We grow older, supposedly wiser and considerably more sensible. So why can the whine of a dentist’s drill still turn a perfectly mature adult into a terrified six-year-old? Jim Schembri investigates the childhood fears that refuse to grow up.

The wisdom that accompanies the onset of one’s golden years allows you, as a mature adult, to apply perspective and experience to many of the things that scared you as a child.

Getting girl germs, for instance. Or the boogeyman coming for you if you didn’t clean your room.

A big one was how stepping on a crack in the footpath would somehow snap your mother’s spinal column.

It didn’t, of course, as we all found out after trying it at least once, just to see if it worked. Especially if she kept going on and on about cleaning your room.

Responsible adulthood has cast most of the morbid fears that punctured the joys of childhood into the farthest reaches of our minds. There they silently drift into oblivion, never to trouble us again.

If only the sound of a dental drill was one of them.

When you visit a dentist, even for a simple procedure such as replacing a filling that yelled “Geronimo!” during the innocent munching of a toasted crumpet, all life’s experience telling you not to worry goes out the window.

Suddenly, you’re a scared six-year-old again.

Well, scared is the wrong word, really. More like mordantly petrified, especially once you hear that ear-piercing, high-pitched whine as the dentist fires up the dreaded Drill of Death.

You know by now there’s nothing to be afraid of and that the dentist hasn’t suddenly transformed into Laurence Olivier from Marathon Man. It’s just a routine dental procedure, for crying out loud.

Yet that counts for nothing as the drill gets nearer and nearer and the whining gets louder and louder.

Of course, you could shut your eyes. But what you can’t do is shut your mind’s eye as the drill presses against the precious surface of your tooth, filling your skull with seismic vibrations and the sort of dull, grinding cacophony normally associated with deep-core oil drilling.

It’s pathetic, sure.

But not quite as pathetic as all those other childhood fears that somehow survive the passage into later life.

Walking barefoot at the beach

You just know there’s a big shard of glass with your name on it hidden somewhere in the sand.

Waiting.

Bees

No matter what we learn about how valuable and important they are to the ecosystem that keeps us all alive, whenever you see one, you’re convinced it’s gunning for your jugular.

Spiders

They’re all deadly, no matter what all those stupid documentaries say.

Snakes

Same deal.

Offal

Tongues. Liver. Kidneys. Hearts. Tripe.

And brains.

Eating brains.

We even feed brains to babies.

What are we? Zombies?

Monsters under the bed

The dread lingers, though these days the monster isn’t a multi-horned demon beast with fangs and claws.

It’s a person from HR.

Swimming within an hour of eating

Precisely what is supposed to happen if you do so remains unknown because no Boomer has ever dared.

Seeds

We spit them out because they’re insoluble and can lead to indigestion.

Not because we still believe a tree will start growing inside our stomach and branches will sprout from our ears.

Not at all.