# List your irrational fear. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 7, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948 "2007-03-07T14:26:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/81 "2007-03-08T22:51:57Z")
[QUOTE=SNenc] Everytime I go to a sporting event, there are invariably people throwing around a football in the parking lot. And everytime I go to a sporting event, I am _terrified_ that one of those footballs is going to hit me square in the face. If I walk between two people tossing around the pigskin, I’m either doing it very fast, my eyes darting from one side to another, or I don’t do that and I flinch, visibly, when I see a football in the corner of my eye. I think all my other fears are fairly rational or at least commonplace: midgets, rats, heights (though I did skydive once) etc. [/QUOTE] Oh…I _love_ midgets! It’s almost an obsession. I’m with you on the rats and heights though. I used to be fine with heights, but my “maximum high” gets lower every year. I don’t know if this is an irrational fear, necessarily, but I have recurring dreams of my hair and teeth falling out, “radiation poisoning” style. I just had one the other night. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/82 "2007-03-08T23:23:13Z")
Aside from arthropods and deep water, both of which I consider quite rational really, I’ll have to say gas-powered barbeque grills. Every time I go to light one of those bad boys I just know that it’s going to e’splode, throwing flaming chunks of me into the neighbour’s yard. I haven’t been able to to so much as go near one since the last time, when I got distracted when lighting it. The gas had built up a bit and when I’d stuck my handy-dandy flaming piece of paper inside the grate, there was a decent fireball that enveloped my hand! Nothing but some singed arm hair, but still. I want nothing more to do with those things, no sir. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/83 "2007-03-09T05:01:04Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] My husband and I run home at lunch to eat a sandwich and watch a little TV, and today we ran across this thing on the Discovery Channel where this guy was having eye surgery. He had the eye clamps like from a Clockwork Orange, and _then_ the surgeon made marks directly on his eyeball with this special ink (neato!), and _then_ the surgeon put this metal plate over the guy’s eye socket that had a hole in it so only the eyeball poked through, and _then_ they showed us this instrument they were going to use that looked like a tiny cheese slicer, and _then_ my husband changed the channel because I was bouncing around and hollering so much. 🙂 [/QUOTE] _faints_ Mr Neville would have had to change the channel really soon after they started showing eye surgery. I’d be squicked out of existence by it, and might very well throw up. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/84 "2007-03-09T05:10:30Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] My husband and I run home at lunch to eat a sandwich and watch a little TV, [/QUOTE] You’ve either been married too long, or are skipping something 😉 [QUOTE=Dung Beetle] and today we ran across this thing on the Discovery Channel where this guy was having eye surgery. He had the eye clamps like from a Clockwork Orange, and _then_ the surgeon made marks directly on his eyeball with this special ink (neato!), and _then_ the surgeon put this metal plate over the guy’s eye socket that had a hole in it so only the eyeball poked through, and _then_ they showed us this instrument they were going to use that looked like a tiny cheese slicer [/QUOTE] I had a video of that being done to my own eye! I don’t know where the video might be (I have a suspicion the lovely **badkitty** tossed it after one viewing) Being on the other end of that was very much like I expect an alien abduction (_sans_ anal probe) might go. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/85 "2007-03-09T12:53:32Z")
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] You’ve either been married too long, or are skipping something 😉 [/quote] Nah, we used to do the lunchtime quickie, but we live a little further away from work now so we don’t have quite enough time. 🙂 [QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] I had a video of that being done to my own eye! I don’t know where the video might be (I have a suspicion the lovely **badkitty** tossed it after one viewing) Being on the other end of that was very much like I expect an alien abduction (_sans_ anal probe) might go. [/QUOTE] You know, the main thing that struck me while watching that show (besides the ew! ew! ew!) was the thought of how difficult it must be for eye surgeons to have to get past the ew! ew! ew! and actually slice into an eyeball. Poor things. ---
**Author:** ![phall0106](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phall0106/32/5934_2.png) [@phall0106](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phall0106)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/86 "2007-03-09T13:24:47Z")
[QUOTE=Ellen Cherry] I just saw on CNN a report of a new glass-bottom platform that has been built out over the Grand Canyon – and KNEW that this would be the place to tell everyone! 😛 [/QUOTE] No freaking way. Not for a bizillion dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/87 "2007-03-09T14:09:34Z")
[QUOTE=gigi] Someone on the boards told about someone they knew who had some tiny metal or something stuck in their eye and then they had to sit there awake, with their eyeball completely still while the doc drilled into it. :eek: [/QUOTE] I had a nasty eye injury when I was pregnant and had to remain awake while they sewed my eyelid back on and stuck a probe into my tearduct to unblock it. Pretty freaky, to say the least. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/88 "2007-03-09T14:15:09Z")
My irrational fear is that if I don’t walk through the turnstile thingy at the metro fast enough, the little gate flap thingies will clamp down on my thighs and cause me pain. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/89 "2007-03-09T14:33:12Z")
[QUOTE=you with the face] My irrational fear is that if I don’t walk through the turnstile thingy at the metro fast enough, the little gate flap thingies will clamp down on my thighs and cause me pain. [/QUOTE] That actually happened to me once, at Kings Island when I was about 12. I had the most hellacious bruise on my thigh. It was enormous and deep, hideous purple. It the proceeded to turn every color of the rainbow, which sort of made up for the excruciating agony of the actual injury. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/90 "2007-03-09T16:33:01Z")
I’m afraid of medium heights. I repelled off a 300 foot cliff and jumped out of a helicopter into a lake. I rode one of those “reverse-bungee cord” rides that launches you into the air. But I’m almost pant-wetting terrified of being on a ladder that is more than a step stool. I **hate** climbing a ladder to clean my gutters. I’m afraid that I will fall off and not die, just be paralyzed from the eyebrows down. I also have an irrational fear that I will lose my mind. Sometimes when I’m trying to go to sleep and random thoughts go bouncing around in my head, I’m sure that it is the beginnings of dementia or schizophrenia or something. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/91 "2007-03-09T16:36:18Z")
[QUOTE=awldune] IMO it is perfectly rational to fear bees, spiders, and snakes. But I don’t have any problem with those. I fear grasshoppers and katydids. My fear is that they’ll jump on to me and… I don’t know and I don’t want to know. \*\* I also have an overwhelming loathing for roaches, but doesn’t everyone\*\*? [/QUOTE] (bolding mine) You’d think, wouln’t you, but here in Florida where the bugs are as big as Volkswagons, I know plenty of people who aren’t phased by them. Me, I completely freak if I see one, live or dead. I see those greasy brown bodies and I absolutely can not supress a 1950’s horror movie style screech. To the point where I’ve knocked on the doors of neighbors I’ve never met to ask them to kill them for me. I’ve gotten to where I can dispose of a dead one, after a few beers and much mental preparation, but if a live one is on the ceiling or somewhere the stream of bug spray can’t reach, I run away leaving a WOOKINPANUB shaped hole in the wall. I just discovered a new one the other night. I went to my very first hockey game and the whole time I imagined the sensation of the puck hitting me in the mouth. By the end of the game I realized my jaws ached from clenching my teeth. Oh, and certain buildings. [This](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sidesalad.net/archives/TampaSkylineBuildingsStormClouds.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sidesalad.net/archives/002887.html&h=300&w=399&sz=27&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scOV8x9baEpQIM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbeer%2Bcan%2Bbuilding%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den) one freaks me out so much I got a little woozy just linking to that picture. ---
**Author:** ![Cowboy8467](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Cowboy8467](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cowboy8467)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/92 "2007-03-09T16:48:50Z")
[QUOTE=you with the face] My irrational fear is that if I don’t walk through the turnstile thingy at the metro fast enough, the little gate flap thingies will clamp down on my thighs and cause me pain. [/QUOTE] Yea, I don’t know that that fear is all that irrational. I’ve been caught by those turnstiles and those bloody things do **not** retract when they hit you. I too have gotten bruises.. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/93 "2007-03-09T16:58:59Z")
[QUOTE=WOOKINPANUB] Oh, and certain buildings. [This](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://sidesalad.net/archives/TampaSkylineBuildingsStormClouds.jpg&imgrefurl=http://sidesalad.net/archives/002887.html&h=300&w=399&sz=27&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=scOV8x9baEpQIM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbeer%2Bcan%2Bbuilding%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den) one freaks me out so much I got a little woozy just linking to that picture. [/QUOTE] I get freaked out by buildings that have the first few floors made up of just the support beams, and many full stories above that. Creeps me out even though the rational side says the engineers probably know what they’re doing. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/94 "2007-03-09T17:30:21Z")
The garbage disposal. I swear to the almighty that I could turn off the switch, open the breaker, shut power to the house, the block, my town, or the entire frakking power grid on the East Coast, and it will STILL turn on and grind my fingers into handburger as soon as I stick my hand down through those slimy plastic teeth. And clowns. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/95 "2007-03-09T18:13:22Z")
[QUOTE=labtrash] The garbage disposal. I swear to the almighty that I could turn off the switch, open the breaker, shut power to the house, the block, my town, or the entire frakking power grid on the East Coast, and it will STILL turn on and grind my fingers into handburger as soon as I stick my hand down through those slimy plastic teeth. And clowns. [/QUOTE] _Handburger!_ 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/96 "2007-03-10T05:37:09Z")
> [@The Chao Goes Mu](#): > > What is with the fear of losing impulse control and flinging oneself off of a cliff or the like? I’m asking because it seems to be a common impulse. Dare I admit I’ve been terrified, myself, of taking a fit and hurling myself ass over teeth off a bridge. Edgar Allan Poe called it [“the imp of the perverse”](http://www.kingkong.demon.co.uk/gsr/impperve.htm). At least we know we’re not the first ones to have it… [QUOTE=Dung Beetle] You know, the main thing that struck me while watching that show (besides the ew! ew! ew!) was the thought of how difficult it must be for eye surgeons to have to get past the ew! ew! ew! and actually slice into an eyeball. Poor things. [/QUOTE] I went to a summer science day camp once, and they threatened to make us dissect a sheep’s eye if we didn’t behave. > [@labtrash](#): > > The garbage disposal. > > I swear to the almighty that I could turn off the switch, open the breaker, shut power to the house, the block, my town, or the entire frakking power grid on the East Coast, and it will STILL turn on and grind my fingers into handburger as soon as I stick my hand down through those slimy plastic teeth. All electrical things can still get you, even if you did shut off the entire power grid to the world. I’m not sure how they could, but they could. The rm command in Unix can do something similar. No matter how careful you think you’re being, it can still bite you in the ass and delete something important that you didn’t mean to delete. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/97 "2007-03-10T07:27:03Z")
I have a friend who will start hyperventilating and screaming if he touches foam. He was in a terrible car accident, and when he woke up in the hosipital he was being held down with restraints due to a broken neck. The mattress and insides of the restraints were made of foam, and he hasn’t been able to stand the texture of it since. ---
**Author:** ![Surly\_Chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Surly\_Chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surly_Chick)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/98 "2007-03-10T15:21:17Z")
[QUOTE=Litoris] \The sound of any buzzing insect. This is actually rooted in the fact that I was stung about 100 times by a nest of yellow jackets once. It sucked. [/QUOTE] Then you won’t want to click on [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=385303&highlight=Mighty+Lonk) link. [sub]er, I mean lonk.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/99 "2007-03-10T17:33:56Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] My husband and I run home at lunch to eat a sandwich and watch a little TV, and today we ran across this thing on the Discovery Channel where this guy was having eye surgery. He had the eye clamps like from a Clockwork Orange, and _then_ the surgeon made marks directly on his eyeball with this special ink (neato!), and _then_ the surgeon put this metal plate over the guy’s eye socket that had a hole in it so only the eyeball poked through, and _then_ they showed us this instrument they were going to use that looked like a tiny cheese slicer, and _then_ my husband changed the channel because I was bouncing around and hollering so much. 🙂 [/QUOTE] You don’t want to hear all about my eye surgeries for retinal tears, either the laser variety or the freezing variety. I’m proud that I just lived through them. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2007, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948/100 "2007-03-10T19:39:03Z")
[QUOTE=phall0106] No freaking way. Not for a bizillion dollars. [/QUOTE] Not for **2** biazillon dollars! Potato bugs scare the hell out of me. Especially stepping on them. I just know their spudletts are going to extract vengance upon me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-your-irrational-fear/394948.md?page=6)