so someone who was working on the lawn outside of my office left a weedwacker outside the door, and my having an irrational fear of weed wackers ( afriend of a friend had his leg amputated because the wire wrapped around it…or something, anyway, they scare me.) seems to be a source of great amusement to my coworker.
so i am wondering what things people are afraid of (besides the usual spiders etc;)
two of my biggest fears are weed wackers and garbage disposals…eeek
Personally, I don’t think this one is stupid at all, but everybody who finds out about it seems to think it’s hysterical.
I am absolutely terrified of clowns, always have been. I’ve mentioned it on the SDMB once before, and from what I can tell, it’s not all that uncommon. Someone once said it has something to do with the unnatural fixed expression they paint on their faces. That may be a big part of it for me as well.
On the up side, clowns are relatively easy to avoid, unlike weedwackers. I just avoid the circus, mcdonald’s commercials, children’s birthday parties and Halloween parties. I can live with that.
Honey, you are not alone! YOU ARE NOT ALONE! I sometimes post on another (private) message board, and we are all Clown-phobic.:eek:
Them some scary motherfuckers.
I don’t know why, but I never liked clowns & circuses. But I love Cirque du Soleil.
I was married, I ain’t afraid of nothin.
When I was in grade 1, I was mortally afraid of a propane torch my dad had left on the stairway. I finally asked, tremulously, if he could turn it so the nozzle faced the wall. He did, while assuring me that I couldn’t be hurt by it when it was turned off.
Maybe I took his warnings against playing with his DIY stuff too seriously. Maybe it was Freudian.
I fear that I will be unable to park in an empty space and I am right frequently. Something to do with distance or depth perceptions I suppose. I also get freaked out on long high bridges. I fear being next to the wall on the interstate while being passed by an eighteen-wheeler at 70 miles per hour.
You got an hour or two?
For one thing, I’m Obsessive Compulsive. I have all sorts of stupid little fears.
However, one thing that bothers me-shipwrecks. For some reason, seeing documentaries about shipwrecks just freaks me out. I’ll have nightmares where I’m in my room and I’ll look out the window and instead of the front yard and the street I’ll see nothing but black ocean and the wreck of the Titanic about five feet away.
shudder
Moderator’s Note: Moving from Cafe Society to IMHO.
Spiders are our ** friends!!!** The spiders in our house keep things like silverfish under control without spraying poisons around. And, except for the Black Widows, they are harmless to us. And even if a Black Widow bites you, you probably won’t die.
You want stupid? Not stupid fears exactly but along the same lines. How about worrying about things that have already happened?
When I was just out of high school a friend and I got jobs painting the metal work on the slate roof of our local State Mental Asylum (that’s what they were called then, and worse, much worse). It was three strories up and neither of us had any conception of safety lines and other such elementary trappings of the steeplejack trade. For years after, I would get to thinking how narrow an escape from serious consequences it had been. Couldn’t get to sleep for hours.
After WWII was over in Europe I was on a project to fly Douglas A-26 aircraft back to the US from Germany. One night I was flying observer with a guy who got vertigo and really messed up bad. It was just plain luck that we got down without his killing us both. I also used to relive that and couldn’t get to sleep for hours.
I have finally gotten over such nonsense. It didn’t happen so I realized at long last that there’s no point in going over it again and again. But it took a long time.
I am absolutely terrified of flying on airplanes. I had never been very comfortable with flying, and then I had an incident in 1997 where my family was stuck in an airport during extremely bad weather. They kept putting us on the plane, then deciding the weather was too nasty to fly through and making us all get off, etc. We ended up staying an entire night in the airport.
The idea that we came so close to flying through a really severe thunderstorm, and that next time they might just decide to save some time and have us go ahead and take off, just snapped something in my mind. On the return flight, I was shaking and could barely open my eyes, and I have never gotten on a plane since. Good thing I love highway driving 
I realize that driving is statistically less safe than flying, but I do have some rational reasons for my fear:
If I think the weather is too bad for driving, I can choose not to drive. On the other hand, one might be convinced to get on a plane when common sense dictates it’s not a good idea.
Both when flying and when driving, I constantly worry about possible mechanical problems and I notice every change in sound and smell. But I also know that if my Pontiac craps out on the highway, I can pull over and call AAA. Not so in an airplane. I can’t stop myself from thinking about mechanical problems in general, and the thoughts that go along with that in airplanes are much more unpleasant.
Being in a plane crash sounds like one of the worst possible ways to die. You get to sit there and think about what’s about to happen for a few minutes before you hit the ground. In a car crash, it’s usually just “Uh-oh…BANG!” and the worst is over.
-Andrew L
Wide open spaces freak me right out. I’m not entirely sure if this would be considered a stupid little one or not…or how many people actually have it? Basically, I’ll be in a field or something and I’ll get all nervous and start turning and looking in all directions half expecting someone/thing to be there. I guess it’d be the opposite of clostrophobic. I’m not sure if this would be agoraphobia or not as I’m not really afraid of outdoors - just wide open spaces.
when i was younger, i was certain that there was some kind of evil manifested in the doorhandles on a wardrobe at my grandparents house :eek:
For the clown haters out there I have a reading suggestion. Read IT by Stephen King. Trust me, you’ll like it
Slee
::Ducking and running::
I strongly dislike clowns. They’re grinning spectres of death with bloodstained lips and hair which is the color and has the attitude of hellfire.
My stupid fear is of going into loud, crowded places like clubs or bars. It makes me want to close my eyes and then find someplace out of the way. Everyone looks so comfortable and they can hack it but I just can’t handle it.
I’ve said this before on the SDMB, but I’m deathly afraid of tornados. Sure, it’s not a totally stupid fear, but I have absolutely NO NEED to be afraid of them. I live in a tornado-safe area, I’ve never seen a tornado in real life…
Yet every second night or so [without fail] I’ll have nightmares about them… just looking at a tornado picture makes me want to vomit. Don’t even think about letting me watch the movie Twister shudders…
Is that stupid enough for you?
Ah, if I could get off the subject of clowns for a moment…
My terrible, stupid fear is that I’ll be in some intolerable place and NOT be able to kill myself. I’ve worried about this over and over. In fact I once had a dream in which I discovered the way to kill myself without doing anything physical (i.e., I could do this whle completely bound) and I woke up feeling incredibly relieved; “Oh thank heaven,” I thought, and I felt great until I realized it had only been a dream, and I went back to my usual funk.
And yes, I realize that this is all a symptom of my life-pattern of always having an escape route. And still, it’s comforting to have an escape route, and terrifying to not have one.
Well, again, probably not a “stupid” fear, really, but I have always hated traveling through the Lincoln Tunnel. For those not familiar, it’s a tunnel that goes underneath the Hudson River for car traffic entering Manhattan.
When I was a kid I knew that the tunnel went underneath the river, but I had always thought it was like “just underneath” the river, you know, the water was just behind those white walls of the tunnel. As I got older and realized that the tunnel actually was beneath the river, that is, tunneled through dirt, well that was even worse.
I never get claustrophia except when I have to go through that damn tunnel. My breathing trouble starts at just seeing those gaping maws (3 of 'em) just waiting to suck you in. Doesn’t help that there’s always slow traffic while approaching so you get to really torture yourself more. I’ve always been fortunate, at least, that it’s never been slow for the actual travel through. And I do so love seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I use that metaphor a lot for different things, probably because it has true meaning for me.
The basement in my parent’s house. (it’s unfinished, sections appear to be dirt wall - though I’m not sure that’s true. Musty smelling, dim, etc)
It’s stupid, really stupid. When my brothers and I were little, we used to play down there, never a problem. The washer and dryer are also down there. I think it started when the circuit breaker would trip on a regular basis, knocking out the lights, but only in the basement. Then someone had to go down there and flip it, so the washer would continue the cycle. Pitch black, you had to know your way through it. It was about the creepiest place I knew, and I convinced myself there was always someone waiting down there. Ugh. I’ve got the shivers just thinking about that place.
I think this is quite a common one as well, but I’m afraid of a bird flying overhead and pooping on me. Whenever I see a bird flying above me, I’ll instinctively throw my hand over my hand and duck. And if I’m in a car with a sunroof, I’ll scuttle over so that I’m out of range - and the very thought of a convertible. urgh It’s not so much that I’m scared of the poo itself, but more that I don’t want people seeing me with crap on my head.