Thursday, January 26, 2012

Keeping it out of the Bedroom......


There are some 530 phobias in the world and generalized fears are an individual thing and count in their infinity.
I fear very little in life. Phobias I have none. That’s not bravado speaking, just the simple truth. I have over the course of my life faced many scary moments, I even enjoyed a near death experience, bright lights and all. I’ve faced fears of the body, financial fears, emotional fears and fears for others. But none have had a lasting effect. I got over it all.
So its safe to say, that the only things left that truly can make me quake are the words “I’m Late”, and I don’t mean to dinner, or the words “we need to talk”, whether the latter comes from a girlfriend or a boss it does not need to matter.
Oh yeh and black ice on the streets of Toronto or Montreal. Everyone should always be scared of that stuff, it hurts like a real.. “$%^&^” when your butt hits the pavement thanks to that slippery devil.
Mr Twenty Something that works along side me , is tough, fit , uber-masculine and uber-fit . He is almost model material, so good looking is he. Girls can just not get enough of him and his gravity defying hair. He should be fearless.
I have long know that Mr Twenty Something fears love. Actually just those three little words. He is what most men believe that they ought to be. He is what most women think they want. Yet for some reason, Mr Twenty Something can not see that within himself.
When push comes to shove and the three words need to be spoken, he freezes. And yet another relationship slides away from Mr Perfect.
But hey, we are all allowed at least one foible aren’t we. A fear , a phobia.
So prior to the last Halloween I was sitting having a conversation with Mr Twenty and joking about how his costume for the coming Halloween party should be a love heart, due to his phobia of not being able to say “I love you”.
His face went dark and I was about to be shocked myself.
“That’s not a phobia, not like the others I have.”
 “Others”
He continued,” Aren’t you afraid of the paranormal”, he asked with true fear in his eyes, “and what about needles at the hospital, they make me pass out”
I wasn’t sure for a moment if he was playing with me, so I had to ask with great concern ,”Are you f**&^ serious?”
“God yeh, this stuff is all out of our control.”
Now I grew up with Steven Speilbergs’, Poltergeist movie and I think it bothered me for a whole ten minutes out side of the movie theatre. But hey I was 10 years old, so cut me some slack.
Mr Twenty Something is close to a name change, that close to the big three zero is he. How could he be scared of ghosts and goblins.
Then I remembered, in my day, we actually had to go to the theatre to watch a movie, scary or otherwise. Mr T and his flat mate just bought large flat screen tv’s for their tiny apartment bed rooms. He now watches cinema standard movies from the comfort of his bed, and just prior to sleeping. Or trying to sleep, in his case.
In my day when we journeyed to the theatre, when it ended, we had to battle crowds to get out, we battled them again to find our cars, driving home, get changed, ready for bed and then go to sleep. Sometimes we had a meal in the middle.
So even though the movie freaked us out and we probably discussed it a few times over dinner or on the way home, fact was we got over it, before bed time.
Mr Twenty Something on the other hand, as masculine as he is, watches the flat screen at the end of his bed, turns off the scary movie when it gets too much for him to handle, rolls over ,and tries to sleep.
That in itself scares the hell out of me, on his behalf.
I read once that if you are having trouble sleeping then one thing you shouldn’t do, is to check your email before bed time. Seems most emails make your blood boil and thus keeps you awake after logging off the computer.
It is less the experience of ghostly and paranormal activity that scares Mr Twenty Something and others , as it is the fact that we bring it all too close to home. In this case, too close to our bedroom.
Most kids , have feared what lay under the darkened bed at night. Active or over active imaginations. Imagine then having cinema size flat screen Tv’s in your bedroom telling you something is under the bed, then trying to sleep?
That scares me to think about it.
As much as technology has advanced our lives, I am starting to see my parents words were smart, “No TV before bed-time”, seems a wise move now.
Imagine if we made children read a book before bedtime. Scary or not the active minds of children might actually do some good.
Keep the technology out the bedrooms and leave it in the living room where the living are.
Bed is for resting. Nothing should be less scary to us all.