My very observant wife points out that in the limited number of posts I have thus far made, I have mentioned my fear of needles twice. Ah, so true; now I must come clean. I’ve never had this fear—which is actually called belonephobia, and includes all sharp objects—psychoanalyzed, but it really isn’t that difficult to figure out. When I was a strapping young lad in the single digits of my boyhood, it was discovered that I had a severe allergy to bees. Of course, the discovery happened the hard way, occurring after a sting on the face landed me in the emergency room. As a result, I spent six years of my life undergoing shot therapy. Shots in the arm, three times a week in the afternoons after school while all of my friends were busy living their lives, playing the deadly game of hide-and-go-seek my neighborhood was famous for. The injections rarely hurt; occasionally I would have a minor reaction that would involve swelling and heavy doses of Benadryl. Eventually I built up an immunity to bee stings (or at least they weren’t so deadly) but I developed an allergy to needles. So perhaps they represent a loss of childhood, having robbed me of valuable time to discover myself in the backyards of friends. I can never get that back.
