the past perfect
My pathological fear of stinging insects kept me unstung until the age of fifteen, when I stepped on a yellow jacket while I was walking barefoot on the beach. The pain eclipsed my worst expectations. I thought I had caught fire; I thought I had beeen shot. I cried, I screamed, I hopped.... And the sole consolation for my suffering was the knowledge that my lifelong phobia had beeen justified.
Natalie Angiers, "Natural Disasters"