Fear! Scared! No way! There’s nothing I’m afraid of! Mom said once, if not a thousand times, “You’re not afraid of anything!” “Come Here! NOW!”
   I learnt early in life not to fear. I’ve faced sixty-foot waves, ragging oceans, hurricane winds, hailstorms, frigid waters of the mighty Bow River, bears, climbed mountains, looked for Sasquatches, Ya! I’m not scared of anything! OK! Maybe! Not everything!
   There’s this one fear. This fear comes early for some, others much later, when a person’s ruined for the rest of their life.
   For me, it came early, created by my older, note older sister, mother, aunts, and other would-be mothers. These mothers, who couldn’t control their mothering, smothered me with mothering to the point I gained this immense uncontrollable fear.
    This fear is based on numerous acute, non-scheduled, up close, and very personal experiences, which were the most embarrassing and life-changing moments in a young boy’s life, mine! This fear! Yes! I might as well get to it. It’s a deep overshadowing fear that forever stops the greatness that surpasses the greatest of the great.
   This fear is THE FEAR! It’s so terrible that no Latin word has been allotted, assigned, or connected to it by any psychologist, psychiatrist, university professor, college student, or civic servant because of its immense life-altering power. No one in their right mind wants to touch it.
   It’s! It’s! Let’s just say it’s a fear. Yes, a fear! OK! OK! I’m getting to it! It‘s a fear of walking! Yes, walking!
   OK! Give me a little space! PLEASE!
   Hey! This is tough stuff!
   Yes, it’s walking onto the stage.
   It’s a fear of walking onto the stage, to the center!
   Ya! I’m OK! I’ll make it! Ahhh! Ok! OK! 
   Yes! It’s a fear of walking onto the stage to the center, shaking hands, waving to the crowd, smiling for the cameras, kissing the babies, hugging the introducer, and bowing to the audience to find. Ahhhh! No! Way! To find! Yes! To find! To see my zipper’s down! ALL THE WAY! Not just a bit at the top. It's totally stuck at the bottom. Wide open!
   Here you are, the center of attention, all eyes glued on you, the spotlights revealing everything, and you cannot pull the zipper up.

   A downed fly is only part of this fear. The main part of this fear that demobilizes causes faintness of the mightiest of the mighty is your fly’s not only down, you’re..,
   OK! Yes! Yes! Why do they call it a fly?
   Fly goes back to the days of tall ships. When a sail catches the wind and fills to its fullest, they say, they’re “flying.” Flying over the world's great oceans, miles from the stage, crowds, spotlights, people, and older sisters.
   So, too, when a fly is ferruled and done up, it’s where it’s to be. But, when the fly’s down, un-ferruled, and the slightest breeze catches the downed fly, it’s like a tall ship in a gale, wide open, taking in all the wind it can.
   I remember both laces, buttons, and zipper. It was common for some unknown reason to mothers and older sisters, note older, that the strain on the buttons by trying to do them up is enormous and can break thread or button. When the fly had buttons, some preserved their fly buttons by only using one on weekdays and two on Sundays. Why! So, when the thread or button broke, they’d have others to rely on to close the fly. My heritage is Canadian. I must do all mine up completely.
   Here’s where my fear of downed flies entered my life. If I didn’t quite get all the buttons, buttoned. Have you ever tried buttoning buttons lower than your belt? You can strain your eyes right out of their sockets, trying to see the buttons and button holes to get them lined up. The buttonholes are hidden by one hand while the other holds the button, trying to find the buttonhole to put the two together. So, after an hour of trying to button the buttons, one gives up in total despair and continues down life’s road. All’s content, until one meets an older, note older, sister who’s acting like a mother, who YELLS so loud and so long, you instantly die, not knowing what’s happened. If the end of the world's come and gone and you missed it, yelling. From this alarm, neighbours three-quarters of a mile away know you hadn’t done up all four buttons.
   Why? Oh Why, was she looking there anyway? Embarrassing! Humiliating and downright nasty rude!
   Think about this! Here, you are in front of a crowd with half or more mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and the like, who are all looking - you know where - to see if the speakers fly is down or not. And your sister’s voice bellows over the thundering applause, “YOUR FLY’S OPEN! DO IT UP! STUPID!” Leaving you stunned and utterly speechless.
   Here you are; if you leave “IT” down, the women will not hear what you say as they’re fixated on the downed fly. And if you manage to get it up, they remember it was downed because of the tremendous shock caused by a bellowing sister. And you know they’ve participated wholeheartedly in this humiliating exercise because they have silly grins and twinkling eyes.
   Oh Ya! Why are you ginning?
   Men in attendance are caught in an immense dilemma of how to rescue the stricken speaker. They, too, don’t hear as they’re preoccupied by the rescue. All is lost. Sneak out! Hide somewhere!
   Now, if one tries pulling the thing up, there’s a one-to-one chance it will jam or get caught on something, like a shirttail. Where’s the pliers? Every speaker should carry a pair when they go to speak. Because one’s fingers aren’t strong enough to hold the zipper puller and un-snag it. While trying to lose the beast, don’t pull too hard or twist it as it’ll come off, and if it comes off, one might as well just die. Right there!
   So, to me, the lace, button and zipper are all in the same place. I’m convinced flys were invented by older sisters to cause grief and despair to innocent younger brothers trying to prevent humiliation and trauma in their lives.
   Check and check and recheck again and again, and again, your fly, as you see others doing uncontrollably. Because when you are the center of attention, and your zipper’s down, there’s no getting out of it when your older sister bellows out, “Your fly’s down!” Try as you might, no matter what you do, you will be remembered the rest of your life, not for words of wisdom or great humour, but as the one who didn’t check their zipper before walking into history and how their older sister told him so.
   Me scared! No Way! I ain’t scared of anything!
   Just remember, Flies will be flies! Older sisters, older sisters!