Truth and fiction

If you've read or listened to my post Let Me Tell You A Story... then you might think that I had a bad experience with geese in my past. In fact, I haven't. I was going to set the record straight in the comments to that post with a simple: this has never happened to me. Then I remembered that although I'd never run in fear from a goose I had two bad experiences that I must have been drawing on for the story. I have a vague recollection of going for a walk and crossing a field of cows, only to find half-way across the field that a bull was concealed in the middle of them. I ran faster than I thought I could and got over the fence in the shortest possible time. Oddly enough, though, that wasn't the incident that came to mind first. The most terrible, phobia-creating event in my life was when I was locked in the toilet by a crane fly.

I've always been scared of spiders for as long as I can remember and I think my phobia about crane flies started long before the toilet incident but it has stuck in my mind as one of the most terrifying things that has happened to me. I must have been around 12 years old and I was in the loo. I went to unbolt the door and a bloody great flying daddy-long-legs fluttered on to the bolt. I couldn't get out without touching it and there was no way I was going to do that. I was filled with terror and revulsion at the very thought. It floated away from the bolt so I reached out to make my escape but before my fingers reached the lock it was back and I nearly touched it! My heart was racing and I could see no way out. My mind was empty of everything except fear. Every time I reached for the bolt, the insect aimed for it too and I jumped back in terror, my escape blocked. This went on for hours and hours, or more probably a minute or two, before I made my escape.

This incident is was what I was drawing on when I wrote about the geese. I'm not sure what made me choose geese as my phobia and not insects: they're all flying baddies but geese don't cause the skin on the back of my neck to squirm. And perhaps "The day I got locked in the loo" doesn't have quite the impact I was after.