THINGS I'M AFRAID OF

Everyone has things that make them nervous. In my case, sometimes they're pretty quirky things. Now, I'm not proud of this list. But hey! I'm human. And as you will see, I have pretty killer avoidance methods.

1.       The dentist/doctor/really anything medical. I’m not quite sure where this came from or why it still exists, but it’s bad. Like, really bad. In sixth grade, I had walking pneumonia. When I first went in to Urgent Care with my symptoms, they informed me they wanted to run some tests and they would need to draw blood. The nurse left the room to go get the necessary blood-sucking supplies. So did my mother, to call my dad with an update. Big-o mistake-o, mommy dearest. With zero supervision, I ran out of that room at the speed of light and hid. Where I hid, I don’t remember. All I know is that no one poked me with a needle that day and they were able to find the pneumonia through an X-ray. So obviously my hiding tactics were outstandingly successful.

The only doctor I don’t hate is my eye doctor. Shout out to Dr. H

2.        Flying. I feel like this one is pretty common, but it had to make the list. It doesn’t necessarily prevent me from going places but it definitely makes me think twice. How people fall asleep on planes, I will never know. With every bump, I think we're going down. The safety video they play before take-off, with the water landing procedure and oxygen mask diagrams, only feed my sick imagination.

3.       Getting stuck on the L, red line in particular. Let me set the stage, for all you non-city-folk. The L has several lines, like most public transportation systems. We have the purple line, the blue line, the red line, the brown line, and a few other selections of the rainbow. The red line, however, is Chicago’s most hated. At least it’s my most hated. The majority of your ride is underground, there’s no cell service for Spotify streaming/Instagram checking/mom texting. Whenever I am forced to take the red line, I have this fear that the train will just break down and I will be stuck there, under all that earth. I won’t be able to call anyone, eventually I’ll run out of air, people will get crazy and start to turn on each other, and…NONE OF THIS WILL ACTUALLY HAPPEN. I know that. But I still take the above ground brown line option whenever I can, even if it takes me an extra 20 minutes.

4.       Not having pills when I need them. Alright, now before you take me as a druggie let me explain myself. I’m afraid that if I don’t have a medicine (PERFECTLY LEGAL, OVER THE COUNTER STUFF, PEOPLE) I will need it. Like if I take my bottle of Excedrin Migraine out of my purse, I’m guaranteed to get a killer headache that day. It’s not a logical thought process, I know. But I have almost the entire Walgreens store in my bag at any given time just in case. Come see me if you need Advil, Pepto-Bismol, Tums, Gas-X, Midol, ZZZquil (don’t ask), Abreva, Imodium….

5.       Food gone bad. I am SUCH a weirdo when it comes to food spoiling. Leftovers from over 3 days ago? Nope. Opened almond milk older than a week? Bye. I know it’s so wasteful and impractical, but if I eat the food-in-question, I’ll just be so anxious about getting sick from it that it’s not even worth it in the first place.

Let me tell ya, it’s a weird place inside my head.