Unreasonable Fear of Water

Back when I was in my teens, my friend, Jen, and I would go out to the Puget Sound and lay out on air mattresses and float and sometimes go swimming in the ridiculously frigid water.  We always had a good time doing this...until one fateful day.  The Puget Sound water is very dark and therefore, you cannot see a damn thing.  Sometimes, you can't even see your feet when looking straight down.  It's not because you're out swimming in crude oil, it's because there is a pretty big drop off out there.  This one day, Jen and I were out swimming in the coldness when I used some of my best acting skills to date, "Holy shit!! SOMETHING TOUCHED ME!!! WHAT WAS THAT?!!!"

Whoops.

Jen proceded to crawl on top of my head to save her own ass from the nothingness that had just not touched me.  She certainly proved to me that day...that I could go fuck myself.  She was going to live while she pushed my body down further into the mouth and throat of whatever was trying to attack us so she could get away while it choked on my body.  Did I mention we were best friends?  Yeah.  That moment always made me question the validity of that title.

The movie "Ghoulies".  One of the ghoulies was a water monster.  A scene from the movie during a teenage party (always, right?) the ghoulies came out to torment and of course, eat and murder people.  Well, the water-ghoulie popped it's head out of a toilet.  I was pretty young when I saw that.  You can imagine the thrill of using toilets after that.  Have a seat and hope to god a weird green monster didn't bite my ass off.  (That visualization could go in so many gross directions, but feel free to use your own imagination there.)

Swimming pools and sharks.  Why not?  Sharks swim in pools, right?  No, they don't.  But in my mind, they do.  They still do if I am in a pool by myself and there is a deep end.  The good news about the fear of sharks in a pool?  It makes you swim VERY fast!  Always helped when racing.

Lakes.  I have been in many lakes in my life and one of the things that pops in my mind from time to time is..."How many dead bodies are at the bottom of this lake?"  The answer...A LOT.  Of course there is!  In my own lifetime, I've heard of this person who drowned, that person who drowned, bodies found, bodies not found, blah, blah, blah.  However, the lakes have been around for a very long time and at the bottom of those very big and very deep lakes are very dead bodies or at least, bones. SO, when out on a Jet Ski or a ski boat and somehow I've managed to "fall" into the water, I'm wondering if and when a skeletal hand is going to reach up and pull me down.  I do not want that to happen to me.  Not just that, I think about things like, oh...the Lochness Monster, or even better...WHALES!  Which makes sense, of course, because everyone knows whales live in lakes and attack people everyday.  If I've ever been in the water, I've often thought about whatever evil is lurking below me and creepily watching for the perfect opportunity to eat the bottom half of my body.  I think that would suck.