Ailurophobia- say whaaa?

Alright, it's time to share with the world one quirky thing about me.. I have a fear of cats.

Now it's not an intense fear like some people have for spiders and snakes. I can see a cat and it doesn't gross me out or scare the hell out of me. I can even have them near me. But, I don't trust them. No one should trust a cat. (*Unless they are very familiar with that particular cat and it has been good for many, many years and has built up trust. There are exceptions.)

 I loathe the walking fur balls for a few reasons.

//1 Cats have sharp teeth and claws. I know a lot of animals with teeth and claws that I can be comfortable around. Cats have sharp teeth and claws and I don't trust them. It's called common sense people... If someone you don't trust is sitting near you, with a sharp knife in one hand and a broken bottle in the other, I'm pretty sure you're going to go ahead and leave that situation as fast as possible.

//2 I am allergic, as in VERY allergic. My girlfriend has four cats and I've visited her place twice since I moved away. She will clean that house from top to bottom, bleaching, sweeping, dusting, vacuuming- you name it. I will walk in and within five minutes I'm sneezing. I sneeze and she promptly yells, "Son of a bitch, already!!!??" I have always been allergic so I don't know how to handle a cat because I've never actually held one before.

This is how I feel when I'm super allergic to cats.. Drooling, snotting, half in a daze from allergy pills that aren't working!!!

  //3 Cats are completely foreign to me. I am allergic so I just don't hold cats. I have always kept away from them because I have to.. Cats are always drawn to me for some reason too.( I think they sniff out my apprehension towards them.) They will hop up onto my lap and this has actually happened a number of times in different scenarios. I never know what to do. I am always really uneasy and very politely ask the owner if they could please get their cat off of me. Like I said, I don't know how to handle them and plus, I don't trust them therefore I don't touch them.

Okay, so this picture basically makes me a liar. It is the FIRST time I ever held a cat. Such a moment that I made Rob take FOUR pictures of me....!

 //4 The stories!! How many horror cat stories have I heard in my lifetime!?!? A million- that's how many. I recently read a post from a fellow blogger and good family friend about her new kitten that just had me howling with laughter but also completely proving my point and theory on cats; they can't be trusted!! There's a show called "My Cat From Hell".. and the cats on this show are terrifying!!




(If you get a minute, check out this one. There were many, many horrifying cats with some serious deep seeded issues- this was just one..!)

//5  Bad experiences. We had family friends growing up that had a mean cat, Fritz. You didn't mess with him. I never did but he was pretty bad ass. I remember going into the bathroom once to wash my hands and I turned around and there Fritz was, half a tail, scratches and scars on his face from cat fights, blocking my exit. I just remember nervously yelling for my mom to rescue me. My dad had a hay wire cat named Tux that was just wild. I always slept on the couch at my dad's and Tux would just wait for my hand to drop in my sleep. He didn't ever do anything, he just spazzed out all of the time and freaked me out in the process. Max- my Auntie's crazy kitten that would attack my baby cousin's FACE. Yup, his cute little unsuspecting face. Terrified the crap out of me. My best friend, with her four cats... I stayed at her house two years ago on the pull out couch. Cats sleep during the day and yup- you guessed it.. they're up all night, or at least her's were. So I was going to sleep and I could hear them running, playing and fighting all around me. UNDER my bed.. it made my back arch in fear. I remember wanting to let them out of the house so I could relax and get some sleep but I was too terrified to get off of my bed in fear that one of them was waiting under the bed for my bare ankles to drop and attack. Shudder. No joke, I just shuddered.

 //6 Catmares. Oh yes, that's a word. I made it up, based on the nightmares I have of cats. I have no idea when these nightmares started but it has been in the last ten years. I used to have one for sure a month. Lately I have had a catmare maybe once every two to three months. I even know in my dream what is going on. I see a cat and I'm like, "Oh shit. It's a f**king cat, here we go. This is turning bad really soon." The cat is normal at first but then something happens and boom that cat is always and I mean always attacking me. Biting me, and not letting go. I pull it off and it's jaw latches onto another body part. It's awful and gruesome and seriously f**cking terrifying. Plus the cats in my dreams are like f**cking cat ninjas. They can get through tiny cracks under closed and locked doors. I am never safe. I wake up out of breath and always sweating my ass off. I am soaked after a catmare. It sucks...

"Sweet Dreams"

So yeah, I'm afraid of cats. They make me nervous. A cat enters the room and I am like, "Ohhhh you have a cat. Great." I instantly have the urge to bring my knees up to my chin and to hold onto my ankles and feet to prevent any temptations to these untrustworthy psychopaths. It's not their fault- they're cats! They can't help their psycho tendencies.. it's who they are....!

But I will be nice and admit that I have met one cat that melts my heart. Rob's parents have two cats; Buddy and Carling. Buddy is still kind of psycho. I remember coming home from the bar and I was pretty wasted. I decided I wasn't afraid of cats anymore and I started petting Bud. Buddy goes kind of creepy when you pet him. He gets really into every pet like he's never had human hands touch his head before.. When I decided to stop he clawed at me to continue and that was enough to give me a heart attack. But, Carling is a sweet cat. He is so lazy that even if I angered him he would probably just talk about me to his cat friends instead of do anything about it.

A very lazy, very happy Carling.

Oh and don't even get me started on BIG cats. Sometimes just to freak myself out, I go on Google and type in the words black panther and I work up my nerve to press ENTER. Oh. My. God. I just did it so that I could use the link on my blog and I am sweating. No JOKE! I am seriously sweating. The very image of a black panther snarling makes me want to pee my pants.
So there it is! My big fear of cats is out. Now Blogland knows of my weird, quirky fear and my strange never ending catmares. Please feel free to feel sorry for me... If you have a cat, be careful.... they can not be trusted..

Oh and I guarantee I'll be having a catmare soon just because I wrote about cats and googled black panthers AND searched so many cat images. Darn it!!