First we have car washes. I hate car washes. Being moved slowly through a dark tunnel with all sorts of bristles and brushes and floppy things attacking my car makes me incredibly nervous. It's even worse if I'm in the front seat. I don't mind Mike's Car Wash, but that's because they make it child-friendly. It's white and well-lit on the inside with stuffed animals chilling around. For practical reasons, it also shoots liquid and soap at you rather than attacking you with large, frightening, apparati.
I also hate having my blood pressure taken. Anything that restricts blood flow makes me queasy, but one would think such a little thing as the blood pressure cuff shouldn't be a problem. The worst was when we did a lab in A.P. Biology involving taking each other's blood pressures. I decided to face my fear and permit my classmate to take my blood pressure. First he pumped it fuller than he needed to. I started panicking, and he fumbled about for a few seconds (it seemed like forever at the time) before finding the release valve. I was not a happy camper.
This next one is probably the only one that has a good chance at being genuinely unsettling to others. If you don't like needles, skip to the next one. My brother once had me try to re-pierce his ear. It was terrible. He gave me a needle or safety pin or something and told me to just make it go through. I have no doubt that he would have withstood whatever pain I might have caused, but after a brief try I just couldn't continue. You see, I felt the pin ripping through layers of skin. Little vibrations or something came through the pin and I felt it. It was terrible.
And now we move on to a surreal, H.G. Wellsian sort of experience. Just north of Purdue on I-65 is the Fowler Ridge wind farm. Hundreds of wind turbines stand in military-like ranks on hundreds of acres flanking the highway. In the daylight, they are impressive and intriguing. I'm sure they might intimidate some, but mostly they just look neat. It's a different story in the dark. Each of these windmills has a red light on top that blinks to warn planes. That wouldn't be too bad all on it's own; I could just pretend they were red fireflies or something. But they all throb on and off in unison in a steady beat. It's eerie. Not the thing you want to drive past at 5:30 on a dark December morning.
Sometimes if you're driving and making a turn, you can't immediately see the lane you're planning to get into. I'm sure we all know of an intersection or two like that. I always have a moment of panic in which I believe I'll somehow end up on the wrong side of the road. I will highlight two such turns: the turn left from going north-west on Northwestern to going west on Stadium, and the turn left on the East Ronald Reagan entrance ramp in Colerain.
I've saved the best for last: being slowly approached by a flock of walking Canadian geese. Josh and I were at Spring Grove Cemetery walking around and taking pictures one fine afternoon. I saw several geese down by a pond and decided to take a picture of them. They even turned to face me, much to my delight. My delight quickly turned to dismay as they stretched out into a line facing me and began to slowly advance. At first I believed they were just going to cross the street or something, so I turned and walked in a different direction. The line shifted to follow me. Josh offered the rational explanation that they were probably just hoping for me to feed them, but that didn't help me out much. I think in the end we ended up semi-leading them to some other people, but I don't remember for sure. I just remember that it was creepy as all get-out. I haven't even seen Alfred Hitchcock's Birds and I was afraid. As far as I was concerned, they were closing in for the kill. Josh didn't seem to be bothered by it, but just ask him and he will verify that I was irrationally terrified of those birds.
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| Here they are, gathering to scare the living daylights out of me. |
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