On one of my many phobias
Actually, I don't have that many. True, there's my fear of trailers and sweatpants. But I don't consider those phobias. And I have night terrors, but that's different as well (since it's a subconscious thing). My real phobia is of murals. Murals and taxidermied animals. So I suppose you could say it's a phobia of inanimate things with real or real-looking eyes. In the normal course of events, a fear of murals is not insurmountable. It's not as if we live in a town hip enough to be covered in murals, nor do I work in an art museum. But there was a time when my fear of murals really got in the way. From the summer of 1997 through the winter of 2000, I worked at Hale Library on K-State's campus. It's a lovely library and I thoroughly enjoyed working there. But it has a mural room. I'm sure it's not called "the mural room," but that's what I called it. It's the room where all the art books are stored. I hear it's beautiful. It's a huge room with soaring ceilings. But I've never stepped foot in it because of those damned murals. There was a day, in fact, when my dad showed up to the library with the express purpose of showing me the mural room. But I refused. Although I was able to avoid the mural room, little did I know that the library had a secret in store for me: the anteroom of the staff lounge. The first day I headed up to the staff lounge, I was with a coworker. I'd never been there before and as I rounded the corner, I nearly collapsed. (No exaggeration there-- I actually had to grab my coworker's arm to keep from falling down.) There I was, standing face-to-face with a GIANT MURAL. It was hideously ugly. Worse still, several very large pairs of painted eyes were staring back at me. My heart rate must have jumped through the roof. I didn't know there was another mural in the library! What library has more than one mural?!? (Don't answer that, I don't want to know.) From that day forward, if I wanted to go to the staff lounge, I either went with John (who dutifully guided me in while my eyes were closed), or I simply glued my eyes to the carpet and raced in.
How I made it through the British Museum and Britain's National Gallery, I'll never know.