There are some things in life that defy all reason. Even though I know the level of the most irrational fear I have carried since childhood, I can’t seem to rise above it.
This past week, I was reminded of this crazy fear while nearly shattering my own eardrums with a scream loud enough to bust glass.
I am absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it scared to death of mice. It exceeds rational thought, and it blows my composure right out of the stratosphere.
Coyotes, it seems, have wrecked our cat population on this farm, and we realized a few weeks ago the very last barn cat is now gone. A friend and neighbor helped us get a new cat, and one morning last week I went out to the barn to offer this new feline a treat.
As I slid the large barn doors open, sunlight streaming in illuminated the barn floor. Expecting to see our new cat, I was shocked in mid-chatter by a scurrying mouse.
Try as I might, I can’t rise above this horror. Even as I realize the stupidity of it, the scream escapes and I see myself as a cartoon character whose legs run like a giant windmill away from the barn.
Even writing about a scurrying mouse is setting my nerves to that shuddering, squirming mode.
My friend Wendy was absolutely petrified of spiders. I could pick up and move a spider that was setting her into panic without so much as a single tingle up my spine. She, on the other hand, would tease me to no end if a mouse sent me into a screaming tizzy.
The root
I have read that we can usually trace our fears to some childhood turning point, a certain moment that might have scarred the psyche in some deep way. One very early memory I carry is of my oldest sister, Sandie, jumping up and down on a chair, pointing and screaming, her high-pitched words making no sense whatsoever. I began screaming, too, feeling for certain that mouse was intended to bring terror to us all.
One of my favorite places to play throughout the early years of my childhood was in the corn crib. This storage spot for ear corn ran through the middle of the barn closest to the home that raised us. As fall turned to winter and the crop was being used up, this allowed us room to play in that long, straight stretch within the barn. The dried corn husks became our paper money inside an imaginary bank, post office, grocery store, or even our very own five-and-dime store.
It was all great fun for my sisters and me until one day the smallest movement of an unwelcome rodent sent us flying for a more civilized structure, vowing we would never again step foot in the corn crib.
I don’t think our feet even hit the floor as we flew out of there. Extreme reaction? No doubt about it.
And yet, I remind myself and all those who have made fun of me for this absurd and neurotic reaction, fleas on rats brought about the great plague that killed thousands of innocent people. Ticks on mice can carry nasty tick-borne infection in our world today.
I think that’s what I was screaming as I barrelled out of the barn, but I couldn’t swear to it.
I’m on my way to the store’s mouse bait and trap aisle, armed with a really big cart and a fistful of dollars. This is war.
