Of lizards and cockroaches...

The very word 'blood-curdling' is brought to my mind every time I encounter a lizard or a cockroach...and inevitably, scream! Is it just me or is it a fact that the more scared and averse you are to something, the more likely it is that that 'something' presents and REpresents itself to you?

A few months ago, I had the misfortune of stepping on a lizard (yeah, yeah, poor lizard, sure, enough of that!). It happend this way: I was ready to go out and was hurrying in to the kitchen for a drink of water. Usually, I wear 'bathroom slippers' (why is it always called that anyway?) inside the house, mostly because I want to 'warn' the lizards that reside in my kitchen that 'I am coming, so HIDE', but that day, I did not. (And usually I go thump thump thump in to the kitchen. Not very graceful, but hey! Grace is not everything especially at home. Me, I WANT to be clumsy at home!!)

Anyway, I strode in to the kitchen only to step on something slimy and SICK. Disgusting. Annnd, there was a squirmy thing happening too. I simply realised in a second what had happened and started screaming...unbearably, and even to my ears, it was terrible. I launched myself on to the kitchen counter (don't imagine it) still screaming and...actually crying. It was simply awful. To make everything worse, there was no lizard in sight, just a wriggling, jumping lizard-tail! Utterly sickened, I must say I cried like a baby with no feelings spared!! Oh God! Even today months later, I shudder. Apparently, lizards can shed their tails at will and the damn tail has some fight left in it too. It was soooo disgusting. I actually looked up google images for lizards and cockroaches but even the images put me off so much, I am not going to use them here with this post.

Theer is a superb Tamil word for aversion : 'Aruvaruppu'!

And that brings me to the villain of villains.

The cockroach.

WHY do I hate the cockroach so? Irrational fear, is it? The worst kind is the flying cockroach. Uggggh. Even as I am typing this out, I feel all shaky and fidgety all over! The flying cockroach can make me let out the same kind of scream as for a lizard, only, it will curdle more than just blood, I tell you.

The screams my inner self seems to have reserved to let out for these two beings -- a reptile and an insect, could wake the dead! Not that I want to think about corpses now...Oh dear. Now THAT's a real uncomfortable subject which I can come to later....or not.

I am still wondering how I can get rid of these fears.

How, how, how?