Sometimes life feels like a pink electric eel with a top hat flopping around in an underwater fish tank eating pumpkin pie. It's during times like that when you feel both depressed and exuberant at the same time. Like when you think of me having the personality of a squid that looks like a zebra. Another time when you feel both happy and depressed at the same time is when you have an over-rated fear of geeky-looking elephants. I think it's what a sophisticated, educated, civilized person would call goolarectyphobia.You see, I am one of those strange people who have over-rated fears. Not necessarily of geeky-looking elephants, but of green penguins who do acrobatics and ballet on a stage in Brunei, also called gioreetopheeptiroaniaphobia.
I also have an over-rated fear of monsters - jumping monsters. Ugly, scratchy, disgusting, jumping, monsters! I hate them passionately. Lots of people have a phobia of monsters. But these scary monsters live in our cellar.
Yes, that's what I said - we have monsters in our cellar.
I know you don't believe me.
It hurts.
I'm a VICTIM!!!!!!
Anyway, yes. We have monsters (otherwise known as crickets) in our cellar. BIG crickets! And I am afraid of them. They JUMP!
Whenever I need rice, or honey, or pasta, or wheat, I ask David to get it for me because as long as those crickets are down there I refuse to go into the cellar.
"Abigail, can you go get me some wheat for me?"
"Sure, Mom."
I grab the Tupperware container and head down the stairs. Suddenly, my crickaphobia comes over me and I dash back upstairs. "Mom, um, I'm really sorry but I can't get the wheat for you."
"Whyever not?”
“Because there are crickets down there; I’m afraid of crickets!”
“Come on, Abigail; it can’t be that bad. Just try it, this once, for me.”
“Oh, whatever, I’ll try it.” Very unsure about the future, I hesitantly travel down the stairs once more, take a deep breath...and open the door.
I glance around, the walls seem clear….oh, there are two in that corner…nope, there’s one on the ceiling …. and one in the pipe….
I sigh. I’ve got to do this! “For mom and for country!” I yell, as I brandish my Tupperware container and boldly step into the room.
But just before my feet hit the cold gravel I jump back.
That was close!
On the floor is a new kind of monster – a creepy snake-like thing.
This is too much. “Sorry, Mom,” I say, once safely up the stairs. “No go. There was a snake down there!”
“Come on! Don’t be such a wimp. That’s my pet lizard – he’s cute!” she gushes fondly.
“Mom? You have a pet snake!?!”
“It’s a lizard, Abigail! Here, watch me!” and with this, Mom goes to face the monsters.
Safe upstairs, I shake my head in incredulity. This is a new side of my mother; a pet lizard!?
Five minutes later, I am stirring the sauce on the stove and experiencing great remorse on behalf of my mother’s distressing situation (which she unknowingly placed herself in, despite my wise suggestions to the contrary).
Suddenly, I hear a blood-chilling scream from the cellar. Then a door slams shut and I hear feet rushing expeditiously up the stairs from the cellar. Mom runs madly into the kitchen. I turn to look at her with wide eyes.
“Mom?”
Her hair is disheveled, some grain has spilled on the floor in her mad rush, and her eyes look ghostly in their extreme terror.
“Mom?” I repeat, “what happened down there? You okay?”
Dazedly she sets the grain on the counter, “Abigail, it was horrible down there. But I fought them off!” Her voice is quaky and hoarse; a hint of a tear glistens in her eyes.
“Mom?”
“Oh, Abigail!” she begins to shriek crazily, “First there was that…that...SNAKE! And it attacked me!” Mom frantically demonstrates her wrestling match with the snake. “And then they jumped on me! – MONSTERS!!! CRICKETS!!!
“HA YA! WHOOSH! AHHHHH! KAPOOSH! HA!”
I stare at my screaming mother, who is dancing wildly around the kitchen and attempting to karate the air. “HA YA!” She yells once more and attempts a kung-foo move. She violently chops the air with her flattened hands, and desperately uses martial arts as her last defense.
“Abigail, they were all around me! I couldn’t get them off! HELP!!!!”
“Mom?” I stare unbelievably at her – where did she learn martial arts?
“Didn’t you hear me down there?” They, they, they were attacking me! But I fought them off – and here I stand. Safe at last!” I watch as mom ends her dramatic soliloquy in an equally dramatic and sweeping bow.
I guess she expects me to clap?
But no. I raise my eyebrows as she bursts into torrents of hysterical laughter.
"Ha! I got you!”
“Mom?”
