Halloween is time to confront fears

I feel a little like Bunny Foo Foo this week.

You don’t remember Bunny Foo Foo? 

I warn you, the little ditty might get stuck in your head.

It goes something like this, “Little Bunny Foo Foo hopping through the forest, catching all the field mice, bop them on the head. Along came the good fairy and she said, Little Bunny Foo Foo, I don’t want to see you catching all the field mice, bop them on the head. Quit it or I’m going to turn you into a hairy goon. The next day Bunny Foo Foo is catching the field mice and bopping them on the head. The good fairy came along and turned him into a hairy goon. The moral of the story is, hare today, goon tomorrow.”

No, I haven’t been turned into a hairy goon, nor do I bop field mice on the head. I do something far, far worse. I murder them.

A few weeks ago I noticed that there were droppings in the drawer under the oven. I cleaned out the oven drawer and disinfected it with bleach. A day or so later the droppings reappeared. That’s when I bought two mouse traps, baited them with peanut butter and set them in the drawer. It wasn’t long before we heard a snap and a commotion in the drawer. One down, how many left to go?

So far, it has been brown and white field mice that have lost their lives. Once we can go a week without an untimely death, I will once again clean the drawer and bleach it. Until then the pots and pans will be stored elsewhere.

I can’t rely on the cat to take care of the problem as she can’t get the drawer open by herself.

It is almost Halloween and field mice are simply wanting to get warm and find a safe place to spend the winter.

There are plenty of things to fear in this world of ours. The trick is to figure what can be dealt with by a few mouse traps or other simple solutions and what we can’t control.

The demons that plague us in this day and age aren’t as simple as a few field mice in the wrong place. The pink ribbons found everywhere in October tell us it is a month dedicated to finding a cure for breast cancer. Pink is the color we have chosen to represent a disease that has no clear cause or cure.

In an effort to keep us alive, scientists and doctors do their best to cut out the offending area, zap us with deadly radiation, and give us drugs that make us even sicker. Then we have to follow up with  being clamped into a machine that tests our resolve not to scream.

While this may eliminate the problem for awhile, the yearly test is also required to make sure the treatment worked. It is only after we receive that welcome letter that tells us that the cancer hasn’t reappeared that we can quit holding our breath.

In addition to health problems we read the news and far too often think, “There but for the grace of God, go I”. There are shootings that make me think the country hasn’t grown out of the Old West mentality of shoot ‘em up and ask questions later.

I have come to believe that any country that normalizes hate speech and mocks any and everyone is far, far scarier than the goblins, ghouls and ghosts that will wander our streets in a couple of days.

What are you afraid of? Is it the diseases that field mice may carry into our homes? Is it breast cancer and other health problems that plague us? Is it the fear that we will not have enough candy to hand out to whatever characters come to our house because we ate all the good ones? Is it the fear of strangers?

Halloween is the time of year that we give death and other scary things good poke. And sometimes, not often but sometimes, we find out that the things we fear are just as afraid of us as we are of them.