My Mate is Afraid of Swans
October 25th 2007 21:38
One of my mates is afraid of swans. No bull. When he first told me I couldn’t help but burst out laughing; it sounded so stupid. When most people think of phobias they think of heights, spiders, needles, dentists, bugs. But swans? One of nature’s most graceful animals? Swans are probably the last thing anyone would list as being terrifying.
But like many phobias, this came from a bad experience he had.
“When I was little I was playing in the park and there was this swan. I reached out to touch it and it batted its wings against my head,” he explained. “That’s why I’m afraid of swans.” The image his words conjured up in my mind made me laugh even more. I pictured this tiny Asian boy with short, spiky black hair crouched down near a big white swan. As he reaches forward to touch its feathers I see the swan angrily flapping its wings about, over his still-crouching body.
Hmmm. Who am I to talk? I’m wary – but not scared - of geese after the time I accidentally disturbed a gaggle of them and they chased me around the park. I could not believe they could move so quickly and that I had to run to keep ahead of them. There was no where to go except for me to climb on top of the nearest picnic table. And even then, they surrounded me, angrily honking. Although I was now safe, I was left wondering how to escape them. In the end, I had no choice but to wait for them to calm down and then waddle back to their patch of grass. No wonder they say geese make good guard dogs.
But like many phobias, this came from a bad experience he had.
“When I was little I was playing in the park and there was this swan. I reached out to touch it and it batted its wings against my head,” he explained. “That’s why I’m afraid of swans.” The image his words conjured up in my mind made me laugh even more. I pictured this tiny Asian boy with short, spiky black hair crouched down near a big white swan. As he reaches forward to touch its feathers I see the swan angrily flapping its wings about, over his still-crouching body.
Hmmm. Who am I to talk? I’m wary – but not scared - of geese after the time I accidentally disturbed a gaggle of them and they chased me around the park. I could not believe they could move so quickly and that I had to run to keep ahead of them. There was no where to go except for me to climb on top of the nearest picnic table. And even then, they surrounded me, angrily honking. Although I was now safe, I was left wondering how to escape them. In the end, I had no choice but to wait for them to calm down and then waddle back to their patch of grass. No wonder they say geese make good guard dogs.
Photo by Georges Seguin. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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