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Oct. 13th, 2006 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wook77Since it's Friday the 13th and supposed to oh-so-scary, I thought I'd share a "stupid fear" of mine.
I......... am afraid of public transportation. There, I said it. It's stupid and it's silly but OMG, I am petrified when I have to navigate public transportation. It's not that the buses are dirty or that there might be homeless people on the subway or any of that. It's because I'm scared of ending up on the wrong end of town because I got on the wrong bus/subway/train/what-have-you.
When I was a kid, I grew up in farming country. Our local market (note not "supermarket" because it was a simple market) had a hitching post that was used for the horse and buggies that would come to it. Yeah, that rural. The only public transportation we had were the school buses and I had to walk half a mile to get that (half of that was on my own frikken driveway) but not uphill both ways as the path was actually fairly flat.
When my parents separated, we moved to where they had a mockery of public transportation but, really, the "city bus" stopped three times a day. They didn't run very often at all, so we still only had cars. I was down the street from the school so I walked everyday.
We'd go to DC and my mum would navigate the metro for me. When we'd go to NYC, my aunt would navigate the subways. I never learned how to do it. Even when traveling in other countries, I always had someone there to navigate for me.
When I moved to Tucson, I didn't have a car and I needed to use the bus. I studied up on it and..........I froze stepping on the bus. I didn't have exact change but no one had mentioned that need to me. In addition, I didn't know that you were supposed to put the money down the little slot so the bus driver yelled at me for holding up the bus. To make matters worse, I ended up about fifteen miles EAST of where I wanted to be. I had to buy another pass and beg the driver to help me out. On the way, this driver hit a bicyclist. I never did get to the mall that day.
A month later, I braved a bus again. Ended up that it was the same driver. Ended up that this guy hit ANOTHER bicyclist. Yet again, did NOT make it to the mall.
After that, I gave up on public transportation in Tucson and got really good at finangling rides from friends until I got my own car.
Put me in a car and I can drive cross country without a map. My sense of direction in a car is amazing. Make me rely on someone else to do the steering and I become a frightened five year old, scared to even step on a bus.
About two years ago, I went on a vacation with a friend from Britain and, you guessed it, I made him navigate the public transportation for me, even though he'd never been to that state let alone that city. Yeah, I'm that lame.
So there you have it, my confession of a stupid fear.
Anyone willing to share theirs? Do you have a fear that even you mock and yet, you can't seem to beat it?
I......... am afraid of public transportation. There, I said it. It's stupid and it's silly but OMG, I am petrified when I have to navigate public transportation. It's not that the buses are dirty or that there might be homeless people on the subway or any of that. It's because I'm scared of ending up on the wrong end of town because I got on the wrong bus/subway/train/what-have-you.
When I was a kid, I grew up in farming country. Our local market (note not "supermarket" because it was a simple market) had a hitching post that was used for the horse and buggies that would come to it. Yeah, that rural. The only public transportation we had were the school buses and I had to walk half a mile to get that (half of that was on my own frikken driveway) but not uphill both ways as the path was actually fairly flat.
When my parents separated, we moved to where they had a mockery of public transportation but, really, the "city bus" stopped three times a day. They didn't run very often at all, so we still only had cars. I was down the street from the school so I walked everyday.
We'd go to DC and my mum would navigate the metro for me. When we'd go to NYC, my aunt would navigate the subways. I never learned how to do it. Even when traveling in other countries, I always had someone there to navigate for me.
When I moved to Tucson, I didn't have a car and I needed to use the bus. I studied up on it and..........I froze stepping on the bus. I didn't have exact change but no one had mentioned that need to me. In addition, I didn't know that you were supposed to put the money down the little slot so the bus driver yelled at me for holding up the bus. To make matters worse, I ended up about fifteen miles EAST of where I wanted to be. I had to buy another pass and beg the driver to help me out. On the way, this driver hit a bicyclist. I never did get to the mall that day.
A month later, I braved a bus again. Ended up that it was the same driver. Ended up that this guy hit ANOTHER bicyclist. Yet again, did NOT make it to the mall.
After that, I gave up on public transportation in Tucson and got really good at finangling rides from friends until I got my own car.
Put me in a car and I can drive cross country without a map. My sense of direction in a car is amazing. Make me rely on someone else to do the steering and I become a frightened five year old, scared to even step on a bus.
About two years ago, I went on a vacation with a friend from Britain and, you guessed it, I made him navigate the public transportation for me, even though he'd never been to that state let alone that city. Yeah, I'm that lame.
So there you have it, my confession of a stupid fear.
Anyone willing to share theirs? Do you have a fear that even you mock and yet, you can't seem to beat it?
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Date: 2006-10-13 10:09 pm (UTC)I've actually thought about the skydiving as a therapeutic meassure, but I'm still a little too scared to do it. I still might some day. And I'd sort of like to.
I figure that, since I'm not afraid of flying, it wont be bad to get up there. And if I can just get myself to jump, then I'll be stuck in mid-air when the panic hits me.