My Greatest Fear?

     I'm afraid of frogs and toads.  Why?  I have no idea.  I've been that way as long as I can remember.  My family thinks it's cool to give me frogs and toads as gifts.  No, not real ones.  Stuffed frogs, statue frogs for the garden, frog socks and pictures of frogs are everywhere inside and outside my house.  I don't mind it really, as long as I don't open any gifts with real live creatures inside.  Most of the frogs I receive are very cute and I display them with joy.  Every once in a while, though, I get one that looks really real.  I have to do a double-take when I see it sitting in the garden.  Just when fall is about to turn into winter, we put the outdoor frogs into hibernation.  They go in a box, in the basement until spring.
     My very creative mother wrote a story about how my cat, Ivan the Terribly Cute (and that is the short version), saved me from a frog attack.  It was a fairy tale.  I slept in the high tower (the second floor) and Prince Ivan stopped a vicious little creature from getting into my bed chamber. She didn't tell me, until I had gotten married and moved out, that a frog really had gotten all the way up to the second story and almost into my room.  She caught Prince Ivan with the two hind legs of the frog sticking out of his mouth.  She decided that he was protecting me, although, he could just as easily have been bringing me a present.  (I shutter as I write.)  I am glad that she waited to tell me.
     We had frogs in our basement at that house.  This is also where we kept the washer and dryer.  I was not able to do laundry there.  I had been doing laundry since I was 5 years old.  I used to push a chair up to the top loader and lean over into the washer to get the clothes out.  There were no frogs in that basement.  I made a deal with my mother that I would fold and iron the laundry if she would take care of the washing and drying part.  That seemed to work fine until I was home alone and needed something out of the dryer.  I mustered up all the courage I could, grabbed a load to put in the washer, since I was going down there anyway, and set out toward the basement stairs.  At the top stair, I took a deep breath and put my right foot out to take that first step, and ...(shuttering again) A frog jumped straight up in the air, looked at me over the top of my clothes basket and then fell back down. I walked back up into the kitchen and decided that I didn't need the dried clothes as badly as I thought.
     I have lots of wonderful frog and toad stories.  I will share some more another day.  I have exceeded my  dosage of amphibians for today.  Maybe I could start using one day of the week to discuss my many phobias.  We could call it Phobia Phriday.  I guess that means I'll have to share another one tomorrow.