A lot of things make me nervous. I am, however, really only afraid of four things (that I can think of off the top of my head):

1. Wind
2. Alzheimer’s disease
3. Left turns through traffic without a turn arrow traffic light
4. Anesthesia

The first three are all grounded in something obvious – seeing the damage a tornado can do, my fear of eventually being unable to remember my life, being behind the wheel of two cars that were t-boned and feeling an airbag slam into the side of my body while the driver’s door folded in around me, and so on. But the anesthesia? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m worried about never waking up, or never going under, or being unable to control the words that are coming out of my mouth or what, but it’s something.

Before anything even happened in the surgery center on Thursday, while I was waiting for the IV to be started, I had to take my glasses off because I had started crying because anesthesia is scary, man. It just is. But so is living with a kidney stone that makes it necessary for me to drive through the rain at two in the morning just to get home where I can lay on the couch and cringe and moan and beg the gods of extra-strength painkillers to put me out of my misery.

Yes, a kidney stone. I’d never really understood how much of a big, painful deal they were until I spent seven hours in the emergency room a few weeks ago waiting for someone, anyone, to offer me something to make me feel better.

But I’m good now. I didn’t die and the only anesthesia induced embarrassing thing I did was walk into the wall on the way to the bathroom.

And I got some free socks. With tread.

It’s the little things, really.