Confessions: Irrational Thought Processes

I come from a long line of overreactors/worriers. Recently my mom was convinced that some band of no-gooders had rented a building and disguised it as the post office purely to steal the checks she had sent to the IRS that day. My sister saw a special on tv the other night about a certain brand of faulty tire that would explode on the freeway and kill people. I soon thereafter received a panick-stricken phone message demanding to know what brand of tire was on my car. When we were growing up my dad would freak out if he ever saw us playing with rope or plastic bags because we could choke or suffocate ourselves. This theory of course is plausible for toddlers, but we were warned into high school years to be careful. As much as this behavior seems rediculous and irrational I find that I too am following in their footsteps against my better judgement. Here is a small list of some of my most recent irrational behavior...

1. On a recent trip to Hawaii I stepped on a sea urchin in the ocean and was stung on my toe. My first train of thought was not the more likely sea urchin option, but rather that terrorists had planted a syringe containing biological warfare in the ocean and that my toe now held the ebola virus. I'm not even joking, in fact I wish I was.

2. Lately when I drive on the freeway or around town I will periodically drive over small debris from other cars on the road. It makes that tinkling metal sound on the bottom of my car. When I hear that sound I instantly assume that my car is falling apart from underneath. Before I can stop the irrational thought process, my mind is picturing my engine and radiator flying down the road and I feel the anxious pit in my stomach as I expect the car to fall apart with me inside at any moment.

3. On the subject of my car, my air conditioning was making this weird flapping noise. I was beginning to figure out how much money a new air conditioning system would cost when all of a sudden a little leaf blew out of the air vent. Noise is now gone.

4. My most recent overreaction happened this very afternoon. I traditionally stop off at KFC on tuesdays and order 2 crispy KFC snackers before I start work because I am starving and they are the perfect size to tide me over till dinner. Today as I was handed my yum yums through the drive through window I felt this sticky substance on my hand. I couldn't see what it was because I was driving, but later as I was eating my snackers I noticed this thick red subtance on the inside of the wrapper and on some lettuce in my sandwich. I instantly felt sick in my tummy because it had to be blood from some worker's sicko cut up finger. Is it possible to contact AIDS from ingesting some dirty KFC worker's blood? All that I had been taught about tolerance and safety went out the window as I began to picture myself as one of the characters of Rent. Upon further inspection the gooey red subtance turned out to be baked beans sauce. Silly me.