A Midsummer Nightmare

Today marks the mid point in my summer. At the college where I teach, we are fortunate to have a lovely, long summer break, four whole months, May through August. In honor of the absolute mid point, I thought it would be nice to have a midsummer night's dream, you know, the kind with delightful dancing fairies, etc. Instead, I had a midsummer nightmare, and one of the worst ever!

To fully grasp the depth of this nightmare, you need to understand something about me. I have a phobia. Notice, I didn't say "fear," or "dislike," or "hatred," although all of those words would also be true. I said "PHOBIA." I have a phobia in the purest definition of that word. Phobia: A morbid fear, an irrational, intense and persistent fear of certain situations, activities, or objects. Yup, that's what I have. I can't remember a time when I wasn't deathly afraid of a particular type of animal, those long creatures that slither around with no arms or legs. Ugh! Just thinking about them makes me shudder. To understand the depth of my phobia, I should confess that I cannot even look at these creatures in books or in movies. My children are not allowed to have so much as the beanie baby variety, let alone the toy ones that look real. I have to concentrate really hard, like totally focus, even to use everyday objects that resemble the disgusting things, such as garden hoses. It's uncomfortable for me to watch people roll out dough to make soft pretzels or cinnamon rolls. Yeah, it's that bad.

When Gerald and I got married, one of the first things we did was consolidate our libraries into one. As he was flipping through one of my college psychology textbooks, he noticed some pages with pieces of construction paper taped over the pictures. Of course! I still needed to read and study my text, but I couldn't look at those awful pictures in the chapters that discussed systematic desensitization. And in case you're wondering, no, I've never tried systematic desensitization to overcome this phobia. I do not want to look at pictures of snakes, even for short periods of time from across the room. I am not a masochist. No!

Okay, so now that you understand just how serious this is, back to what led up to my awful dream. Earlier in the evening, I had gone out for my daily 4-mile walk on the bike trail near our home. I have walked this particular route literally hundreds of times. Occasionally, during the summer, my walking partners and I will encounter the garden variety of the above-mentioned gross creatures, but my walking partners are all very well trained. The second they see one, they calmly but firmly declare, "Terrianne, we're turning around now," and I OBEY. Immediately. I ask no questions. I know exactly what is going on. So the other night, we had just come through the tunnel, when a woman on a bike came up behind us and asked, "Did you see the rattlesnake back there?"

Gasp. Heart sinking right down into stomach. We continued walking. Our generally brisk walk became suddenly brisker. As long as I was headed away from the snake's location, I remained functional. Then we arrived at the place where we turn around. Wait....I have to go back now, back in the direction of that thing? How am I supposed to do that? The closer we got to the tunnel, the more my emotional well-being deteriorated. Finally, when I could go no farther, my friend suggested that we leave the bike trail and take an alternate route, bypassing the tunnel entirely. Barely able to speak by this point, I nodded in agreement.

We made it home unscathed, or so I thought. Slipping into blissful sleep, I was sure nothing else could possibly go wrong. However, my subconscious mind was evidently still traumatized by this near miss. I "awoke" to the most horrific experience, a snake in my bed, a long white one right there beside me! In a cold sweat, I leaped from my bed and sprinted downstairs to the dining room where Gerald was on his computer having just arrived home from work at midnight.

"There's a snake in our bed!" I shouted. "You have to go find it."

"Um, are you sure you weren't dreaming?" he inquired.

"No, I wasn't dreaming! It is really there, and you have to go up and find it."

So, Gerald goes upstairs and returns to report that there is no snake.

"Did you look under all the covers?" He goes upstairs to check under the covers. No snake.

"Did you look under the bed?" He goes back up to look under the bed. No snake.

"Did you look in the closet?" He goes back up to check the closet. No snake.

"I think you should look under the covers again, and make sure you look under every one." (You see, he's not really that good at finding things, so I was still pretty worried.) He goes up again.

"I really think it was just a dream," he insisted. And......finally....., I was convinced enough to go back to bed.

So much for my delightful midsummer night's dream.