Irrational fears.

Does anyone remember when Al Roker said he shat himself in the White House and how imbatased he felt about the whole thing? Punctuated by the epiphany of realizing he was then a fat ass and decided to go on a diet for once. 

Probably the worst way to ever start a post. However their is some (no pun intended) weight behind the whole thing.

Everyone in elementary has an understanding to go to the potty when they have to go. Me, I felt an irrational fear to use the schools potty. The irrational fear started one day when I heard screaming and yelling coming out of the boys restroom. I recall for some reason now, a fear of a green alien monster which traveled through toilets and would kidnap little kids. To any rational child with an imagination like this would rather just hold it in till they got home. I kept myself on a rather good schedule of using the potty too till one day I really needed to use the restroom. But because of this fear in first grade I never went to the restroom till about fifth grade.

Another irrational fear was when my Uncle Dean told me alligators lived under the boat shed. Fair enough, for a young child it made sense. So every evening while Zack and our cousins would play tag. Or have fun out in the aker of land our grandparents owned. Uncle Dean would call us kids in because the sun was setting. Allegedly alligators roam the backyard only at night.

One night I told my uncle who just called us kids in for the night to go out and shoot an alligator. We he walks out to the yard with his hand gun and fires to the ground. I'm freaking out. It was the first time ever hearing a gun shot. And he told me he would make gator skin for me. I thought it would be cool to have something to hang on the wall. What kid could say, "I have alligator skin on my wall" in the third grade?

Years later, some common sense which wasn't common to me then set in. Alligators don't live in Washington state. Go figure, but at the time it was a normal irrational fear.