Ripshit Heart

The thought of crossing streets terrified me until I was about 18. Luckily, I've grown out of that, but occasionally the terror still comes back. I can remember going to the Campfire Girls meeting at the library, and waiting for 20 minutes to cross the street. I was about 7, and knew I was about to die. Luckily, the guy from the Shell station in front of which I was waiting came over and helped me cross safely.

When I was 3, we went to a zoo, and the walkways between the animal cages were paved; they looked like roads. I was scared silly to walk on them, thus Moth & Pad had to carry me all over the zoo, a fact which they will never let me live down! When they finally convinced me to put my feet down, a police car drove up the walk, freaking me out of my mind.

Moth's scare tactics worked! We lived on a fairly busy road, and from the time I could walk, Moth drilled into my head that streets = death. If I went into the street, I would definitely die, or at least get maimed like The Kid Up The Street. I never saw him, because he couldn't get out of bed. He was bedridden, of course, due to the horrific injuries he sustained from not heeding the "Stop, Look, and Listen" rule. When we sang the SL&L rule in nursery school to the tune of "Puff the Magic Dragon," it took on a whole new sinister meaning for me.

It might have been the same kid, or maybe his brother, who was responsible for the Safety Pin Incident. This unruly youth had decided it might be fun to stick a safety pin into a wall socket. He was electrocuted, his hair caught on fire, then he died painfully. I was scared, especially since I had never even dreamed of sticking a pin in a wall socket. Was it really fun? What would inspire a "boy about my age" do such a thing?

The Abandoned Refrigerator lecture was similar in nature, only the poor unlucky Kid Up The Street was not involved, thank goodness. This misadventure befell some poor souls from "Buffalo." They were playing hide-and-seek in a dump, and one misguided child decided to hide in a refrigerator. It slammed shut, and he was unable to open it, and suffocated to death.

The Abandoned Refrigerator was fascinating. I spent a lot of time in various junkyards, getting auto parts with my uncle, or dumping garbage with my grandfather-- dumps were really fun. They were like playgrounds with that special kick of danger that causes "fun" to turn into "awesome!" I had never encountered an abandoned refrigerator, but I was full of questions-- Why couldn't the kid get out of the fridge? Couldn't he just push the door open, or do refrigerators lock in a special way that I never knew about because I'd never gone inside one? Why would anyone go into one in the first place? Were they really really fun?

From then on I lived in fear that someday I would come upon an old refrigerator and not be able to stop myself from going in. It wasn't the suffocating that scared me per se, it was the fact that I wouldn't be able to control myself once I saw one, and it would lure me to my doom.

A couple years ago I was walking to the bus in Allston, and there were 3 ancient harvest gold-colored refrigerators standing stately side-by-side on the curb outside an apartment complex awaiting trash removal. I paused. I was seriously tempted to climb inside one on that snowy grey morning. Unfortunately, at the last minute I decided to be a Grown-up and get to work on time, and to not risk probable suffocation. I still regret not having experienced it.

Another danger to children is trolley cars. Now, I had never seen a trolley car when I was 8, and I'm sure none existed in the entire central NY region. However, one night, my grandfather's friend Gabe Goldfeld and his wife (I think her name was RuthAnne?) came to dinner. It was explained to me beforehand that Gabe was in a wheelchair because he had only one leg--he lost the other when he was playing on trolley tracks as a child, and had gotten caught underneath one. I was admonished to never play on train tracks, and that trolleys were dangerous vehicles whose powers of destruction I should never underestimate.

I was confused, as trolleys seemed like a quaint thing of the past, but I filed the information away for future reference. I tried to look like I wasn't staring at Gabe's stump, with the pantleg neatly pinned up, and thought of how fun it could be to play on trolley tracks. Hadn't he heard it coming? I wanted to ask him so many questions, but I knew better. When I moved to Allston years later, I always looked both ways before crossing the trolley tracks twice, and walked quickly across them (but didn't run, as that makes one more likely to trip and fall, thus Gabe-ifying an appendage or two.)

Mayonnaise is another potentially lethal force in the world. Moth was convinced that if you left mayo out of the fridge for more than 35 seconds, it would develop a carcinogen which, when eaten, would cause one to instantly drop dead. One day, she made me a tuna fish sandwich with mayo for lunch, and sent me out the door with some fretting about how she "hoped it would be OK." When lunchtime came around, I sat staring at my sandwich. It was a bit exciting to think that my first bite might send me to my grave. I took a tiny bite, waited a few moments... I could still breathe. I felt OK. Since I didn't die, I ate the rest of my sandwich, and came home and told Moth "I'm alive!" However, she wasn't convinced that the harmful susbtance was so benign.

Years later, after I had read about the properties of Mayonnaise, and why it doesn't go bad as quickly as you think, Moth and I were in Italy. On a strict budget, we ate sandwiches from small, cheap delis. In Italy, deli-keepers left their bemayo'd sandwiches out on the counter all day. Since we didn't hear about legions of Italians dropping dead from Mayonnaise poisoning, Moth figured I was right, and lightened up on the death factor of her favorite condiment. After all, if foreigners do it, it must be OK!

You'd think I'd be a giant basket case of fears now, judging from all the tools of the Grim Reaper that lurked around, like guns (the Kid Up the Street played Russian Roulette [I had no idea what that was] and ended up brain damaged and retarded--therefore toy guns, bb guns and in some cases squirt guns were to be avoided), lawnmowers and hedge-trimmers (they could chew your leg or arm off--luckily this got me out of mowing in my teens! However, it also meant that I had to cut the 6-foot by 30-foot hedge by hand), and sliding glass doors (the girl next door really did run through one--we saw the scars). It's amazing that I'm pretty mellow about everything. In fact, I don't have any phobias that I can think of! I'm fine with spiders, rats, heights, and all those other things people are normally afraid of. I'm even ok with electric-hedge trimmers and trolleys!

Maybe Moth's irrational anti-phobias balanced them out. For example, meat wasn't bad unless it was black, AND smelled *100%* like garbage. Milk wasn't rotten unless it was no longer liquid. I ate oatmeal for breakfast every morning, picking out the moth larvae (they float to the surface if you nuke it quickly and don't let it get hot enough for them to explode). Moth demonstrates the Law of Conservation of Fears-- it's good to have an equal and opposite anti-fear for each fear.

posted by Scooter B. @ 9/27/2004 11:27:00 PM