Queen of Rambles

I can’t believe I totally forgot to write about the worst experience of my day yesterday. Maybe it was so horrorific that I was trying to put it out of my mind. That must be it because now I’m getting sick just thinking about it.

I saw a fish yesterday. A big (12 inches), dead, gutted fish. It was laying on the road right next to the sidewalk! If we wouldn’t have been paying attention we could have stepped on it! Nasty, nasty, nasty.

For any new readers, this might be a good time to mention I have a serious fish phobia.

So we were walking along and saw this fish and I went nuts. First, I jumped to the side, then I started gagging and crying and just generally being a weirdo. I thought I was going to puke but apparently I hadn’t eaten enough to produce puke so instead I was belching painful belly belches. All because of a fish. What’s wrong with me?

I never expected to be confronted with a big ol’ fish on my daily walks. I avoid the fish aisle in stores that sell fish. I avoid fish tanks at places that I know have fish tanks. I turn the other way when we go down the escalators in the mall in Medford because I know the dentist office has a giant aquarium embedded in the wall. I certainly don’t expect to be confronted with my worst nightmare when I’m out taking a nice, calm evening constitutional.

I think someone threw the fish out of their apartment window. If we would have been walking by earlier we could have been hit by a flying, dead fish. This means I will never be safe again. At any time I could be slapped on the bare flesh by a nasty, slimy, stinky, scary flying dead fish. I don’t think I can leave the house.

Many people have asked me how on earth a person gets a fish phobia and I’m not really sure. When I was about a year old my dad took me out into a river and swished me around and told me the seaweed stuff was a school of fish and that they were going to eat my feet. I suppose that was the beginning, though I did grow up swimming in lakes and rivers. I didn’t want fish to touch me and sometimes I would get a little freaked out but it was nothing like it is today.

We even had pet fish when I was little. I didn’t really like them, but didn’t get upset when I looked at them. My sister would take them out of the bowl and pet them and they would die but I would never have dreamt of doing such a thing. I really hated cleaning the fish bowl because I always thought the fish would jump out of the net and touch me somehow, but I still did it. I could not do that today.

I think Stage Two of Crazy Phobia started after talking with my evil aunt. She wasn’t actually meaning to be evil in this instance, but it still scared me. She had a big fish tank and was talking about how sometimes she would sit on the couch and find dried up fish because they would jump out of the tank and land on the couch and die. I have an overactive imagination so I started thinking about the fish jumping out of the tank and landing on my neck. That must be the grossest feeling in the world.

Then I went to high school and paid attention in biology class and learned about all the things that live in natural rivers and oceans. The last time I swam in a lake was the summer before I took biology. I should call my old teacher and tell him that. Wouldn’t he be shocked to know he had such an impact on my life?

The fear just kind of spiralled out of control from there. Now I can’t even look at a goldfish on TV without getting disgusted. In fact, writing this entry is making me ill and I’m starting to get freaked out and think there could be a gold fish swimming in my water glass even though my water glass is sitting right in front of me and I can see that there is obviously no fish in it.

I always thought being thrown into a natural body of water would be my worst nightmare come true. Now I know the truth. Having a flying fish come at me while I’m innocently walking down the street would be even worse. At least if I’m near a natural body of water I can be thinking of a plan about what I’ll do if I land in it and am attacked by a school of fish that want to rub their slimy scales all over me. I don’t have any contingency plans for a land attack.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2003 at 4:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.