Scaredy-Cat

I'm just about the jumpiest person I know.

As much as I'd like to be calm and collected, my heart starts going a mile a minute far more frequently than I care to admit. I know that there are legitimate reasons why my body tenses up when it's too dark to see the path in front of me (the possibility of clowns lying in wait with knives is strong) but I still feel wimpy when I'm "watching" a movie curled into a squirming ball in the movie theater (District 9, anyone?).

Unfortunately, once most people make this discovery they choose to use it for their own amusement. Apparently my screams (and occasional tears) are pretty funny. As a note, "most people" includes Colin, who spent most of our time together last summer hiding behind doors and laughing at (and then comforting) me when I freaked out at the scary man jumping out at me.

Before I go on, I know that the majority of people aren't going to smile when they're suddenly scared. It's natural for the adrenaline to flow in those situations. Although my predicament isn't unique, I do think that I suffer a little more than average, and on top of that, I never catch on. You could stand in the same corner every day, jump out at me and I would still claw at you in total fear every single time.

It didn't take long for Guatemala to discover this fact about Lerae. Alex and Jenny stumbled upon it back when Mer and Grant were still here and we were spending the night in their house. While I was innocently washing my face and brushing my teeth, Alex was climbing into the top bunk bed where I would be sleeping and Jenny was turning the lights out and getting into her bed below. I came back into the room, I said goodnight to Jenny and started to climb up into bed, a little confused about how she got ready for bed so quickly, when Alex snarled toward me from the corner of the bed.

I screamed, fell backwards off the ladder and curled into a little trembling pod like rolypoly bugs do when the big scary humans pick them up and hold them in their hands. After checking to make sure that I was still breathing, Al and Jenny started laughing, quite loudly.

And this began an ongoing game which has included everything from Al sabotaging my attempt at payback for the previous incident (he ended up scaring me instead of me scaring him - seriously) to running up behind me with with claw hands in the mall to a mysterious hand reaching in my window from the back of a pickup while driving through El Salvador.

All this to say that when Al called me over to sit at one of our coworker's desk right before we left work one day last week I should have known to be on guard, especially considering that this particular coworker is a) known for being a jokester and b) had also discovered how easily I am scared when he ran up being him on the street and I almost clawed his eyes out.

I sat down, however, and this coworker asked me to take a kind of test online where you had to click on a red dot as it moved around pictures that flashed on the screen. I believe I asked before I started, "is this going to scare me?" to which this coworker replied with a straight face, "I wouldn't do that." I had strong suspicions that it was one of those awful email screamy face things (believe me, guys, you're not the first to try this on me) but by this point a crowd had gathered so I didn't have much of a choice but to click on the start button.

I diligently clicked away at the red dots and was beginning to enjoy it when, sure enough, the horrifying grey and white face filled my screen with a shriek (almost louder than mine) and I immediately folded over in the desk chair, "muy asustada."

After a few seconds I'm laughing almost as much as I'm crying, but not as much as the spectators were. Glad I could be of entertainment.