Fears, Phobias, Freak Outs and Cookies

Guess I flunked the alliteration portion of Language Arts.

This morning, I strayed from my usual routine, which includes going to the gym after Caroline goes to school. Instead, I set my alarm for 5:45 (!), gave myself a good pep talk while trying to pry myself from my warm, cozy bed, drank some tea and drove to the gym in the dark.
When I arrived, the gym guy (I've been going there for 15 months and I still don't know his name) looked at me and said, "It's not 9am!?!"

No kidding.

I had to start my day so early for a number of reasons:

1. I needed to spend the morning icing and decorating pumpkin shaped sugar cookies for Caroline's class Harvest Celebration. They're not supposed to call it a party. I baked the cookies yesterday, but wanted to frost them without any "help." You know how helpful little helpers can be. Or not.

2. If I wanted to get some exercise in, I needed to be done and home by 8:15 so that I'd have time to fix Caroline's hair before she left for school. She can brush it fine, but doesn't care one iota about the rest. It's bad enough that she has been known to arrive at school with schmutz on her face more often than I'd care to admit; I have to draw the line on grooming skills somewhere. If she can't remove the milk mustache, the least I can do is make sure her hair isn't puffy, ratty, wild or askew. I try, anyway.

3. Besides my cookie decorating plans, I also could not go to the gym at my normal time because I'm trying to rest my injured hip and the lower back pain I somehow managed to acquire on Monday. I've put the kibosh on running and now Body Combat. I love punching and kicking the crap out of pretend people as much as the next girl, but I need to refrain from lots of jarring movements and impact, so that my aches and pains will go away. Class starts at 9:30 and if I'm in the building, there is no way I could resist joining in on the class, even though I know in my head I shouldn't.

And that is why I went to the gym so early. Not that you really care.

So, on my way there. In the dark. I noticed I had a couple of cuts on my fingers, which could most likely be attributed to our pumpkin carving extravaganza Wednesday night. Just yesterday Craig and I had an interesting conversation about MRSA and staph infections. Naturally, as I noticed my little, teeny tiny cuts, I decided that I should ask the gym counter guy for some band aids to insure that I didn't make my little owies susceptible to contracting some horrible gym disease.
On a side note, our gym has "community mats" which means that lots of people, with unknown hygiene practices, use the same mats. One of the instructors calls them "MRSA mats."
So, in an effort to not contract MRSA or staph through my teeny tiny cuts, I thought it would be wise to use band aids.

It was a good thought; too bad I didn't remember to ask the gym counter guy.

As I was on the elliptical, I remembered, but it was too late. I just tried to focus on not letting my fingers with the cuts in them come in contact with the gym equipment.

Easier said than done. I hope my fellow gym patrons didn't think I was flipping them off!

After my elliptical session, I washed my hands. Then washed them again after I used the Stairmaster and again after the rowing machine. And one final time, with an extra application of hand sanitizer for good measure, after finishing up with free weights.

All the while I was obsessing over the fact that I had cuts on my fingers. I day dreamed about antibiotics and horribly painful infections. Such motivating stuff!

Seriously, I fretted about MRSA the whole time.

The funny thing is, this is the ONLY time I've ever thought about it. I totally blame it on the conversation I had with Craig yesterday. I typically tend to under react to health epidemics such as MRSA and H1N1. I don't know why? You'd think an obsessive, neurotic person would be first in line to buy a bubble suit and never touch another human or inanimate object again.

Au contraire.
I'm a walking contradiction.

While we're on the topic of weird freak outs/phobias/fears, I have many.


Snakes

Flying over large bodies of water

Public speaking

Dying a slow painful death

Running out of milk, bread, produce or diet coke

and the newest......

Staple guns

Yes, I'm afraid of the staple gun.

What if I shoot my eye out?

We have a staple gun that has stayed in the hermetically sealed plastic packaging for quite some time. We bought it in Georgia for a trampoline restoration project, but ended up just buying a replacement trampoline part. I wonder why we didn't return the staple gun?
Who knows? I probably threw away the receipt or something.

All I do know is that since the trampoline was fixed, I haven't been in a single situation in which a staple gun would have come in handy.

As it so happens, I'm in the process of putting together a Halloween costume for Caroline. In keeping with her animal theme (elephant, butterfly, lady bug, cat, Super Girl (?)), she is going to dress as a dog this year. Using a great suggestion from my dad (who knew he had Halloween costume constructing talents), I cut out floppy dog ears from cardboard and covered them with felt. All I need to do is staple the ears to a headband and the look will be complete.

We don't have a regular stapler, but we have a staple gun.
Yesterday I took it out, opened the package and loaded the staples.

And nearly 24 hours later, I haven't gone near it again.

I'm generally a tough chick. But this staple gun has me all spooked.

I'm sincerely fearful that if I squeeze the trigger, staples will come flying out, hit my eye and leave me blinded. Or that I'll shoot one in my foot or in the wall. Clearly I have limited comfort in my aiming ability.

Last night I put my glasses on and contemplated just doing it, but I chickened out.

I'm really baffled by this irrational fear. Like I said, I can be tough.

Craig is supposed to come home early tonight; maybe he'll step up and be the man I apparently cannot be.

Otherwise, the costume is almost complete. I couldn't find a PLAIN brown sweatsuit, so I bought black leggings and a black top and told Caroline she could be a black lab. We purchased a dog collar and leash and black mittens with brown spots on the insides to mimic the pads on a dog's foot. Oh....and I made a tail. I sewed! It ain't pretty up close, but it's a tail. We'll have to safety pin it to Caroline's pants, but, it's a tail. A tail *I* sewed.

We're still thinking through the application of spots on the clothing. Guess I'll have to think faster, Halloween is tomorrow.