Irrational Fear

I have an issue with being chased. I don't know where it originated or why it is still here. But if my wife is behind me on the stairs, following me, my insides start get all weirdsy. I feel uneasy. My heartbeat quickens. I feel like I need to move as fast as I can before she gets me.

It's irrational, I know, but it cannot be helped.

My wife was taking a shower. She screamed like there was blood coming out of the showerhead instead of water. When I ran in to inspect, she pointed. There, in the folds of the shower curtain, sat a spider the size of a baby's pinky nail.

Last night, as the family was nestled together on the sofa--two dogs and cat included--terror, once again, struck the heart of my wife.

"I see a spider," she announced.

"I don't see it," I replied, looking around the floor.

"It's right there."

"Oh, I see it." It was crawling across the floor, about four feet away from her. She was not sitting on the floor, but on the sofa, so the threat, to me, seemed really low.

The basset had been on and off the sofa for the past thirty minutes. The mutt had finally stopped obsessing over the cat. Everyone had finally settled. There were quilts and pillows involved. The last thing I wanted to do was vault off the sofa and handle a spider. I brought all these details to my wife's attention. She understood what I was saying and said she would keep an eye on it.

I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Her body sat up straighter. She couldn't stop staring at the floor.

"It's coming towards me."

"You're going to be fine."

"But it's coming to get me!"

The spider was not coming to get her. It was two feet away from her. And she was still on the sofa while the spider was still on the floor. Granted, it was moving in her direction, but I knew that there was no way it was going to jump on her face and eat it. Not like she thought it was going to. Still, I got off the sofa and wrangled the spider onto a piece of paper and threw it outside.

Knowing that I have irrational fears of my own, I cannot blame my wife for having her own. We all have something that make us want to scream. Right now, my something is Christine O'Donnell. Though I don't think my fear of her is all that irrational.