I wanted to make this blog kind of fun, so I thought I’d do an “I am..” series. I’ll try to do one of these posts a week. In each post I’ll write about something about me that not everyone knows. Most of it will be random, odd stuff. (:
My family, Sandy, and boyfriend make fun of me because I am afraid of squirrels. After doing some research on Google, I discovered that this actually has a name. Sciurophobia is the fear of squirrels and it’s actually very common. Some people have an irrational fear while others have a reason behind it. Me? I have a few reasons. If you laugh at me, I’ll throw things at you.
When I was in elementary school, my mom used to pick me and my little sister up. We lived right down the street, so we’d walk to and from school together. It was around fall and, being kids, we used to walk through the leaves that would collect on the inside of the sidewalk all the time. One day I was walking through the leaves and stepped on something hard. When I looked down, to my horror I realized I’d stepped on a dead squirrel. Needless to say, I didn’t walk through leaves for the longest time. Actually, I only just started walking through the leaves again. I’m not sure how I feel about that now.
The second reason I hate squirrels is that the ones at work are the boldest, nastiest little things. They’ll actually stand there and stare at me for no reason. Some of my coworkers leave out peanuts and crap like that, so the little furballs have gotten bold to the point that they aren’t afraid of humans at all. Fantastic. I think it’s so creepy, the way they stare at you with those black eyes. Mike thinks they’re cute.
So naturally I don’t really like squirrels. The fear came about when, a couple of weeks ago, I was at Quassy with Sandy and my godchildren. We rode the little train there, which goes under a tunnel. Just after we went under the tunnel for the first time, something hard and furry hit the back of my head (I was turned around facing Kay, Sandy and Konner). At first I thought maybe someone had thrown a soda bottle or something, but then I saw the thing fly through the air and it was definitely a squirrel. It scratched Sandy’s leg a little and then ran away.
Ever since then, I have been actively avoiding the little things. I don’t like them. I’m afraid of them. I am not afraid to admit it, but I do wish people would stop teasing me about it. It seems to have a large presence on the web, but I can’t find anything official looking. I found sciurophobia and fear of squirrels Google search results, but when searching for phobias, I can’t find anything listed on the official phobia sites.
Still, it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one, and now when someone makes fun of me I can point them to Google. (:
Perpetual Smile is a blog about the life and times of