Tuesday 18 August 2009

What are you afraid of?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about what makes me tick.

Yesterday the humidity was so high that the floors downstairs were absolutely wet with sweat ... as was the refrigerator. No amount of wiping dry lasted more than a minute or so. I dug out the fan and when I went to bed, I turned it and the one in the downstairs bathroom on to try to dry things up overnight.

This morning things were a little drier but not much. I will have to get a dehumidifier today before my company arrives. Otherwise they will be slipping and falling on the slick slate floors.

This morning I was washing the towels I had used to wipe up the water and my washer stopped dead saying there was a problem with the electrical system. There was a brief hydro outage but it could have been the heavy load that caused the brain fart. Damn! Another service call.

I don't sleep well when I am alone, but I don't fear the things most people, especially women living alone in an isolated place, would fear. I don't worry about intruders of either the two- or four-legged kind, for example. I seldom think about getting sick or having accidents while I am here alone. What I fear is that this house will fail in some way.

That fear is not unfounded ... the roof failed, for instance ... and I had the flood in the spring. So I think what happens to me is that whenever things are not quite right I begin to fear that the big bad wolf will blow my house down.

What sorts of things do you fear?

2 comments:

Barbara Carlson said...

For the longest time I feared falling walking up stairs and losing my four top front teeth. I did lose them, but I just got caps.

I also feared (for 20 years of full-time sewing) putting a sewing machine needle through a finger, then I actually did. I was so calm about it. My worst fear had happened and "nothing happened" to me, really. I just pulled the broken needle out and John took me to emergency. The finger was x-rayed & no bone damage, so they sent me home. I didn't even get a band-aid.
(I was more worried about my Bernina, which
was unhurt.) All that wasted fear.

Oma said...

Yes, those fears are like my fear of bee stings. Flailing screeching terror every time I saw a bee nearby ... until it actually happened ... and then I knew that it was a slight pain easily relieved by applying baking soda and water.

By the way, the fan brought the humidity from 100% the first night to 85% the next morning, and the dehumidifier has brought it down to 65% since then ... I emptied the 25 quart container 4 times yesterday!

But still ... an investment of $187 solved the problem of my house being destroyed by humidity.

And a phone call has ensured that a serviceman will come today to unlock my washer.

Once again, safe from the big black wolf ...