PISP

I’m not a sissy.  I stand by that.  For my entire life I’ve made every effort to not be a sissy, yet there are things that make me weak-in-the knees and force involuntary – call it reflexive – outbursts of sissyness.  For example, my family (and some coworkers) know that bats evoke episodes of sissy behavior.  Sometimes shrieking’s involved.  Sometimes not.

Some consider my fear of bats irrational.  I, on the other hand, see it not as an irrational fear but a primal instinct for self-preservation.  After all, bats are ugly, they carry rabies, and they make nests in your hair.  And yes, they do.  A cop or maybe my dad said so.  Regardless, it came from an authority figure and someone that knew about bats.

It’s like people’s fear of snakes.  It’s not irrational.  It’s an ancient phobia that has been programmed into our genome.  One of our neanderthal ancestors saw his buddy Krog wake up one sunny morning and leave the cave to pick berries.  Krog stumbled upon a spotted snake, got bit, and died.  We learned that spotted snakes are bad.  (That’s the primal instinct for self-preservation.  Let’s call it PISP.)

But some fears are irrational.  Our brains try to make sense out of a bunch of event variables while applying PISP to keep us safe.  The other night I experienced just such a PISP event.  Now, I recognize that there is a clear difference between sissy behavior and PISP.  But sometimes the lines blur with age, fatigue, or distraction.

I had a typical Wednesday, racing through my workday, convinced I could cram thirty six hours into a twenty four hour day.  I was tired when I got home from work but ran my usual 5k to unwind.  I made dinner for Joe, cleaned the kitchen, and then went out to my workshop for a couple of hours.  As I walked back to the house I remembered trash was to be picked up in the morning.  It was cold.  It had snowed all day.  I was in running shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers.  Maybe I could convince Joe to do it.

I grabbed the trash bag from the kitchen.  “JOE!  What are you doing?” I yelled.  “Studying for a test tomorrow.  What are you doing?”  He yelled back. “Taking the trash to the road,” I mumbled.

Taking the trash to the road is not a big deal.  It’s about 200 yards from the house.  But it had snowed.  I was tired and cold.  I didn’t feel like changing out of running clothes for the few minutes it would take to move the trash can.

I put on my hat and a flannel shirt and walked into the garage in running socks.  I wasn’t going to trudge down the snow covered driveway in my new Asics.   There had to be a pair of boots or something I could throw on in the garage, I thought as I scanned the floor.  BARN BOOTS!  I saw my barn boots lying on the floor.  Joe must have worn them to shovel the day before.

I have kind of a thing about my shoes and boots.  I like them upright when they’re in the garage. When they’re tipped over it just seems like an ideal nesting spot for any critter looking for a nice dark home.  And after all, I’m sure any rodent would prefer living in my boots rather than the dry cozy cardboard recycling box next to the bird seed.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with barn boots.  They’re high, made of rubber, and fit snuggly.  I wear mine to slop across the yard in the spring or to take food to the woods for the deer.

I set the boots upright side-by-side.  I slid my right foot into the boot and it snapped firmly in place.  As my left toe entered the left boot, an empty snapped mouse trap caught my eye about five feet away.  (A PISP seed was planted.)   My foot slid into the boot and fell to the bottom but met some resistance.  Not the usual “snap” feeling of being locked in.  Instead, I felt a small cold wet bump under the arch of my foot.  My brain told me it was moving.

My head snapped toward the empty mouse trap.

PISP

Now, if you don’t know about barn boots, you can’t kick them off.  You have to sit down and pull them by the heal and work your foot out.  Oddly, when you want to keep your shoes on they have a mind of their own, flopping off as you step from a boat onto a dock. And you always see them flying around at weddings.  But when you want to take them off, like when you’re late and running through the house to change to meet friends out for dinner, you invariably encounter knots in both shoe laces.  And not just normal knots.  Top secret knots that they only teach Navy SEALS and astronauts.  Yeah, the ones that get you so frustrated you cut with a nail clipper.

The boot had to come off.  No time to sit.  No time.  No time.  Whatever was in that boot  was alive, possibly injured from the tripped mouse trap.

PISP.

I dropped to the floor, pulling at the heal with both hands as I laid on my back on the wet garage floor.  The boot finally came off with a swish.  I was relieved and instantly horrified as a cold wet blob fell out of the boot and landed on my face.

Joe’s sock.

PISP.  Well, it could have been