Katie Faces Her Fear

Along with most of her fellow members of the fairer sex, Katie is afraid of spiders (arachnophobia). To be honest, most people I know are afraid of spiders to some degree, though I am not bothered by them most of the time. But Katie confronted her fear of spiders one afternoon at the Butterfly Pavilion -a local insect museum- when she bravely held Rosie the tarantula in her hand. For her valor, she received a sticker bearing the motto "I Held Rosie". Laudable though her achievement was however, she had yet to face her real fear.

Katie's arachnophobia pales only in comparison to her mascotophobia -her fear of mascots. As I was, for a short and confused period of time, a psychology major, I attempted to trace the origin of this irrational fear. I hit psychological paydirt when I discovered that Katie was once viciously harassed by Rapidman, the now defunct mascot of Colorado's soccer team, the Rapids. Rapidman is best described as a large, blue Slim Jim with white, foamy hair. The photograph below is of Rapidman posing with two fans; I'm sure that his Slim Jim-ish attributes are evident.


Several years ago, while volunteering at a community event through work (a charitable "walk"), Katie was creepily followed for some time by Rapidman, who apparently took an interest in her. Despite her efforts to ignore him, Rapidman persistently followed her, flashing repeated "thumbs-up", attempting to give her "high-fives", and moon-walking behind her. Needless to say, Katie was severely traumatized.

As I learned more about Katie's mascotophobia, I was concerned to find that it was not restricted to "mascots" per se, but overlapped into a fear of various other costumed persons, for example: Stilted-folk (e.g., the always popular Uncle Sam on stilts at Fourth-of-July parades), Subway's sandwich-man (stands along the road and waves at passers-by), and of course, the Easter Bunny. I was hesitant to relate to her that I myself was initiated into the world of these costumed folk when I was 19 years old and desperate for money. Imagine her horror:


But yesterday we had a breakthrough. While at the mall, together with Mindy and I, Katie mustered up the courage to face her mascotophobia. As we rounded a corner, we were greeted by none other than Hello Kitty standing, not surprisingly, in front of the Hello Kitty store. I suggested to her that she face her fear and have her picture taken with Kitty, only to find that Katie was walking the opposite direction. However, with her sister's encouragement, Katie was talked into cautiously approaching the giant Japanimated feline and having her picture taken:


Has Katie truly beaten her fear of mascots? Will she now have the fortitude to have her picture taken with Changwon's lovable city mascots, Chang and Won? Only time will tell, but yesterday was certainly a milestone.