Dr. Evil's Face Your Fears series of caches will highlight common phobias (fears) that many people have towards common everyday things or objects. Some phobias are steeped in years of conditioning and survival instinct. Some fears come from childhood experiences. Some fears are just irrational but cause anxiety and reaction nonetheless. Dr. Evil thought it would be interesting to create some caches just to see how cachers react to certain phobias. Each of the caches are designed to exploit, expose, and trigger a phobia response (assuming the cacher has that phobia). Many cachers will have no issues with these caches and some may decide to just DNF and walk away. Dr. Evil may add to the series from time to time as he gets a notion to. Good luck facing your fears!
This cache is Musophobia, sometimes referred to as Suriphobia, or more commonly known as the fear of rats and mice. Musophobia is likely created by the unconscious protection mechanism of the brain. This fear is usually a learned behavior of children from their parent(s). Many people find the rodent's hairless tail revolting. This fear has existed since at least the times when the infamous black plague which killed about a third of the world population by rats and mice carrying inflected fleas. This fear could be the result of knowing the rats and mice tend to live in undesirable areas of urban environments such as sewers and garbage dumps. This fear can be triggered by the presence of a mouse or rat in a room or seeing them on television or moves. Extreme cases of musophobia may be triggered by the mere mention of mice and rats in conversation. The most common reaction to rats and mice are screaming followed by an involuntary flight mechanism to leave the room with the critter in it or jumping upon a chair or other higher ground object. This fear can include extreme anxiety, dread, panic, shortness of breathe, rapid heartbeat, sweating, nausea, fainting, and shaking depending on the individual's fear level.
For this cache you will have to Face Your Fear. I found a little guy ready, and willing, to guard my cache. Please be sure to put the cache back as you found it. You should be forewarned that his real life cousins have been spotted in this area.
Congrats to Utapao72 on the First to Find!