What Scares You? Reds Confess.

RHYS BOWEN:

Well, I've managed to survive another Halloween! I have survived weeks of all the old movies on TV being horror, of everyone else saying what fun they have had in haunted houses and even walking through a drug store and having a coffin suddenly open beside me and a hand coming out! Confession: I'm a wimp. I do not like to be scared. The only horror movies I've ever tolerated were the "Giant killer tomatoes swallow New York" variety. Anything to do with noises in the cellar or possessed dolls and I'm out of there. If I saw something like that I'd wake at every creak of my house for weeks.

So I guess I'm a scaredy cat. I was even trying to come up with a Halloween costume that didn't require a lot of work and thought of draping a fake spider's web over my hair with a fuzzy spider clinging to it. Tried it in the store and couldn't do. I knew the spider was fake. I could hold it in my hand and see it was fake. But the thought of a big black spider on my head was simply too much for me.

Another confession: I'm scared of spiders. I know they are good for our environment. If I find one in the bathtub I put a glass over it, slide a piece of paper under the spider and carry it out to be released in nature. So you see I'm good and humane. But my hand is shaking all the time. I did this rescue once when my friends and I rented a house in Sedona, AZ. Big spider on the ceiling. I tipped him into a glass, carried him out and released him into the creek. Then a friend showed his picture to our jeep tour guide. "Oh my God. That was a brown recluse," he exclaimed. I had had one piece of paper between me and the most venomous spider in the US!  And I was once in the Outback in Australia and went to the loo. As I shut the door and sat on the seat I watched a HUGE huntsman spider come and sit on top of the door. You know, the kind of spider that kills mice? And I knew if I tried to open that door it would drop onto my hand. I contemplated spending the rest of my life in that loo. Waiting for the spider to die of old age or get hungry and go hunting elsewhere. In the end I moved my hand oh so cautiously toward the latch, lifted it, moved the door inch by inch and then ran like hell, all the time imagining that the spider was now sitting on my back!

So good reason to be scared of spiders. But I'm also scared of moths. I don't like the way they flutter about. I met a black moth with a twelve inch wing span in Mexico once. We had seen it flying around the gardens and then the kids announced it had flown into our condo and into my bedroom. I laughed. "Nice try." Then I pulled back the drapes and....... it flew into my face. So good reason to be scared of moths too.

And I'm scared of the dark. Too vivid an imagination, I suppose, and growing up in a big old house that was definitely haunted. But I'm not scared of snakes, or heights, or even clowns. Bad reviews? Maybe. People hating my next book? Definitely.

So now it's your turn, Reds. What are you scared of?

HALLIE EPHRON: The dark. Seriously. Going into a cave with no flashlight, or even with one freaks me out. Walking in a forest in the dark. No thank you.

Spiders? Not so much. We have so many, and the ones in the house are usually smaller than a nickel and as far as I know they're not poisonous. I just scoop them up and take them outside where they can feast on mosquitos and flies. Love their webs. Except when I walk into one in the morning. Ick.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Huh.. That is such a good question. Crazy drivers, driving at night on highways.. I can imagine all kinds of horribleness. I can kind of handle spiders, though I really hate walking through a spider web.  I am not fond of centipede and millipedes,  either of which send me screaming from the room. Oh, and those waterbug things.  Dark streets, sure. But that's..just common sense.

The thing I am most afraid of is being surprised. If someone leaps out at me, I freak.

And I always think the garbage disposal is going to grab my hand somehow.

I am also inordinately afraid of food poisoning. If food is slightly off, or even might be, I toss it. Does that count?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm with you on the horror movies, Rhys. I've never understood why people like them. Can you believe I've never even seen Psycho??? Not afraid of spiders, or snakes (except sensibly.) Or bats. I don't get clowns, either, but I'm not afraid of them. I am, however, more than a bit claustrophobic. I don't like being packed in with bunch of people, and I don't like being underground. So you can see why I take the bus whenever possible in London. Rush hour on a packed tube train in a deep tunnel is not my idea of fun! And I always think, "What if the train stops and we're stuck here????" Which happens often enough that it's not pure paranoia...

LUCY BURDETTE: No, no I don't like to be scared either! When talking about movies they enjoyed, my family will often add "but not for you, too violent, or scary, or pick your adjective..." Rhys, when we were preparing for our trip to Australia, I started reading Bill Bryson's IN A SUNBURNED COUNTRY. I had to stop partway through because of all the poisonous creatures he was describing. Did you read BLIND DESCENT by Nevada Barr? Her character had to go into deep, narrow caves, and so Barr did this to prepare for writing. Not for me--I'd have to switch to a different plot.

Debs, I don't like being in a crowded elevator either--I think being short is a disadvantage here because all you can see are the bodies pressed in around you. And I don't like highway driving either--too many crazies going way too fast and not leaving nearly enough room.

RHYS: Oh yes, Lucy. I agree about Australia. When I took my kids there for the first time my daughter Anne read out loud on the plane about every kind of lethal creature so that her siblings were freaked out when we went for a walk in the Bush. And I'm not really claustrophobic but like Hallie can't watch movies where divers have to squeeze through submerged caves.

But I don't have a fear of the garbage disposal. Pfew. However I now realize I am scared of the shower. I always worry about turning off the cold first and getting scalded or turning off the hot and getting frozen. What a bunch of neurotics we are. OR ON THE OTHER HAND, we are simply gifted with overactive imaginations, which is what we are such stellar writers!

So now it's your turn. What are you scared of?