Ever find yourself behaving just the slightest bit oddly, but aren’t exactly sure why? For example, when I go to Publix (which is my favorite supermarket, by the way), I find myself taking a long and convoluted route through aisles. I have to stop myself and ask why exactly I’m doing that. And the answer is—to my surprise—I’m avoiding the Free-Sample People.
The friendly Free-Sample People are going to talk to me. Exchange pleasantries. And maybe give me some free food. And for some reason, no matter how good their chicken-salad-in-a-cup looks, I am terrified of the prospect of this.
OK, so maybe terrified is a strong word. But it is interesting to stop and analyze some of these mild, irrational—and often downright hilarious—fears.
A few other hidden fears I’ve recently identified include, but are not limited to:
Opening my trunk and finding a dead body inside. Not that I have any idea of how it’s going to get in there. But some nights I have seriously considered opening it just to make sure … and then I chicken out and don’t even look.
Running over furniture in the road. This actually happened to me once!
Sponges. You know, the damp sponge that’s been sitting in the sink for two weeks, growing bacterial colonies—yea, bacterial empires—as we speak? The one we rub all over our dishes to “clean” them? I’m afraid to even touch the thing.
A rabid fox jumping from out of a hedge and biting my ankles. Oddly enough, at one point this was actually a possibility, since there was such a fox running loose near where I worked. But the animal control people later said the fox died. Or did it??
Stuff in unmarked Tupperware in the back of the fridge. OK, this is a rational fear. You ever open one of those??
Going out shopping and then looking down to find I have forgotten to wear pants. (OK, surely I’m not the only one who’s afraid of this!)
So … what are you afraid of?
August 30th, 2009 - 8:48 pm
that sponge one hit very close to home. but that isn’t very irrational to disdain gross liquid retaining sea creatures.
How about being in a dark basement by yourself. but that isn’t very irrational either…
August 30th, 2009 - 9:25 pm
I’ve started thinking about what it would be like if all of these things happened to me in one day. For example, on my morning walk I get bitten by a rabid fox. As I’m rushing myself to the emergency room, I run over a picnic table in the road. The impact causes my trunk to pop open …
September 6th, 2009 - 7:04 pm
Funny about those sample ladies–my family would stop at Sam’s Club after church almost every Sunday practically for the sole purpose of getting all the goodies we could from the sample ladies. Good times.
My big irrational fear, actually phobia, is sandpaper/nail files. When people file their nails in my presence I want to tear off all of my nails and run out of the room screaming. I had to sandpaper something like 100 signs edges the other day and the whole time I had chills and goosebumps while I grimaced and clenched my teeth. It was horrible!!
During this sandpapering episode I found that some of the people I work with have weird phobias too. One of them can’t stand the sound of wet fingers over sterofoam. Weird. Wonder how many times that’s happened in his life. Another gets chills when the popsicle stick in a popsicle touches his tongue.
Okay, so these are phobias, now let’s talk like irrational fears…Let’s see. I don’t like walking up stairs with open spaces between the steps because a zombie might reach out and grab my ankle. (really shouldn’t have watched that movie when I was 7.)
Both my friend and I check the back of our car and under our car, just in case a “crazy” is waiting to kill us.
I think I told you this once but for a long time I have had this irrational fear about throwing up. I really don’t like throwing up. Some people seem to be just fine and dandy about that, but I really don’t find it to be an enjoyable experience if you know what I mean. So when I find myself sitting in a large crowd, sometimes I start thinking to myself “What if I need to throw up? I won’t be able to get out of here fast enough and then….” Once I start thinking about it, then I actually start feeling slightly unwell. So I spend the rest of the time trying to convince myself that I’m fine. This also happens to me when I go to “all you can-eat” buffets. My mom loved taking us kids there when we were growing up and her philosophy was “you better eat all you can so I get my money’s worth” So after eating an uncomfortably large amount of food, I would start just thinking about “what if…” Then I wouldn’t feel so good. So after every meal I would go to the restroom and wait for “just in case”. My sisters never understood this and thought something was seriously wrong with me, that I was bulemic or something. I wasn’t by the way.
Here is a good one–the mist that is made from flushing a toilet. Think about it. My science teacher in highschool told me that when a toilet is flushed it sends a mist 3 ft. into the air. Because of this I (a.) never leave my toothbrush out on the sink, (b.) always put the seat cover down before the flush, (c.) run out of a public stall before the mist can get me. Now would you call that irrational? I don’t know, seems pretty valid to me.
September 9th, 2009 - 4:58 pm
Swimming in lakes makes me happy to be alive. It’s the best thing there is and I do it as often as possible. However…
I’m terrified of 1. lake bottoms and 2. really big waves. Both make my heart pound and it feels like someone’s squeezing my throat shut when I see them.
Sometimes love trumps fear I guess.
September 13th, 2009 - 3:38 pm
Go to Aldi’s. No one ever offers you free food samples there. They just make you pay to use your shopping cart instead
September 29th, 2009 - 8:04 pm
I think I may have told you about my pyrophobia. It’s alive and well today, thanks, but it doesn’t control me like it used to…
I would rather have been cold than turn on a heater–it might catch fire.
I would not use the microwave–it might catch fire.
I would not use the toaster–it might catch fire.
I wouldn’t even look at a photograph or drawing of any sort of flame…
I probably should have seen a psychiatrist, but you will be happy to know that I like candles now, and can look a the forest fires in National Geographic. So now you know why I’m so weird.
I do confess, though, that when I was first learning to use my new gas stove and oven, I didn’t leave the kitchen for more than 40 minutes… just in case…
September 29th, 2009 - 8:07 pm
Allow me to correct the horrific grammatical ambiguity of the final paragraph–I stayed in the kitchen the entire 40 minutes…
September 29th, 2009 - 10:31 pm
Hee hee! I remember you talking about that …
In the movie “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” Aunt Josephine has these hilarious lines in which she explains all the stuff in the house she won’t use. She won’t turn on the stove because it could burst into flames. She won’t use the refrigerator because it could fall on her and crush her flat, etc.