Blog, Part 2
Fear is defined as an emotional response to a perceived threat. It is also related to the specific behavior of escape and avoidance.
People are afraid of many things. My daughter just informed me that she has a fear of living in the suburbs, driving a mini-van. Ok, sweetie, go away. Not what I was looking for.. But, anywho, some people have intense fear of many different things. Clowns, for example…. Heights…Water…. Speaking in public….Spiders….Or in my case, three things…snakes, gasoline and a nun. (Although Judge Judy scares the hell out of me, too.)
So far I talked about 1. Snakes. Now on to Part 2-
2. Gasoline
People are quite lucky if they pass through their life with only having a fender bender at the most. For some of us, being in a car accident is something you don’t forget too soon.
The summer before I was a freshman in high school was a great summer. We went to the pool almost every day. I really didn’t want to go to the pool on one particular day. It was a cloudy, August day and not particularly warm. But, my mom wanted us out of her hair, I think, so off to the pool we went. I’m not really sure what kind of car we had. I know it was gold and I think it was a Bonneville. I do remember it was a 2 door car.
We were all wearing our bathing suits and a shirt over the top. We had our towel in one hand and a dollar to get into the pool in the other. My mom was driving and my brother, David ,was sitting in the front seat. I was sitting in the middle in the back, with my best friend, Ramaine, on one side, and my sister, Cheryl on the other. We were on our way. Cheryl had been injured the day before on her bicycle, and was bruised all over. She was quite sore and Mom thought the water would do her good. I’m thinking that Mom wanted some alone time. So, we piled into the car, neglecting to wear out seat belts because no one wore them back then. Mom’s arm across the chest was our only seat belt. You were on your own if you sat in the back though.
The pool was only about 5 minutes away from our house. We got in the turning lane and had to stop, waiting for cars going in the opposite direction to pass, so we could turn. The only way that I can explain what happened next is in slow motion. That’s how I remember it. I remember my head hitting the seat in front of me and when my head whipped back, I saw us going at the oncoming car. My head hit the seat again and when it whipped back once again, I just remember a head coming through a shattered windshield in front of us. Then I remember the screaming.
We had been hit from behind by a long Mack truck that hadn’t slowed down when it came around the corner and went into the turning lane and hit us. We flew head-0n into a car traveling in the other direction. We later heard that the stupid truck driver was drunk, but no one told us for sure. At first things were very quiet. Cheryl was now in the front seat. David was then screaming. My mom wasn’t saying anything. And Ramaine still was clutching onto her dollar and towel. I had blood streaming down my face and felt an open place on my forehead, but it didn’t hurt. I was still intrigued that Ramaine was still holding her dollar and her towel like it was time to get out of the car. Except, we were trapped.
I saw a guy with his hands cupped by his face, looking through the window into the back seat. That sort of scared me. He was like a peeping Tom. We were only 14, you pervert. Why didn’t he just look through the windshield. Or lack of windshield. He then yelled, “We need to get these people out of here. It’s going to blow.” Oh, yes he did. What???? The car is going to blow up? Gee, that’s a nice thing to say to people who are trapped in a car. And we were trapped. Our car looked squeezed like an accordion. Ramaine and I looked at each other, and that’s about all we did. I think I may have been in shock, because I am never at a loss for words. We were in there for a very long time. The stupid, stupid man kept telling people, “There are 5 people in this car. We need to get them out NOW! There is gasoline all over the place. “ Maybe someone should pour some gasoline on Tactful Guy. I heard that this guy was the guy in the truck, but again, I never knew for sure. I just remember he had coal black wavy hair.
The fire truck finally came and sprayed a bunch of white foam all around our car and the Mack truck. I don’t know if they had the Jaws of Life contraption back then, I was too interested in the thought that I was going to blow up. They took my sister out of the car first and sat her along side the road. Then they hurried to get David out. He had bones coming out of his leg. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. He was in so much pain. Ramaine and I got out next. It seemed like my mom was hurt very badly. Later we found out that she had a broken back.
We were all stuffed into one of those old ambulances. The Ghostbuster car reminded me of what we rode in that day. I rode in the front with the ambulance driver. As we pulled out for the race to the hospital, Ramaine quietly said, “There’s my mom.” And we waved at her. Can you imagine? She pulls up and sees our accordion car and a Mack truck and another car with a lady stuck in the windshield, and we are waving at her like, “Hi, Ramaine’s mom. Look, we are in an ambulance.We’ll talk later.” I will never forget the look on Ramaine’s mom’s face. She was so upset, I guess she backed her station wagon into a pole as she was turning around to follow us to the hospital. I remember David screaming every time we would hit a bump. I felt so badly for him. I mean, he had bones coming out of his leg. Unbelievable.
On the way to the hospital, I started asking stupid questions. I had a cut on my forehead and I believe that I may have had a concussion or something. I asked the driver if my name was going to be in the paper and then told him how to spell my name correctly. V-i-c-k-i-e I spelled for him. I had been in a car accident when I was in third grade and it reported that Mickie Mendenhall was in the car. Mickie? That mad me so mad. So, I guess I wanted to make sure they got it right this time. Not a vain bone in my body.
When we got to the hospital, everyone was whisked in a different direction. I remember seeing Ramaine still clutching on to her dollar bill and towel. She had a stoved finger. She got a wheelchair. I didn’t get a wheelchair. I don’t know what I got. I remember waking up, lying flat on my back and a Chinese doctor was sewing up my forehead. “Hello.” Wow, that scared me to death. I froze and just watched him stitching up my head and my ankle. I don’t remember any pain at all. I didn’t say a word. He used a really long piece of thread. I swear he was humming a song. Maybe one from his homeland. I never saw a chinese person before. Hell, maybe I was in China. I was a little bit loopy right around then. Surprised I didn’t see a clown sitting in the corner, waving at me.
My dad was in the waiting room with Cheryl, who wasn’t hurt in the accident. Although she was thrown into the front seat, she didn’t hit her head or anything. That was good, because she was already quite mental. Ramaine was fine also. She had a stoved finger. David and my mom spent a long time in the hospital. The ride home was scary. I kept thinking people were going to hit us. Dad had the radio on and they reported a car accident and listed all of our names and our conditions. I was in fair condition..hmmmm. I felt fair. How did they know how I was feeling. They had David and my mom in critical condition.
That night , my dad made me go to a party I had been invited to. He took Ramaine and I to a house party. I limped and had a huge bandage on my head.” I just remember being very quiet and then my head started pounding, because the kid started playing the drum solo for Inagodadavida. Really? You have to play a long drum solo tonight? I usually enjoy being the center of attention, but I just wanted to go home.
Fast forward to about 2000. My husband, Jay, was cutting the grass on my dad’s 1949 Farm-All Cub and stopped and asked me to take the red plastic gas container to the gas station to fill up with gasoline for the push mower. Ok, no problem. I grabbed my purse and stepped into the garage to get the gas can, when all of a sudden, I felt flushed.
It felt like my head was being blown up like a balloon. I broke out into a sweat, and noticed that the palms of my hands were sweating also. My heart was pounding. I walked outside and stopped Jay on the tractor. I broke out sobbing, “I can’t go get the gaaaassss.” I felt like Laura Petrie on the Dick Van Dyke Show when she sobbed, “Oh Robbb”. I was beside myself. I had shortness of breath and when I tried to talk, talked in short, choppy words. I swear I even had a twitch. I was a mess on a stick.
Jay turned off his tractor, and said, “Ok, take it easy…I will go get the gas later…” He gave me a “Yeah, she’s insane” look and started up his tractor and took off, leaving me in turmoil over whatever the hell was wrong with me. I walked in and I was feeling better. My heart didn’t explode. I thought to myself, “What the hell was that all about?”
It only took me about 10 minutes to realize that Wow, I have a problem with gasoline. Then it all made sense. I had made excuses all my life to not pump my own gas. I had kids in the car….It was dark and I was scared….I didn’t want to have static electricity and touch something and then blow up. You know, the usual reasons…Then I thought deeper. I didn’t want Jay to put in a propane tank for heating when we built the house. We went total electric. I wasn’t a fan of the grill. I would stand far away from it. Duh. I had an intense fear of gasoline.
I have only pumped my gas maybe twice in my life. I wait to go to the local Sunoco station and a guy pumps it for me. I have to go between 8am and 4pm daily or on Saturday mornings. So, the next time someone on the Lifetime channel has suppressed memories that pop up after 25 years, you can say, “This really does happen. I read a blog by some nut case that suppressed her fear of gasoline because some guy looked in the window and said the car was going to blow up.”
It really does happen. I fear gasoline. Panic attack time.
