’d rather jump out of a plane’? Well, for a start I’d already jumped out of a plane and the only thing that happened to me was that I got a hefty whack on the chin from my altimeter; whereas moths and butterflies flutter. Yuck!

OK, so I was little. It was summer. I was in the kitchen with my Dad. Then I was in the kitchen alone. Dad had gone running down the stairs and as he came back up the stairs, he was cradling something in his hands. A bird. A little bird. It could have been a pigeon, a sparrow, I don’t know, all I know is that it was of the flying category. “The silly thing flew straight into the window.” My Dad explained. It was still alive and quivering in his tender hands. “I’ll give it some water maybe that will revive it.” He said and he opened the tap and splashed some water on the bird and by God he revived it. The damn thing started flapping around the kitchen at a crazy speed and all I can remember is the noise. And me, did I help Dad get it out? No I screamed at him to get it out and took refuge under the kitchen table with my hands over my ears.

After that even when butterflies fluttered around me in the garden I would freak and I woke my Mum up at 2am once when I realised there was a moth on my bedroom wall. She begged me to go to sleep earlier after that, but I never realised what was the cause of this ridiculous phobia until much later when a similar incident occurred.

When I worked in Mexico we were offered Spanish lessons, but being of the free variety it didn’t take long for people to start skiving. So I was on my own in the classroom discussing something really interesting probably (I kid ye not, this guy was a great language teacher – introduced me to Marquez and Fuentes and Borges). Anyway, we’re sitting there and suddenly I go rigid and completely lose track, I couldn’t answer a question for love nor money.

“Is everything alright?” He asked.

“Mm,” I tried to look at him while keeping an eye on the thing that had landed on the window sill. “There’s a bird inside the classroom.”

“Is it bothering you? We can find somewhere else?”

There were no other classrooms I knew, so I gathered up my courage and tried to get on with the class as best I could until it flew over my head to the window at the other end of the classroom. Boy, you have never seen a student pack up and get out so quick. I managed not to scream, but I did have to spend the rest of the lesson explaining in Spanish the above story of the bird in the kitchen and how I have been mortally afraid of flying things ever since. Thankfully none of his buttons fell of in surprise as I explained so I didn’t have to go into that phobia as well.