Eeeew. Serious heebie-jeebies. In fact, I debated just skipping by this one and not commenting, because I get all itchy even just thinking about them. Literally, physically itchy. A few years back, Orkin ran an ad on TV which made it look like there was a cockroach crawling on the outside of one’s TV screen. That thing nearly ruined my life.
Eyeballs. Anything eyeballs. My mom had cataract surgery yesterday. In the weeks leading up to her surgery, she described for me no less than 3 times exactly what they were going to do to her eyeball. I did not need that.
Huge, violent weather phenomenon (atmospheric, or oceanic). I mean, it doesn’t paralyze me with fear or anything, and it doesn’t always get to me but…sometimes, it just—it’s like I’m an ant looking over the edge of the grand canyon.
I’m terrified of butterflies. Really. I run away from them and will do everything I can to get away from one; I have been since I was a little kid, and I thought I had gotten over it last year… when my boyfriend and I went to the Science museum, and visited the butterfly pyramid. Yeah. I’m OK with the praying mantises and spiders and scorpions, and I let rats and mice crawl on me willingly, but I run like Hell from butterflies. I hate the way they jerk around in the air and seem to have no pattern to their actions at all, I had so many of those butter-yellow ones just fly right in my face when I was a kid.
I’m also afraid of large, indoor, open spaces with high ceilings. Sports stadium with retractable/open roof? Fine. One of those huge glass domes? My feet stick to the floor the second I look up, and I get shooting hot tingly feelings all the way up my calves to my knees. It happens in smaller places like really open multi-story shopping malls (I am terrified of parts of the Mall of America), but usually if I go somewhere mulitple times I can learn to “trust” it. I dare not go somewhere like a football stadium though, I think I’d just black out.
This drives me CRAZY and my mother does both of these things a lot. I can hardly stand to be in the same room with her when she eats.
Oh my god, there’s nothing worse in this world than a roach. I completely freak out anytime I see one. And that Orkin commercial pissed me off.
I haven’t thought about that in years but it drives me crazy, too. I use pens much more than pencils now, but I refuse to use an eraser all the way down to the metal. ~shudders~
I will not walk around any part of anyone’s house without socks on. It started when I lived in this rooming house for about a month that was really dirty. I can’t even talk about everything that was wrong with that place, it gives me the serious willies.
I cannot stand for my hands to feel “dry” and I try to keep hand lotion with me all of the time so that I can put lotion on my hands when they start to feel uncomfortable.
In southeast Georgia you see a lot of truck transporting logs to pulp and paper mills. I cannot drive behind one of them, for the same reason as the car tractors mentioned earlier. I’m afraid a log is going to fly back into my windshield. I’m actually afraid of driving beside them, too. I will speed up to get away from them, even if I have to speed up considerably and risk getting a ticket. I also don’t like driving between two big rig trucks of any kind and will avoid that as much as possible.
When I was a kid in San Diego, we’d sometimes go to Pacific Beach. I was always disappointed when the beach was covered with dinner plate-size purple and white jellyfish, since it kept me out of the water.
SCUBA diving up here in the PNW, it’s amazing the number of jellyfish I swim through. They’re all very small; the largest being about 40mm in diameter, and the smallest being almost microscopic. I wear a dry suit and hood, of course; so the only exposed skin is on my cheeks. I’ve never felt a sting, so either they’ve never brushed against my face or they have very mild stings. (Or it could just be that the water is so cold that my face is numb and incapable of feeling anything!) These guys are transparent, perhaps with a little bit of milkiness. Swimming through clouds of them is a beautiful sight.
A couple of months before I left L.A. Shayna, Spiny Norman, Scotticher, another Doper (sorry! I don’t remember who she was!) went to the Long Beach Aquarium. The jellies were mesmerising. I liked their bioluminescence. (Incidentally, we dove at night for the PADI advanced certification. Couldn’t see a thing without the lights on, but a wave of the hand gave a nice green sparkling glow. )
I don’t know if it is the same phenomenon, but I have some sort of inverted vertigo.
I was at a monument in South Africa which consisted of a long, beautiful sort of chimney.
When I stood inside and looked up I almost got a panic attack.
It just felt so wrong, as if I was falling upward.
Mine is not odd, but thankfully uncommon. You know that sort of tiny ridged, polarizing plastic that they use for psuedo holograms and three-dee pictures and such? The sound of a finger or fingernail running across that stuff unhinges my nervous system. Rub two pieces together, and I will tell you where my grandmother hides her money. Styrofoam, balloons and chalkboards don’t bother me a whit, but I’ve got it in spades for that stuff. And they make drinking cups out of it, and gift cards.
Roaches, while gross, never bothered me very much, until recently when I learned that a roach can live for a week without its head. Not only that, but a headless roach is SMARTER: according to this book I’m reading, it can learn to avoid electric shocks faster than its intact brethren. This got me thinking about all the headless zombie roaches that may be wandering around, and why the hell don’t they just die, because they can’t eat, or maybe they’re finding food and trying to mindlessly (hah!) shove it down the neck hole, and what happened to their heads anyway? ARE THEY EATING EACH OTHERS HEADS???
Somewhat related. I actually started using that handle way back on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 newsgroup, but I first became a fan of Sci-Fi/Horror/Monster B-Movies from shows like that.
I don’t like driving behind car carriers either, and I get creeped out being around any truck that’s carrying loads of lumber, logs, or anything that could come loose and start flying around on the road. And passing a semi is scary too, because I can almost feel the car being pulled under the truck.
I also hate it when metal touches my or anyone else’s teeth. Fork-biters will drive me from the table faster than anything.
The reverse vertigo thing is weird. I felt it once when I was at a state park, lying on my back on a picnic bench, looking up at the trees. I felt like I could go zooming off into space–creepy.
Oooohh! Instant chills! That, and the way chalk makes my hands feel, are mine. Fine, gritty stuff on my hands creeps me out badly.
I also hate the screechy scraping noise terra cotta planters make when you move them around on a cement patio. I can feel the sound up and down my spine. Brrr!
There was a very similar thread to this just a month ago or so.
Mine is being able to see underwater when the water is opaque from the surface; glass bottom boats, video footage of people scuba diving, underwater footage…it just gives me the willies. The worst is when you see footage where someone’s floating on the surface, and the camera can see half above/half below the water…:shudder:…
This one’s for loren too: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBMHS04X5E.html
Me? Well, not much anymore. I used to have a deep seated fear of the movie Tommy. My parents took me to see at at an inappropraitly young age. So…the bit with Tina Turner? and the coffin-lie thing with the needles? and the snakes? And Cousin Ernie and the ironing board and holding him under water? What were my parents thinking?
But for odd things…ABC gum. I mean of course it’s disgusting but for me it’s…really disgusting. I can’t stand the sight of it. I can’t stand the thought of the sight of it. I don’t know how people can take it out of their mouths and just leave it where people can see it. It’s obscene (and this from someone who considers very little to be obscence :)).
Wouldn’t describe it as a freakout, but I have difficulty using chalk or wooden pencils. Something about the scratchy feedback through my hand just makes me want to let go of the implement.
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