Scary Things

I am not a person who is plagued greatly by phobias. I'm not really afraid of spiders, snakes, bugs, or needles. I'm not afraid of the dark nor am I concerned with heights or any animal with fur. I am unphased by driving over bridges or flying on airplanes.

However, there are a handful of things which do cause me to cringe. Pigs. The Burger King. Clowns. Dentists. These are the nemeses which strike fear in my heart. Tonight, I encountered a new foe. Tara and I attended a Summer Learning Fair hosted by a large local school system to represent the farm and our riding programs. While Gary and Amber stayed back to train horses and teach riding lessons, Tara and I bravely tackled a gymnasium full of families searching for Summer enrichment activities.

Equipped with clean white shirts, brochures, and a couple of saddles to decorate our expo booth, we greeted, meeted, and chatted with one after the next interested mom. The event planners thoughtfully created diversions intended to entertain the tykes and babysit while their parents filled their already busy schedules.

I looked across the room at the crowd of children playing ball and games and noticed a 7 foot tall Chik-Fil-A mascot. For those of you who are not familiar with this fast-food chain mascot- it's a cow. Now, this 7 foot tall black and white marvel decided that it should leave its charge of children and come to our booth. Why, I will never know.

As the bovine walked with purpose toward me, I looked left and right for an escape. I made a mental note that I must be a flight (versus fight) animal. The large spotted mascot stopped right in front of our booth and seemed to stare down at me with its huge plastic eyeballs. I choked on my words as the confused parent in front of me turned to follow my frozen stare. I felt my body disobey my command to stand my ground and it shrunk backwards.

Just as I began to stammer an apology to the confused mother, the small child in her arms began to shriek. The 40 decibel scream pierced every eardrum within firing range and the mother quickly began to console the  child- "Honey, It's ok. That's just a person inside there. I'm sorry, she's afraid of characters."

The cow retreated and I felt my pulse slow ever so slightly. As he moved back to the center of the gym, I breathed for the first time since he began his attack. I exhaled slowly and handed the nice lady a brochure. I couldn't help but think that her 2 year old and I may have exhanged knowing glances.