You’re not alone, my friend. You’re not alone.
I don’t scream. I tend to freeze – paralyzing terror, I tell you. Then, get the hell out of dodge. I honest-to-God have a true case of coulrophobia.
Moths.
I FUCKING hate Moths. Nasty looking creatures that stay stuck in a room wall and always seem to fly directly to your face when you poke them.
I really wished they all burned and died a horrible death.
Animated snot would be preferable.
I may be showing my ignorance here, but I’ve always kind of thought that some jellyfish are electric, and I don’t know which ones, so there’s the added danger of the animated goo being able to electrocute me.
Anything else that is living and slimy (slugs, snails, worms)
Mold (Is it really spelled that way? I always thought it was ‘Mould’) Especially on a decomposed tomato or other foodstuff.
Catterpillars.
edit: I was thinking: You’d think the idea of putting the flesh and muscles of a dead animal in your mouth would make you wriggle, but it doesn’t. In fact it’s a pleasurable experience. (as long as the animal has been heated up for a long time)
Leeches. More properly known as “Vampire Snot”, once they attach they don’t let go, they just keep streeeeetching out as you pull them until you douse them with salt and then you’ve got an open wound covered in salt and snotty vampire slime. I found a leech on me once, and screamed myself hoarse while hopping around and shaking my hands in despair, and that’s why I now refuse to swim in anything that hasn’t been chlorinated to a fare-thee-well.
You know that scene in The African Queen where Bogie comes out of the water covered with leeches, and how freaked out he and Hepburn were? You know that look on his face when he realizes he’s going to have to get back in the water? Yeah. I feel ya, hon. But he gets back in the water, and that, to me, is the single most Heroic movie moment in history, because he’s braving the legions of Vampire Snot to try to save the woman he loves. It’s more than any man’s ever done for me (not that my husband wouldn’t, but the issue’s never really come up).
Oh, I’ll eat them, just don’t play with them.
I didn’t ask for explanations of other fears. Little bitty stinging things? Please.
Ever been in a stampede? Scary I tells ya.
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
runs away screaming and crying like a little girl
Makes one wonder why, exactly, the island was colonized in the first place.
I guess they didn’t know what horrors awaited them.
I believe that in your neck of the woods it is properly spelt ‘mould.’
Spiders.
Many years ago one Sunday after changing the linens on my then 3yro’s bed I got bit by something on my forearm. I never saw it. The kiddo was staying at the grandparents’ house as I had to go into work because of a brief due to the state supreme court. I worked that afternoon, go visit the kid & parents. About the time I’m heading home to go to bed, I notice this huge lump. As any normal person would do, I squeeze it. I’ve never squeezed anything that made me want to throwup like that did (and I did a stint as a vet tech!). Mom doused it in peroxide and off I go.
The next morning, my arm is hot, red, lumpy, and painful, but I HAVE to go in. The brief had to be to Fed Ex by 4. I worked all day and at 4 when the brief left the building I decided that the red lines running up my arm into my pit and across my upper chest was a sign of something not so good. I couldn’t lift my arm without pain.
I left work and went to the hospital. Without even having the spider there, when I took off my blouse as the doctor was chasing the red lines from the nasty lump up, he knew I had been bit by a brown recluse. I spent 2 days on IV antibiotics and then another 30 days on pills. There were a bunch of wound check appointments and physical therapy/strengthening appts too.
I personally just wanted to burn the house down, but my father-in-law talked me into tenting it. I have never been into having that much chemical junk in my house but Dad found 7 other of those buggers throughout the house in a quick run through. He thought that there was a nest in the attic.
It was a month later before me and kiddo moved back into the house (with a 3yro, I knew I would have to wash all the walls, carpets, you name it to get the chemicals off).
To this day, no matter the spider, I’m screaming and running the other way.
As to the cows. They can be weird. I grew up in the country with a dairy farm butted up against our land. We would have to walk past the cows to get to the swimming hole. Even though they were on the other side of the fence, they would charge toward us. We’d naturally start running away, and they’d keep pace with us making this awful noise. When they got out, they’d even chase cars (okay that was fun to watch).
(That made-up bugger MIGHT have been for your benefit)
See … I told you they was scary! When I was 8 one fell down my back. Onto bare skin, (I was in my togs). I’ve never been the same since.
Have you seen Stand by Me, where the boys jump in a pond, all hot and sweaty after hiking?
The novella is even more cringetastic.
Me, it’s the slimy ones, the grubs, the worms, the slugs. I did manage to freak my boss out…I thought she was going to have a heart attack.
I was leaving for work and noticed one of those big colored wasps (black body, red wings) in the rosebush by the front door. I kicked at it and went on my way.
I drive to work, about 30 minutes. I drop off my lunch in the fridge, boot up my computer, and get settled in.
A director in another department whom I both work closely with and are friends with needed some info, so I dropped off the report he needed. My boss was in there, chatting, so we had a morning bull session about something.
Then, my boss takes a good look at me and starts wigging out. Apparently the wasp I’d kicked at had gotten tangled in my hair and was still flapping around. She actually hid behind a chair while the director grabbed a napkin and pulled it out of my hair.
Morale…when you kick at a wasp, make sure you incapacitate it. :eek:
Oh really? Well, that’s it, then. Just as soon as I can think of a comeback, it is on!!
For whatever reason my brother has Brown Recluses in his house, especially in his garage attic. Anyway growing up in the 70’s we got caught up in the beer can collection craze and since he had the most room we store them at his house in the attic.
For some reason He feels the need to clean and store them in the same boxes and then to wrap them in plastic bags. You know, just in case they might become valuable.
He wants to do this in the fall. I can’t even think of a better place for those bastards to hide than in empty beer cans. I’m so screwed.
We just had a drowning in my area where a kid was playing after a heavy rain and was sucked into a drain (the kind that spans a driveway). I’m going to have nightmares over that.
when I was a kid we had a city “pool” that was fed directly from a reservoir next to it. It was basically a pond with a dock at one end and staked logs for sidewalls(the abandon pool/pond is still there). Anyway, there were always urban legends of someone getting sucked through the dump valve. while this probably wasn’t possible the reservoir valves to the city water supply were in a tower sunk down in. For years the roof was missing and you could look down into it and there was nothing stopping someone from falling in and then getting sucked in. UGHHHHHHH. Talk about a liability. I checked the bird’s eye view of the area and the chamber of horrors has been filled in.
Me? Scream and run around like a little girl? That’s preposterous! I am the picture of manly fortitude…
Wait, did you say wasps?
AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!!!
I’ve never seen one IRL, but they scare the crap out of me. I know they’re about 3" long, but when I think of them, I get this image from some random early 70’s movie where someone was being chased by one as big a a horse. I do not want to be chased by a giant scorpion.
The only other things that make me instantly panic are: large, dark shapes in the surf and bear prints while hiking.
I actually saw a one-to-two foot long fish surfing inside a wave that was breaking in front of me. Except for scaring the crap out of me, it was pretty cool looking.
Snakes, rats, spiders, and most other creepy-crawly critters don’t disturb me at all. But I have a major case of heebie-jeebies when I see a stag beetle. When I was a child, one of these denizens of hell flew into my face. I’ve had nightmares for fifty years about stag beetles. Fortunately, I seldom encounter them. The last time I saw one, I screeched so loudly that a neighbor called 911 and reported that she thought somebody was being murdered next door.
Pratchett’s oblique comment about this in The Last Continent was great I thought.
Paraphrased, it has Death request from his library a list of harmless animals from “XXXX” (Pratchett’s parodied version of Australia) and what arrives is only a single page stating:
“Some of the sheep”
Also noted is the fact that there are very few poisonous snakes there, “because most of them have been eaten by the spiders.”
Yep - when I got to that part of the book I laughed until I cried. He completely nailed it.! You can keep your bears and cougars and rattlesnakes - we have shit that hides in your shoes!