Serial killers–now THAT’s a bad way to go. Tied up in his basement, no one knows where you are, he wants to make you into a zombie and then eat your liver with fava beans and a nice chianti.
Death before i’ve accoplished what i’d like to do with my life.
Mine is completely idiotic, and therfore all the more maddening.
Spiders.
I’ve tried studying them, as a clueless form of self-therapy, and it didn’t help a bit. I recoil from even pictures of them. It’s bad enough being scared of things so insignificantly smaller than me, much less pieces of paper already. Talk about stupid.
But there 'tis.
And this from someone who’s had pet snakes, lizards, mice and rats.
Oh, and as long as I’m confessing my wimpdom, I’m scared of those creepy metal grates in sidewalks. I’m always sure someone forgot to latch them and they’ll collape if I walk across.
I have another totally useless fear but as far as I know it’s so stupid nobody else even has it.
Sigh.
I have the shark thing too. When I was a kid I could scare myself with the wash rag in the bathtub. Swirling it around, say "dooo-dump, doooo-dump, do-do, do-do, do-do, do-do. (think Jaws theme song)
Anyway, I never lived near the ocean, but the fear never went away.
Now I can be floating in Lake Michigan, in the Harbor, with a lifejacket on, 6 feet from the boat, water crystal clear, and after a minute or two, I do the potato bug.
I pull my legs up under me and ball up, and flap desperately for the boat ladder.
No matter that I know better, I just KNOW there’s something UNDER THERE.
I still get in once in a great while though, just to see if the fear is gone yet.
Roaches. I see one, and I immediately shriek and stumble away from it, all the while babbling and frantically pointing. Blech, revolting things. Doesn’t help much that I live in a nice, warm, humid area, and when it rains the biggies tend to find their way inside. Heh, times like that I keep a bottle of Raid by the computer and in my room. (Not that it helps much, since I run away too fast, but hey, it makes me feel better)
Also theres deep water. Deep water includes water that goes over my head. As in, the only time I have ever been in the deep end (12 ft) of my local pool was when I was taking a boating test. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience. I also was thrown in once, but I freaked out and didn’t talk to the “friends” that threw me in for the rest of the day, I just sat on a chair shaking. Made sure they felt like crap too, so I haven’t been thrown back in since.
Ignorance.
The other one is being trapped in a theater with no exits and Freddie Got Fingered plays again and again and again and…
I have a fear of extremely cold water. I am very afraid of going through ice, especially if I’m in a car. I’d take any other way to die but that.
Hmmm, I was hoping for something a little more … innocuous. All of these are very good fears, but if I spent too much (any?) time thinking about them they would be more terrifying than I’m looking for.
Maybe I should just stick with the shark fear, I mean it could happen. I could get eaten, especially if I was in an ocean or at one of those big aquariums or sea parks. At the same time, it’s unlikely enough that I won’t have to worry about it constantly.
Seeing what all of you people are afraid of just made me realize that the fear I was looking for was right in front of me all along. Honestly, I don’t know how any of you sleep at night.
I am pretty much over it now, but I use to darn near panic anytime I was stuck in traffic while on a bridge. I could envision the concrete cracking, and all those cars plunging onto to the interstate below, right into oncoming traffic. If the fall from the bridge didn’t kill you, the oncoming tractor trailer would.
Or how about werewolves? Wait until about midnight or later, then take the garbage out to the street without thinking there is a werewolf watching your every move. Now, walk slowly, back to the house without looking back.
Heh. No kidding. I mostly pull this on my 18-year-old sister, before she goes to bed I remind her that if she goes up the stairs fast enough the vampires on the first floor won’t bother with her. Of course this is completely ridiculous since she knows that not only do vampires not exist, but if they did they would find a better place to stay than in our living room, but it works every time.
Bizarre, but I share the spider and sidewalk-grate terror.
I’m so scared of spiders that I will not even squish them; I shut the li’l bastards in a room until I can recruit someone to to kill 'em for me.
Sidewalk grates? What if I fall down there, amongst the litter and grunge? I side-step, every time. And I’m sure it annoys the other Chicago pedestrians, but I’m not breaking my neck when that grate gives way.
On a related note - Burning to death
shudder
Coldfire. I’m afraid of the moderator Coldfire. If he says, “Oh, please,” to me one more time, I don’t think I will be able to get my breath back. Just the idea makes me break out in a cold sweat.
Oh. Wait.
(
Insects. Especially those that fly (yes, including houseflies… and yes I scream like a little wuss whenever I’m around them - but other than that I’m as masculine as you can get ;)). I’m fine with arachnids, though, which I find kind of strange.
And drowning.
Falling off a dam (on the high water side) and being sucked into the the turbine intake, swimming frantically while the spinning blades pull me closer and closer…
Hopefully I’d drown before being cuisinart-ed.
Pullin
Count me for not walking on sidewalk grates. I’m getting better, but I still can’t quite convince myself that it’s an irrational fear.
I’m also afraid that some day for no good reason at all I will drop something valuable onto the subway track just as a train is coming.
Commitment
Do you ever wonder if you are the only person in the world who has some bizarre fear then someone else writes in with the same one - it’s a great feeling to know you are not the only one who is crazy, I mean it’s good to know you share something with others…it’s even sort of a comfort in some way, even if it is the evil streetgrate or the grate over the subway…being run over by a subway after falling in one of those grates, eeeeeeehhh.
Had to know someone would come with the dreaded word though…you know the “c” word…comm…commmit…come on, all together now…committment.
Dying, hanging halfway out the windshield, due to the sudden stop from 70 MPH, caused by someone else not paying attention to the job of driving. It’s what keeps me from driving myself. I know it’s irrational. The last time I drove a car was 1974. Any time since then when I’ve had an opportunity to drive, it has been forestalled by the violent shaking of my knees. I’m a good passenger, though, and sitting in the passenger’s seat doesn’t bother me at all.
And snakes. Where I come from, I’d never seen much other than a garter snake. But now there’s always the possibility of a repeat of the day last spring when I went out to mow the back yard, and was stopped dead in my tracks, two feet from a water moccasin. Damn, that is the closest I ever want to be to a poisonous snake, ever again! Nor do I want to run so hard to get away from anything, either!
Wal-mart. I will gladly come to the house of any entomophobe and remove spiders, flies, and bees and return the creepy crawlies unharmed to their natural habitat if said entomophobe will take my shopping list to Wal-mart and pick up my shampoo, toothpaste, and other sundries.