You Won’t Believe What Terrifies Me!

Posted on January 26, 2015

I was at DragonCon last year and a good friend and his boyfriend picked me up one morning to take me out to breakfast. I’ve known this friend for 5 or 6 years now and he’s the sweetest guy. He just happens to have some road rage. He’s also Filipino. I bring that last bit up because anytime I’ve ever driven with someone from the Philippines and they’re in the driver’s seat, they exhibit some serious road rage. It occurred to me to Google it and find out if it was perhaps a national pastime there. Suffice to say I’ll never be able to get into a vehicle with him again without the words “It’s a taxi stand!” running through my head while holding onto the door for dear life while his boyfriend desperately suggests in a soothing voice to “calm down.” Calm down? MEDICATE HIM!

Ralph’s own driving terrifies me and I’m astounded he hasn’t made me a widower yet. Widow? Widower? One of those. Seriously, it’s an ongoing joke between us. I swear it was his living in Chicago that ruined driving for him. The man is no longer a defensive driver; he’s offensive. I always insist on driving when he’s home, even when we went to his friend’s mother’s funeral a state away over Christmas. Why? Because if I don’t, I’ll hear (just like I heard when he insisted on driving back home) this answer when I ask “How fast are you going?”, “85.” 85mph in a 70mph zone? Are we in that big of a hurry? Because my life means more to me than saving five minutes.

Ralph knows his driving terrifies me. It tickles him in that hard-to-find-and-impossible-to-reach place. I can’t say his brother is much better, so maybe it’s genetic, only their father was an extremely safe driver. Hell, their father was scared of Ralph’s driving. My husband doesn’t suffer from road rage so much as he suffers from unsafe driving. Red lights? Those are mere suggestions that he should consider stopping. The funny thing is I’d have thought being down in the Virgin Islands where the speed limit is 35mph would have mellowed him out. Nope. Not even close. Not even a little bit.

What else terrifies me? M. Night Shyamalan making another movie is a good start. I still haven’t forgiven him for The Happening nor have I forgiven my little brother for making me go to see it. And don’t get me started on The Last Airbender…an Asian movie with no Asians. Since we’re on the subject of movies, I’m terrified that Paramount has asked the new director of the third Star Trek revamped film series to make the film more like Guardians of the Galaxy. After Into Darkness, I kept hoping they’d just go back to the Next Generation cast and give them a sendoff worthy of the name Star Trek because Nemesis just didn’t do it for anybody. Into Darkness didn’t either.

Watching my father continue to deteriorate terrifies me as does the death industry. Ralph and I had a conversation last weekend about our future demise. We both want to be cremated and spread out up north. I told him I wanted our ashes mixed together with that of my first dog’s ashes, to which he informed me that they only give you part of your ashes back, not all of them. WHAT THE HELL??? We pay all that money and they don’t even have the courtesy to give you all the ashes? What’s that about? Eh, with our luck, they won’t even be able to scrape us out of the car if he was driving, so they could just set the car on fire and let our ashes scatter that way. Ask him. I refuse to sleep when he’s behind the wheel.

My husband turning into his grandmother terrifies me to no end, too. He already acts a bit like her. No matter what I do, he questions it. I hung something up under the kitchen counter and the first question out of his mouth was “You can’t mount that higher?” If I had, he’d have asked “Can’t you mount that lower?” I texted him today and told him I was going to start calling him Margaret. He responded with “Do you want me to call you what grandma called dad?” I told him his journey to the Dark Side would be complete if he did. Maniacal laughter from him ensued.

Terrifying, I say.

What terrifies you?

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.

6 Responses to “You Won’t Believe What Terrifies Me!”

Dorien Grey says:
January 26, 2015 at 10:12 am
What terrifies me? Hypocrisy, bigotry, unreasoned hatred, willful stupidity, the Tea Party, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, ……….

D

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Kris says:
January 26, 2015 at 12:09 pm
Imagine the horror movie those could all be featured in.

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West says:
January 26, 2015 at 10:23 am
What terrifies me? My son learning to drive. He just turned 15, but he’s been wanting to learn for the last three years. He also wants a motorcycle. I keep trying to figure out why. If he can’t focus walking, what makes him think he’s going to be able to survive riding a motorcycle?

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Kris says:
January 26, 2015 at 12:11 pm
A motorcycle? How is he on a bike? My husband requires someone to walk with him most of the time when he’s in Hong Kong. Why? Because this git will walk right out into traffic if he’s thinking about something else or looking at something else. Am seriously amazed he hasn’t been knocked back to this side of the planet when he’s been over there.

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Robert Stewart says:
January 26, 2015 at 3:53 pm
What terrifies me the most, I’ve started dating an Asian man about a month ago. That coupled with your Ralph stories, I’m already seeing a pattern emerging from him. I’m questioning if i’m up for the challenge.

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Kris says:
January 26, 2015 at 5:06 pm
Oh, Robert…it’s completely worth it. You don’t have to give up your soul. That’s an offering for his relatives. You just have to be willing to obey, love, obey, cherish, and possibly obey. lol

Multicultural relationships are work for both people, but after twenty years of being with my guy, I don’t regret a moment of it. I wish I had my soul back, but I’d have to be nice to his grandmother and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.