I don’t know about you, but I have what I call “irrational” fears.

Well… maybe the fears themselves aren’t irrational—it’s my reaction to them that probably deserves the side-eye.

Take bugs, for example.

They are icky, ooookey, and just plain yucky. In my humble opinion.

And if some unlucky insect happens to land on me? Oh boy, do I feel sorry for it.

I scream. I flail. I run. I perform what can only be described as an interpretive dance of pure panic trying to get it off of me.

That poor bug is probably thinking, Well, that escalated quickly.

At this point, bugs probably warn each other about me

I wish I could be calm and rational about it.

But when my dog is sitting next to me and suddenly I feel a tick (thanks to him!) crawling up my arm, I go straight into full panic mode. I fling it as far away from me as humanly possible.

Of course, that is the absolute wrong strategy, because now I have no idea where it is—except I know one thing for sure: it has a plan, and that plan involves finding me again.

I should calmly remove it and put it outside like a mature adult.

But let’s not get carried away.

That will never happen in my world.

A lot of people react the same way to their own fears—snakes, heights, tight spaces, needles, germs… we all have something that sends us straight into nonsense mode.

Every single time I say, “Next time I won’t be so dramatic when a bug gets on me.”

And every single time… I lie to myself.

Because the second it happens, all logic leaves the building.

I remember being on safari a few years ago when a bee flew into our jeep.

Now mind you, we had spent the day around actual wild animals.

At one point, a six-ton bull elephant came so close it nearly tipped our jeep over.

Did that bother me?

Not really.

But that bee?

Absolute chaos.

I was swatting, ducking, flinging my arms around, and basically trying to destroy it in every way possible before it could harm me.

After it finally flew out the window, my safari guide looked at me like I had completely lost my mind and said, “Peni, I cannot believe you reacted like that to a little insect when just a little while ago a six-ton bull elephant nearly knocked over our jeep, and it didn’t even faze you.”

Apples to oranges.

An insect takes priority.

I’m the same way about ants, but in a different way.

They don’t scare me—they make me mad.

Like irrationally mad.

The nerve of them. Just casually strolling across my floor like they pay the mortgage.

I go so ballistic that my poor husband ends up buying out the hardware store in ant traps and ant bait, just so peace can return to our household.

Honestly, I think the ants know exactly what they’re doing.

And I suspect they’re laughing.

We all have those little things that make us lose our minds, and maybe that’s just part of being human. Sometimes laughter is the best way to deal with the things we can’t quite explain.

—Peni

P.S.

Sometimes courage doesn’t look like standing in front of a giant elephant—it looks like trying not to completely lose your mind over a tiny bug. LilliMae’s Safari Hat reminds us that confidence comes in all shapes and sizes… even when we’re still working on it.