In response to Mama Kat’s weekly writing prompt: List ten things you are afraid of.

I love lists. And I can think of a list of reasons why I love them. But number one is that I can work in small chunks. Which I think is how you’re also supposed to chew. But who has time for that? Chewing is so 1999. Anyway, I’m all over the place with this one. Some are funny, some are serious … but all of them are real. So here they are. In, of course, no particular order.

My Ten Biggest Fears (or the first ten that came to me in the bathroom this morning) …

1. Roaches. Especially the big ones. Their wiggly antennae, their unpredictable ability to fly, even the crunch of their exoskeletons once extinguished. I have yet to understand their purpose.

2. Milo. When I know he’s pissed at me for some sort of human-on-cat infraction and I’m walking to my bed through a quiet, darkened bedroom. Ankles exposed. And I see him waiting for me under the bed.

3. My reflection in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Because of all the stupid urban legends about Bloody Mary and other demonic possessions who live inside the mirror from my youth.

4. The dude from Scream. I’ve had one too many vivid images of him slipping quietly into my side door when I’m home alone and dumb enough to take out the garbage after dark.

5. Swimming in open water. I’m absolutely positive I will be eaten.

6. My babies moving away to college. And never coming back.

7. And while I’m on the subject … my kids getting hurt in any way. I witnessed a terrible accident involving a child when I was a child myself. And I just … can’t … shake … it.

8. Large, bitey dogs. Or cats, possum, rodents, anything with a pulse really. No matter how many times people tell me they’re more afraid of me. I cry bullshit on that one. (See number 1, 2 & 5.)

9. Besides the legacy of my kids … of course … missing my chance to really leave my mark in this world. It’s still coming, you know.

10. Getting fat. (I’m going to make light of the eating disorder I dabbled in as a youth with this picture. And I’m sorry. It’s probably the most un-PC thing I’ve ever posted. But if Courtney Cox and Gwyneth Paltrow can get away with it … then, damn it, why can’t I?)