Fear

Today I attempted to partially overcome three of my fears, with some success.
OK, when it came to the arachnids I failed dismally. I did attempt to bring the clean washing in off the line but unfortunately a spider had climbed into one of my socks and I didn't dare get it back off the line. Instead I stood in the garden and squealed pathetically before almost tearing my earring out of my ear when it brushed against my neck and I thought the spider was on me. When I went back into the kitchen and was clearing round I opened the bin to find there was a spider in there too. I attempted to solve this problem by throwing rubbish at it before shutting the lid and vowing to make someone else take the bin out next time.
Later on in the day though, when getting off the bus at the shops near my house I saw a pitiful looking dog wandering in the main road. It was wearing a collar but was unattended and looked to be in a right state. It wasn't very big, somewhere between a jack russel and a labrador in size, but it had a huge abscess on its back and one near its bottom, its fur was falling out and it was filthy and matted as it wobbled along. No one else seemed to be paying attention to it except for the driver of the car that was behind it on the road who was thankfully driving very slowly. So I realised that I was going to have to do two things that scare the hell out of me: approach a dog I don't know, and walk out into traffic. But I couldn't do nothing, so I walked into the road, grabbed the dog's collar and steered it back to the pavement. I was in a pickle then though, because once out of the road the dog refused to move any further with me, I couldn't let it go as it might have gone back into the road and I couldn't reach my phone to ring anyone to help me. So I just kind of squatted down next to the dog at the side of the road and kept one hand on its collar and the other at the back of its head so it couldn't bite me, as it seemed scared and in pain I thought it may go for me. I talked to it though, in case that helped. After a couple of minutes a man came over to help me, who had been driving the other way when he saw the dog and went to find a parking space. Luckily he was more of a dog person and he had a spare lead, and he carried the dog off to the local vets. Hopefully it will be OK.
Still, it was only afterwards that I realised that I had walked into a road AND handled an unknown dog and survived to tell the tale. So well done me!