{"id":48679,"date":"2025-08-10T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T22:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=48679"},"modified":"2025-08-06T12:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T16:12:06","slug":"scaredy-pants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/scaredy-pants\/","title":{"rendered":"Scaredy Pants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"318\" height=\"424\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nancy-Whitaker-new-1.jpeg?resize=318%2C424&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-48632\" style=\"width:250px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nancy-Whitaker-new-1.jpeg?w=318&amp;ssl=1 318w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nancy-Whitaker-new-1.jpeg?resize=260%2C347&amp;ssl=1 260w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nancy-Whitaker-new-1.jpeg?resize=160%2C213&amp;ssl=1 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We all have certain things that frighten us. You are not alone,&nbsp;because I am scared of a mouse and chickens.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My fear of mice stems from living in the country and each time Granny or Mom saw a mouse, they would start praying to God to help us and jump up on a chair or the&nbsp;piano bench. Once up on a chair,&nbsp;they would both scream and scream for hours. So I jumped on a chair&nbsp;and I screamed too. Being scared of a mouse has been a long time fear. Mice are all right as long as they stay outside and party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The first house we bought after I got married, was&nbsp;an old house that we fixed up. Right behind us was a field where mice hung out.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One day I spied one and jumped on a chair and screamed. &nbsp;It was very&nbsp;traumatizing and my answer to the problem was to go buy the biggest mouse catcher contraption&nbsp;&nbsp;there was.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When I got back home I put the trap under the bed. Now it was time to wait, cover my head and pray we got the big huge mouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The next day we heard the trap go click click and&nbsp;I said, \u201cPraise the Lord , we got it.\u201d We also heard a noise that sounded like the critter was pulling the trap around. Nope did not catch the mouse,&nbsp;but our dog,&nbsp;Dino, had messed with the cheese baited trap&nbsp;and got his tail caught in it.&nbsp;It didn\u2019t seem to hurt the dog, but he ran around the house growling at that thing on his tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Later I was working in retail and went to the back to put the trash in compactor. I pushed the lever to make the compactor come up and lo and behold, there was a mouse sitting on top of it. Screaming and yelling I ran back into the store where a security man was on duty. He saw me shaking and crying and said, \u201cDid you see a thief back there?\u201d I said , \u201cNo something worse.\u201d Ready to get a suspect, security said to me, \u201cWhat did you see and do we need to get some help to catch him?&nbsp;I said, \u201cOh no sir,&nbsp; it was a big mouse and I will never go back there again.\u201d He could not believe I was that frightened of a little mouse.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Chickens, I don\u2019t care for either because clear back my friend got flogged by a chicken at the fair. From that time on I was scared of chickens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One day my grandma had one hanging on the clothes line and did her thing to get it ready for dinner. I never ever got over that poor chicken with no head running around.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Another time I had to drive into the country to do an interview. I pulled up in the driveway and to my surprise all of these chickens gathered around my car.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I could not get out of the car with those chickens lurking around so I honked my horn to scare the chickens. They strutted around flapping their wings and making noises. After about a half hour, my interview lady came out the door and said, \u201cDon\u2019t you want to come in?\u201d&nbsp;I replied, \u201cYes but I am scared of those chickens.\u201d Laughing she said, \u201cOh come on, hold my hand and I\u2019ll walk you in.\u201d Speaking of chicken, I sure am glad I am not one. I would probably be in a fryer at KFC or a chicken shack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Are you scared of a mouse or a chicken? A snake? A bear? A&nbsp;opossum? What is your biggest fear?&nbsp;Let me know and I will give you a Penny For Your Thoughts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker We all have certain things that frighten us. You are not alone,&nbsp;because I<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12771],"tags":[12838,12839,26560],"class_list":["post-48679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-pennies-for-your-thoughts","tag-nancy-whitaker","tag-penny-for-your-thoughts","tag-scaredy-pants"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Nancy-Whitaker-new-1.jpeg?fit=318%2C424&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-cF9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 21:22:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48680,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48679\/revisions\/48680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}