The Stuff of Nightmares

Hey everyone!
Since I last blogged about my not-secret-and-totally-awesome desires to be a Ninja and\or a Viking, I figured I'd blog about another pretty keen human emotion; fear. Now fear usually isn't funny in any way, except with it's brought about by a completely irrational stimulus, such as someone having an intense fear of grass or gerbils...

While my fears aren't so completely irrational, the fact that someone my size has them makes them a bit ridiculous. What are mine? Spiders and Clowns. When I was little, these fears would send me into near-hysterics. If a spider was in my room, I screamed like a little girl, no matter the how tiny the eight-legged demon was. If a kid invited me to his birthday party, it usually went down like this;

Him-"Hey Danny, you want to come to my b-day party? My mom made a big cake, and we're going to play Nintendo all night!"
Me-" Oh wow really?! Yeah, I want to come!"
Him- "Yeah, my dad rented a clown and everything!"
Me- "f*** off, we aren't friends anymore."

I think I had that conversation, verbatim, when I was 8 years old.

My irrational fears come from one single source; the movie "It". Nowadays I love that movie, but when I was a kid I wouldn't even go in the same room as the TV if the movie was playing, steering clear of seeing Tim Curry all painted up with a mouthful of razor teeth. As I got older, the fear evolved into something more like, oh, how would you put it? Severe dislike? Aversion? Immortal burning hatred? Yes, the last one, definitely that one.

Encountering these creatures* now just makes me really angry for no good reason. I don't kill spiders outside as that is their 'hood and a tentative truce is in place, but when they are in my dojo all bets are off. My sadly-non-Viking-in-any-way blood boils and they get crushed with the nearest heavy object I can find. I put so much strength into the impact, it's like I'm trying to knock out a whale shark. It feels pretty good though, so much that I suggest you try it at home. Just scream at the top of your lungs and slam whatever object you can find (a shoe, hammer, bowling ball, sibling) down as hard as you can on it. There really isn't a formula for it, so be creative! Most importantly, have fun with it! Be careful if it happens to be a clown though, the face-paint could stain the carpet. If that occurs, you can use the seltzer water sprayer that they carry to remove it. It's the same as club soda, just without the added sodium. :)

Thanks for reading. I hope that ramble made someone smile a bit. Have a wonderful Thursday night everyone!

-Dan

*-I do put clowns in the "Creature" category because anyone willing to do that job clearly traded in their soul for a honking nose and comically over-sized shoes.