Get thy Turtle and snake AWAY from thee
by Cindy who has a phobia

I admit it. I admit it. I am scared of turtles. Others are scared of bugs, of cockroaches, of various other things but turtles... they make me run away and hide. And snakes??? Just thinking about it makes me shiver.

The thing is, I have an overactive imagination. So I just think about things that others don't think about you know? When I see a turtle, I don't see it's cute face or how cute it's small size is, I think about me holding it and right when I do, that's when it decides to shed it's little shell. And yes, turtles do shed their shell and that just freaks the hell out of me. I mean, I can just imagine myself holding this empty shell probably still filled with extra turtle skin or something and this little tiny green and brown lizard running around the room looking for another shell. Ahhh... that is so freaky which is why I'm scared of turtles. My cousin had a pet turtle once and when he found out about my weird phobia he started chasing me around carrying that horrid thing and I was screaming bloody murder while he was laughing is ass off. I'll never forget it.

I mean... I'm not scread of those other turtles or anything. Like the Ninja Turtles and cute cute Tama of Love Hina, but they are FAKE... They won't shed that horrid shell and leave it, you know what I mean? Ahhh.. I am just freaked.

One night, before my family went on a road trip to go back to LV from AZ, we went to this restaurant where this balloon lady gave me a green turtle shaped balloon. When I was looking at it in the car thinking that, hey... maybe I'll get rid of this dumb phobia after all. I'll just keep thinking that this turtle won't hurt me because it's just a balloon... it won't do any harm. So I was looking at it and holding it... and then a couple of minutes later my sister decides to tell me that the turtle's legs were shrinking and it looked gross because now the head looked like the leg or something. And so, my active imagination starts running and I think about heads and legs and I started screaming. And since I started screaming, I threw that damned turtle balloon at my sister who, because I started screaming, also started screaming because the gross turtle balloon touched her and then she threw it at my other sister who started screaming also. It's that domino effect you know? So my dad stops the van, takes that turtle balloon and pops it. LOL... I'll never be able to forget that either. After that, my mom looked at us like we were MAD. (Mad I tell you! MAD! Mwuahhahahahah!!!)

And snakes... let me tell you about... Snakes... I think about them shedding their skin right in front of me. I think that is soooooo GROSS! Ugghh... I was watching that Discovery Channel when they were showing the process of the snake doing this and all I wanted to do was cover my eyes. It's so digusting. It gives me goosebumps. Not only that, they were showing this snake that ate like this other animal so when it swallows it, there's like this big lump in its body... ahhh... watching that can give me nightmares til I'm 80. That's just FREAKY! Just writing about it freaks the hell out of me. I'll jump off a cliff, I'll sing in front of the crowd wearing anothing but leaves, I'll even shave off my head, but if you put me with a turtle or a snake shedding it's skin I'll be petrified. And the only thing that will wake me up would a mandrake. That is all I have to say.

I shall go and hide in shame now.

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