We all get the creeps, right?

I know that it is not exactly psychologically healthy to have irrational fears; but if that is the case, we are all a bit crazy. It seems that everyone has a specific aversion, reasonable or not.

Fears come in various degrees, and the ones that incapacitate us are called phobias. The ones of lesser intensity are, in Butterbean lexicon, microphobias. They might not keep one from holding down a job or going out of the house, but it is hard to know where to draw the line.

For instance, I am honestly afraid that if I eat cooked spinach, I will throw up all over whatever is at hand. I am also afraid that if I scratch my thumbnail over the broken edge of a piece of china, my teeth will fall out. So much for micro.

I am not afraid of spiders, though, and I am not afraid of bugs. I usually let them live in the house as long as they aren’t annoying. I wouldn’t even flip out if I found one in my bed.

And it took me three weeks to figure out that my ex-Sunday School class was trying to make me ill by scratching the blackboard. I didn’t even notice.

But if ever I come face-to-face with a caterpillar or worm, I go into adrenaline shock and start running fast and hard in the opposite direction. I may also throw objects, scream, or try to climb on top of anything higher than the worm—like your feet.

I have seen other people react the same way in similar confrontations—like with mice, snakes, bats, and other potentially loathsome creatures.

These fears must be specific and instinctive. They don’t run in families. If they were learned responses, my kids would feel at home with the bugs and spiders I tolerate, but one of my daughters won’t go close enough to a spider to kill it with a broom.

Another daughter nearly broke a leg trying to get away from a bat that was probably as myopic as the proverbial kind and hadn’t seen her yet.

The funny thing is, as reactive as we are to our own aversions, we don’t have much sympathy for anyone else’s distress. When my daughter comes streaking and screeching out of her bedroom babbling about a spider, I say something sensitive like, “Oh, my sakes, it’s not Shelob. It wouldn’t hurt anything but a fly. Go get a paper towel and squash it.” And it’s not just the daughters who have settled on spiders. One of my sons kneels on the bed to say his prayers in case a spider might be on the floor.

You might want to be careful about who you let know about your microphobias. If you are a kid, brothers are the worst. When you overreact in the slightest to any dead fish, rats, or snakes that are waggled under your nose, they will be sure to file that information away for future reference. They always know which sister is afraid of which creepy thing.

When I was a kid, I was careful not to let my brothers know that I was truly afraid of worms. I picked something else to overreact to, so that I wouldn’t ever have to face a brother dangling a caterpillar in front of my face.

In the interest of advancing the study of psychology, I have tried to analyze just what it is about wormy creatures that makes me want to be sick. I think I have it. You are probably ready for this if your particular phobia is something other than worms, but if you are in the same panic bracket as I am, just turn the page now. You won’t miss a thing. Here goes:

Worms are stuffed; they eat twenty-four hours a day. Their crawly skins are probably strained by an internal pressure of twenty pounds per square inch. You couldn’t afford to step on one, sit on one, pinch one, or even bump one. One false move and you have a blowout. The insides could land anywhere. Excuse me, I was just leaving.

Well, I’ve done it—I’ve let the whole town in on Bertha’s microphobia. A couple of my brothers are in a position to find out about it, too. But then, you never know—maybe I’m just pretending to be afraid of worms, and it’s really mice that I fear.