Quirk #7

Squirrels scare me.

Not in the run away screaming sense, but in the cross the street to get away from them sense, or the stand stock still until they go away sense, or the slowly back away from them sense.

You see, I grew up around what I have come to believe are genetically engineered super squirrels that know no fear of humans, or anything else for that matter. The college campus that I work at is infested with the suckers, and truly, they are not afraid of anyone or anything. Half of them are rabid. The other half will bite you out of spite. They all will steal food right out of your hands, climbing up your leg to do so. It's so bad that ecologists have been called in numerous times to try and come up with a solution for them.

Short of putting a bounty on their heads, no one has been able to devise a plan to get rid of them.

This is because these rabid, non-people fearing, food stealing buggers are not your normal squirrel. I've come to the conclusion that what happened is that way back in the beginning of the university, when genetic engineering was still just a matter of breeding two different species together, someone in life sciences decided to use squirrels as test subjects. These squirrels then mutated, thanks to the vast number of chemicals and radioactive substances they were subjected to, to have the brain power of 10 students all combined. Because they were suddenly smart, and self-aware, they became aware of the torture that was being inflicted upon them. Resenting their human creators (creators of their intelligence anyway) for said toruture, they escaped from their laboratory prison. In the process of this escape, I'm quite sure that at least one lowly graduate student researcher lost his life -- perhaps more -- but the university covered it up, fearing a scandal.

These squirrels, now free, pledged themselves to the destruction of human kind. Not by blowing anything up, or creating bio-warfare devices, mind you. They plotted the destruction of humans simply by scaring them away from places of higher education, and dooming the human race to an existance of substandard education. And we all know ignorance kills, so the plan was a pretty good one.

Now, these squirrels terrorize anyone on campus who dares come within sight of them, patiently winning their war one undergrad at a time. They celebrate when they succeed in frightening off a college administrator, and throw a huge gala event when they manage to chase a professor off campus.

You don't believe me? Ask the BF. He knows. He's seen them. In fact, he thinks they should be made super elite bosses in some MMORPG, they are that fierce.

Is it any wonder squirrels freak me out a little bit now?

Quirk #5

Bugs. The bane of my existance.

I am deathly afraid of several types of bug.

There's the obvious fears of bees, wasps, hornets, or any other flying bug that stings. If I see one of these fierce predators, I generally either a) freak out and run away or b) go catatonic and say "uhhhhh uhhhhh uhhhhh" while staring at the flying offender. This leads to me not having picnics, or eating outside in general, because wasps tend to really love all the food I generally eat.

The basis of this fear (because I wasn't always afraid of these things -- bumble bees used to intrigue me) is that when I was just about 5, and we were driving from NY to California in the dead of August through some god awfully hot state that I can't remember the name of, though it did look much like Nevada... I was shirtless in the car, and a hornet got into the car without my parents noticing, and it promptly stung me squarely on the belly button. Yes, screaming ensued. Yes, my parents were baffled. Yes, I have never been able to look at a stinging flying creature without freaking out since.

Then there's the not so obvious ones.

Ants. I am afraid of ants. To the degree that if I find them in my house in any quantity, I hyperventillate and must go around spraying every last one with windex until they are all completely and totally dead. And then I can't sleep for a day or two, because of the nightmares. Actually, thats the mild response. As in, the response to only having a very very small trail of the buggers show up somewhere. There was an instance in which I woke up one morning, walked into the kitchen to start breakfast, and found a foot wide seething swath of ants that went from my patio door, up the wall, across the ceiling in the living room, along the wall into the kitchen, and down behind the stove. I panicked (I can never remember how to spell that stupid word, I'm guessing its right, but I'm not entirely certain). I couldn't think straight. I couldn't find my way to the windex. I did however manage to find my phone, which I then used to call my ex, and when he answered all I could say was "Ants... Ants everywhere. Help." and cry. Thankfully, that was enough communication for him to grab some raid on the way to my apt, and mercilessly murder the little bastards while I huddled in the corner of my couch watching to make sure he got every last one, and when he missed one, I'd yell "There! There! Kill it!" and point until it was gone...

And then there was the one time in college when I found ants in my bathroom (no where else) one morning, and had to call in sick to work, and not go to class, just so that I could kill every last single one, go get ant bait so they wouldn't come back, then clean my entire apartment because the thought of even one ant on the edge of the toilet was too much for me to bear... Especially when I had to pee... Frantic checking of all edges of the toilet took place for at least 5 minutes before using the thing (including the lifting of seats, and tank covers) every time I needed to, for an entire week.

Typing this, it all seems quite hilarious... And come to think of it, everyone that's ever witnessed my ant exposure based breakdowns has always laughed at me throughout the entire episode...

Then there's the little bitty flying buzzing bugs, that don't actually hurt you that much... But have an awful tendency to fly in your ears and eyes and nose and mouth when you're least expecting it. Mosquitos in particular. Its not so much the bugs themselves that scare me in that instance... Its the "OMG there's a bug in my ear!" thing that bothers me. I think I've grown up hearing way too many stories of people waking up with cockroaches stuck in their ears... Not to mention that there's something that just really freaks me out about the idea of a bug getting inside me somehow. Maybe I have Aliens to thank for that fear... Who knows.

Strangely enough, I am not afraid of spiders. Sure, sometimes they might startle me, but I am not afraid of them in the least. Actually, I quite appreciate them, as they make a habit of eating all the bugs that freak me out.