In my last Confessions post, I mentioned that I am totally terrified of bees and bee-like things. A pretty reasonable fear given the potential for, you know, getting stung and all that. But two other fears of mine? Not so easy to understand (or even explain!). First up, we have Mr. Bubble, that (maniacal) pink cartoon guy on the bubble bath bottles. I think the issue here is that my parents bought me a towel with Mr. Bubble on it when I was little and introduced it to me by draping it over my crib. Yeah, the sight of a huge Mr. Bubble towering over me was not exactly welcome! I have since recovered from this fear, but I'm still not his biggest fan. #GoAwayMrBubble #YoureDrunk

However, my other big childhood fear is still alive and well and makes even less sense. Remember the store Bradlees? (If you did not live near this store, I'm so jealous of your life.) Well, I'm terrified of its hellish logo. I am fully aware that this is an insane fear, and yet, I can't shake it. #realtalk There's no way I'm sullying this blog by posting a visual for you, but the Bradlees font is all 80s and blocky and maroon and menacing. Plastic bags from the store were covered in the logo, so maybe that's how this fear started? Or maybe the terrifying hugeness of the logo on the side of a building is what set me off as a little kid? Who knows. All I can say for sure is THANK THE LORD Bradlees went out of business because if one were still located ten minutes from my house, I would probably need to keep a paper bag in the car so I could breathe into it! But long after the Bradlees near my house closed, one remained open en route to the shore, and we would ALWAYS get stuck at a red light right across the street, and I would totally be covering my eyes like the "See no evil" monkey emoji. And this was in high school/college. #MaybeIDoNeed4Therapists #IsBradleesListedintheDSM

Remember when I was the oldest person at the orthodontist? Well, now that I'm dealing with a bum foot, I'm the youngest person at the podiatrist by about 30 years. I'm pretty much the only one there not collecting Social Security, although with my retainers and their dentures, we're kind of all on the same page. And when I walked through the waiting room with my purple cast, I swear one adorable old lady was eyeing it! I hope she went into the doctor and got a bright purple cast of her own! #OkLadies #NowLetsGetinFormation

A few weeks ago, I had to revisit a work assignment that I hadn't done in months, and slowly, all of the details came back to me. I found myself explaining what we needed to do without even fully realizing what I was saying--it's like this secret compartment in my brain got unlocked and took over. So in musing afterwards about how crazy it is when you remember something utterly random that you didn't even know was tucked away in your brain, I mentioned that I still know the quadratic equation song. Now, when you say something embarrassing like, "I still remember the quadratic equation song," people are going to want you to make good on that statement. And thus I had to serenade my boss with the good ol' quadratic equation song set to "Pop Goes the Weasel"--with my retainer in, no less. #HowEmbarrassing? #TheLimitDoesNotExist

Speaking of my retainer, I try to make sure I'm not wearing it when I have to talk on the phone, since it's hard enough to be understood with crackling connections and background chaos and whatnot. Well, this proved problematic when the podiatrist's office called me back while I was waiting for the bus, and it led me to basically spit out my retainer at the bus stop while trying to answer my phone. #StayClassy