Published Wednesday, August 12, 2009 10:30 AM
Updated Wednesday, August 12, 2009 10:31 AM
No, my fears, like everything else, have matured. My fears are more akin to facing my own mortality.
It’s not that I necessarily fear death itself; I look at that sort of like going bald – losing hair is a drag while it’s happening but once it’s gone it’s no longer a bother. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not anxious to try the other side anytime soon.
No, I worry that I will die in some meaningless way, a victim of mindless circumstance. I’m not talking about Darwin Awards here; I’m not even talking about the consequences of engaging in vices designed to shorten your life span. I’m talking about the fear that the Creator of the Universe basically walked up to that great big cosmic pool table that was the universe, racked the balls, broke them, and walked away from the table, not even caring where the balls dropped.
I don’t want to just be, say, the three-ball in the side pocket.
I climb a stepladder and I have visions of hitting a live wire in the ceiling and becoming the world’s fastest 180-pound break dancing strip of fried bacon the world has ever seen. I find myself getting out of the car at home and wondering if that plane on landing approach to the Air Base is about to land on my hood instead.
Just the other night, a new fear came homing out of the depths, or rather, from the other side of the bathroom door; the fear that I’m going to have a massive cardiac arrest in my skivvies because something unexpected happens to jolt me out of a random midnight somnambulistic reverie.
What happened was this: I got up, probably sometime around 4 a.m., having been jolted awake by an urgent call of nature brought on by dreams of splashing waterfalls, crashing waves on coral reefs, babbling mountain brooks splashing along rocky creek beds, and fire plugs gushing at full tilt.
So you can see my dilemma – I’m tired; I don’t want to get up; I’m trying to determine -- in that semi-conscious state -- if I can actually make it a couple more hours without having an embarrassing incident I can’t blame on the dog.
Aggravated at the harsh realization that this is, in fact, a situation that will not wait; I finally force myself to ease out of bed – so as not to awaken my Beloved – and tiptoe, through the dark to the bathroom.
I get to the water closet door, pleased with myself for not allowing a floorboard to squeak or bludgeoning a piggy against a baseboard in the dark. I turn the knob and push the door open.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!”
A piercing, window-shattering shriek blasts me right out of my drawers. I let go of the door, screaming myself and clutching my chest, the adrenaline causing my heart to pound against my ribs with the exact same timing and timbre as the tympani solo in the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme.
Okay, so how was I to know my Beloved had been moved by a similar dream 30 seconds before me? To be fair, I suppose we all feel right vulnerable in a situation like that, and if all of a sudden the doorknob three feet from your face suddenly starts rattling at three in the morning while you are at your most vulnerable, well, one good terrified shriek deserves another.
And yet, the fact that I had so carefully and considerately tried to deal with my situation as quietly as the proverbial mouse wee-weeing on a cotton ball was totally lost in the whole episode.
Later -- like two weeks and half a bottle of good wine later -- we had a great laugh over it, but needless to say, the rest of that night was pretty much those two wide eyes staring into the dark. Still, I learned a valuable lesson: make sure my Beloved is, in fact, peacefully asleep before attempting to get to the bathroom without waking her.
But in addition to the adrenaline blast my system had to deal with for the rest of the night, I was presented with a new set of concerns to keep me awake at night, just in case I’ve come to terms with the others.
Can you imagine the chalk outline the cops would have had to draw had I checked into that great big ol’ water closet in the sky, with one hand over my heart and the other grabbing everything else I, uh, hold dear? And what if I was wearing old holey underwear, or my old Pee Wee Herman T-shirt? I just don’t want to be remembered like that.
And in case that’s not enough, well, how about the classic, “God only knows what the neighbors think.”
Fortunately, Prohibition was repealed many years ago, so I do have at least one fairly effective way to handle such troublesome thoughts, although a pretty good argument could be made that such access to the nectars of Milwaukee may well have been the catalyst for those dreams – and screams.
Hooray, beer …