Do you have any irrational fears? I don't mean regular old stuff like "the dark" or "burglars"... I mean weird stuff like price stickers or pineapple chunks. Lay it on us. We can take it.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Answers

Let me answer my own question... My fears are price stickers (when they're on the floor or stuck to counters and stuff) and roaches. And grasshoppers. And that song on Pearl Jam's Vitality called "Hey foxymophandlemama, that's me."

That's all I can think of right now.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I'm scared to light matches.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I can't wash dishes. I know I am a terrible woman for this, but I can't bring myself to touch a plate or utensil that has been in someone else's mouth, and I can't touch cold food. I lived with a friend for a while to help take care of her grandmother, and one of may daily chores was to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I didn't want my friend to know what a freak I was, so I would put on the latex exam gloves that the nurses would leave. I still got creeped out by the different food textures, but at least it wasn't on my skin. And that, is my freak confession for the night.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I'm terrified of roaches, but those things that live in my basement, a cross between a cricket and a spider, are the worst. Not only do they look nasty, but those suckers can JUMP. I can't even think about them without shuddering. And Gwen, enquiring minds want to know why you're scared of price stickers.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I'm scared of whales (or big water things in general), clowns, other people's feet, the monster under the bed (shut UP!), flies and maggots, food more than a day old, open doors on unlit rooms, antique dolls, birds, fish, dead bodies, sitar music and Egyptian mummies. Yeah, I'm a nut.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Escalators (only down not up) and crossing against the light. I'll do it but i don't like it.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

This will probably be deemed a little subversive but my irrational fear would have to be very old people... and teenagers. Okay okay its not so much a fear as a dislike and yes I know I am going to be old one day (well I hope) but still. Teenagers; to me that is obvious' they are terrifying!!!

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

G-force, that's not an irrational fear as much as self-preservation. :-)

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I don't like to call people I don't know on the phone.

Hey! How did your price stickers end up on my kitchen floor and counters???

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I am really afraid of wind and cows. I once tried to overcome my fear of cows by forcing myself to stand in a field full of them for fifteen minutes. I managed the fifteen minutes just fine but the fear's still there.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

This will disturb you gwen but i often won't take price stickers off of product packages that i plan to keep because I want to remember the design. Sometimes I've even kept just the stickers. In fact i have a little scrap book of just stickers removed from fruit and vegetable produce.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

I'm scared of insects, bugs, arachnids (those are spiders, right? If not, then I meant spiders), etc. If it has more legs than a cat, I'm scared of it. Last week at work I wouldn't use the bathroom before I left because my boss put a spider in there that I made him kill, but he wouldn't flush the toilet because he said he didn't want to waste water.

I'm also scared of people.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Forum administrators finding out who I am.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

My irrational fear came upon me some years ago while I was watching the homecoming parade for the University of Iowa in Iowa City. There was a low flying plane buzzing (it seemed to me) the tree tops and pulling a Go Team! banner. I felt like the plane was going to crash on me any second and I immediately began to think of places to go for safety. I was able to snap myself out of it but still for several years I became uneasy whenever I heard the sound of a low flying plane in the area.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I am afraid, deathly afraid of spiders.... and I can not sleep in a room with the door closed! Weird I know, You should hear what the front desk at hotel says when they call to tell me to close the door to my room.... LOL

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I am very, very afraid of bugs. I am certain that some day when I'm old I will have a heart attack when imagining that a bit of lint on my arm is a bug, because my reaction now is bad enough. I mean, I *feel* like I've had a heart attack. Anyway, so, roaches, ants, earwigs, and silverfish are the worst. The strange thing is that I LOVE dead bugs. My husband received a nymph stick insect as a gift that is about 7" x 3", not counting wingspan. It occupies a place of honor in our living room.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Wing chun, I used to be afraid of lighting matches. Lighters too. Until one day when my friend refused to light my pipe for me. I was around 27 years old. Need overcame fear fairly easily, it only took me about half an hour to work up to it. I still can't light a match normally by striking it against that little strip on the matchbook, though. You have to hold your fingers way too close to the tip of the match for that.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I'm completely terrified of lighters, but I'm not so bad about matches anymore. I'm so glad I've never smoked.

I'm a wee bit afraid of escalators, because when I was little and my Gramma and Grampa took me to the mall, my shoelaces once got caught in between the steps and I thought it was going to suck me in and kill me. And sometimes when I'm standing on an especially tall stretch of escalator (like the ones at Jacob's Field in Cleveland), I can't help but imagine what would happen if I leaned back and lost my balance, falling backwards down the escalator.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Earwigs.

And, that giant slug things will fall on my back and take over my brain. This is from reading Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters while I had a fever at age 12. And I used to live in a house with a scary basement that you could totally imagine slugs living on the ceiling in.

Joanne

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

See, y'all, I don't think being afraid of bugs and spiders is irrational. I think it's a purely biped response to all those LEGS. I'm afraid of possums, garbage disposals, and walking over grates.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I'm afraid of falling on my face and having my nose-bone (technical term) plunge into my brain and kill me. I'm afraid of getting a paper cut on my eyeball. I'm afraid that if I go to sleep listening to a Walkman, I'll strangle myself with the headphones. I'm afraid that everybody will thing my web journal sucks (yes, shameless unsubtle hint for readers and compliments).

--Rachel http://www.citygrrl.com

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I'm afraid of knives, skewers, newly sharpened pencils -- basically anything that is sharp or pointy. I have an irrational fear that they're going to fly into my eyes. My boss likes to gesticulate and stab the air with a pen or pencil when we have meetings. I end up leaving her office hyperventilating and completely ashen-faced because I'm sure whatever is in her is going to fly across the desk and into my eye.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I'm afraid of getting sucked into the closet a la Poltergeist. I can't sleep if the closet door is open, and any time I sleep in a strange room I plan out elaborate escape routes just in case.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Gayla: I swear, your post made me shudder. Crap! I'm shuddering again just thinking about it! Produce stickers are the worst. I don't really know why. But here's an idea: have you ever been to an old, run-down house in which there were produce and price stickers stuck all over the counters and tables? Because the inhabitants spent years removing stickers and being too lazy to carry them to the trash? (No, I didn't grow up in a house like that, but I've seen a few.)

Matchbook matches suck. I never use them.

Pearl, would you wear real (dead) scarab beetles as earrings?

Sybil: I already know who you are.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Oh, yeah... scrnwrt, the worst scene in the whole movie, to me, was when the boy's getting sucked into the tree. Coz he's BAREFOOT! Shriek! Vomit!

(If he'd been wearing shoes, the man-eating tree would have been okay. It's not like trees have teeth or anything.)

Clowns aren't an irrational fear... look at the bitter old bastards who choose it as a vocation. Stay away from clowns, y'all. They are evil.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Earwigs, ugh, I hate them too. I'm also terrified that one of those tent caterpiller nests will fall in my hair. I know the odds are about a trillion to one, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Unattached hair (disattached?). Hair is fine while still connected to someone's body, but let one of those babies get loose, and I'm freakin'. Like you're taking a nice, relaxing bath (candles, music, etc.), and suddenly you spy a HAIR floating by. I must get out immediately before that thing has a chance to touch my skin. And ventriloquist's dummies. They will come to life at night when you're peacefully sleeping in your cozy bed and stand over you with a butcher knife and plunge it right into your heart (am I the only person alive who has seen "Hugo," THE scariest movie ever made?). And midgets (with apologies to any extremely small people who may be reading this). I'll stop now, before I sound truly insane ("kinda insane" I can deal with).

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

birds and chickens...they're too feathery and fluttery. Cows Bec?

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I have no irrational fears. All my fears are completely rational. For example, papier mache. I hate the way it feels, all wet and slimy. Wet and slimy things in general, especially cold, wet and slimy things. Like snakes. They make me afraid.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Lizards, but there's actually a rational explanation involving my dad, his best friend, a bar, some schmoo's House of Reptiles across the street from the bar and a monitor lizard. Those huge flying roaches people insist on calling "Palmetto bugs" in Florida. The Count on Sesame Street. Getting to close to trains because my family told me if you got to close to a train when it was going by, you could get sucked up under the wheels. I was in college before I realized that was against the laws of physics.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Mike TTG, snakes are warm and dry and soft, never cold or slimy (unless refrigerated in a bowl of pudding). You'd be shocked to pet one, they feel really nice. My irrational fears border on compulsive behavior (well, who am I kidding, they ARE compulsive behaviors)-- I have to hang my clothes in the closet, in the same order, facing a certain direction (different for each item of clothing), on the same hanger every time. If I pick something up, I have to put it back in the same place and position from whence. I'm afraid that if I disrupt the "order" of inanimate objects I encounter, Something Bad will happen. It's a really shitty fear. It's enslaving.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Snakes feel like muscles in tight leather.

I don't know what an earwig looks like, but the name is enough to gross me out.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I'm afraid of propane tanks, having to deal with electricity (like fix something electrical, and most bugs(especially earwigs, roaches and preying mantis). Oh and anything that flies close to me. Also heights in general well not so much going up, but coming down is quite a chore. Often someone has to come and retrieve me.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

maggie! Me too! I am afraid of pointy things. Sometimes through breathing deeply and just not thinking about it, I can get through tasks, but I have, in the past, been reduced to quivering when faced with sewing on a button. My irrational fear also extends to very sharp *lines*. For example, the edge of the cupboard above my sink is often disturbing to me when I try to wash dishes and I have to rest my forehead on the cupboard before I can go on.

It's very odd.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

My biggest irrational fear is not just guns, but having anything pointed at me...rubber band, squirt gun, toy bow & arrow...I have to be really brave to catch a ball even. I think this fear comes from either 1) my mom always doing that finger poke in the chest thing or 2) I was killed by a gun of some sort in a previous life. I am also unreasonably afraid of the Bay Area, from San Jose to Santa Rosa to Oakland. I feel to uncomfortable there...nervous and out of sorts. Lately, I've developed a fear of falling down stairs.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Oh, I almost forgot. When I was a little kid I had an irrational fear of the unknown comic. Now I tell people that and they don't know what I'm talking about.

He was scary though.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Well, sask, of COURSE I know what you're talking about, but could you explain anyway for the people who might not?

(heh.)

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

What a jackass I am! I'm sorry, Gwen. The Gong Show was an old television game show. There was a panel and a parade of terrible 'talent' acts. One recurring act was the 'unknown comic'. He was a stand-up comic telling really bad groaners with a paper bag over his head. If I happened to be in the room when the unknown comic came on the air I would stand and scream until someone came and turned it off for me. It WAS scary. But maybe not stand and scream scary.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Gwen's right, clowns are scary.
For my third birthday, I spent the night at my grandparent's house. The next morning they brought me home and told me to knock on my front door. When I did: Auuuugh! Clowns started running out of the house!

My damn hippie parents thought I would enjoy it, at the time. Obviously they did not pay enough attention to my likes and dislikes, because I totally freaked out.

Then we had clown cake on clown paper plates and Kool-Aid in clown paper cups, and everything of course, was wrapped in clown wrapping paper.

My boyfriend's aunt loves those Emmett Kelley porcelain figurines, so I always beg him to keep the visit short so I don't feel their evil eyes watching me.

That Insane Clown Posse does not help the situation. I was at King's Island (amusement park in Cincinnati) the other week, and some boy had on the wickedest clown t-shirt ever. The clown had *fangs*, I tell you! I kept my face in my boyfriend's shoulder until we couldn't see the kid anymore.

I think I've shared enough.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Word on the grasshoppers, Gwen..... Ew. Plus Santa Claus is really scary.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I've always been afraid of matches, and catching myself on fire in general. I've learned to use lighters oiut of necessity, but I don't even try to light a match anymore.

I'm also scared of jello molds with gross foreign objects in them, papier mache, midgets(I know that's not PC, but I know little people who aren't midgets, so I have to clarify), and those gross people who run the carnie rides at my towns Octoberfest every year.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Sask, I am freaking out about the unknown comic. I was afraid of him when I was little, too, but I never knew what he was called. Oh my shit, this is weird. My Dad even cut eyeholes out of a paper bag once and put it on, and I started screaming because I was too little (read: stupid) to realise it was still my Dad. I had the same reaction once when he put on a pair of those Groucho Marx glasses, and ended up screaming and crying.

Anyway, I'm also afraid of putting my face over a sink or bowl full of boiling water, like you're supposed to do to steam open your pores. I always feel like the water is going to splash up in my face suddenly and scald me. It might help, though...

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I am scared of chickens and pigeons and seagulls. My boyfriend took a horrible picture of me cringing from seagulls at the beach, but everybody thinks I have sand in my eye when they see it, cause I look so freaky.

i also have a fear of balloons popping. like, i can't stand for someone in the same room as me to manhandle a balloon in any way. yikes!!

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

lilipili, I said this before in another forum - there is *nothing* irrational about being afraid of the monster under the bed. This is a *rational* fear held by all right-thinking people.

The god-awful "firebrats" we have in this part of the country give me the willies. The biggest one I ever saw was about two inches long; they have more legs than should be legal (billions and billions). They are icky, icky, icky.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

You should in fact fear pigeons. They're rats with wings. And nasty to boot. I've gotten rid of most of my fears, except June Bugs... and crawdads... and every other hardshelled bug type thing. I love snakes though. They're a hell of a lot nicer than pigeons. The other fear I have, but I don't know how 'irrational' it would be considered, is undercooked meat and meat with veins. I have to pick meat apart before I'll eat it.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Tracey, what's a firebrat? I think I already fear it. I also fear centipedes, but I consider that rational cause nothing should have that many legs.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Aside from seriously disliking fish and monkeys and birds, I can't think of any real fears (not that I'm not scared of shit, but I just can't think of any). I know I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to driving on a highway and making sure I'm in the right lane waaaayy before the exit ever comes. I can't just cut in at the last minute.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Geese and other large birds terrify me. Spiders really freak me out too, and I read a story in the Times-Picayune about a roach that got stuckin some guys ear and he had to go to the emergency room to have it removed. The doctors who treated him did a study to determine the best method of removing roaches from the ear and published it! Yuck yuck yuck. I had to sleep with earmuffs on fro months after reading that. Actually, now I'm going to have to pull out the earmuffs again.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

But pigeons have those pretty iridescent feathers...

Gwen, I would not wear real (dead) scarab beetles as earrings because I don't wear earrings that are or represent a real object. For some reason people always buy me earrings that look like little people or teapots or cats, and I can't wear them. I can't. But I think what you were asking is if I could deal with bugs on my person if they weren't alive. Well, I wouldn't get the willies. So if I were the sort of person who would wear scarab shaped earrings in the first place, yeah, maybe I might wear real (dead) ones. If they were encased in acrylic or something. Cause otherwise they would just start flaking and turning to dust and that would be icky.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

It's not my fear that is unique but the degree of fear. I am currently living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, half way up a mountain. I carry a rifle with me when I walk because there have been so many bears spotted down low on the mountain this year. I sleep with a canister of bear pepper spray next to my bed in case a bear climbs in a window (I'd sleep with the rifle next to me but my son sleeps in my bed and I don't want to wind up on one of those sad anti-gun commericals). No big deal, part of my life in rural American.

So, today I'm driving my truck down the mountain when I notice a mouse scampering along the bottom ledge of the front window. I slammed on the brakes and had to do a few minutes of deep breathing before I could force myself out the car to deal with the damn thing. I am scared shitless of mice. I cannot deal with them in anyway whatsoever.

Bears, no problem. Mice make me want to run screaming. Go figure.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I hate low heights. Low heights are defined as approximately four feet to about twenty to thirty feet depending on the environment (Are there fluffy pillows at the bottom? Is there a strong wind?) and my mood. If the fall would almost certainly kill me, I'm not bothered by the idea of falling. I'm just freaked out by the thought of being severely injured.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I have a fear of rubber balloons. I hate them because I always think they are going to pop. I cannot stand to watch someone blow one up because I always think that they are going to blow it up too much and the KABLOOEY. I like mylar balloons, though.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

I am afraid of eating popsicles...I think it's mostly the wooden stick, just the thought of it scraping across my teeth or tongue makes every hair on my body stand on end (I'm shuddering just writing this). When I *have* to eat one I'll usually nibble and slurp around the edges until I get dangerously close to the stick.

Oh, and professional diving...ever since what's-his-name cracked his melon open I simply cannot bear to watch once their feet leave the platform!

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

oh god. all I can think about now is "meat with veins". shudder.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Laura A, firebrats are kind of centipede-like, so you have reason to fear them. They're bugs (well, duh) with long, skinny bodies and a gajillion legs. When they're small, they're bad enough - they look like long, skinny spiders with too many legs. When they get to about the two-inch size, their legs look like they're about twice that length. They must like water, because they always seem to show up in the bathroom (mostly, in the *sink*, and let me tell you, that is one critter you do not want to have looking you in the eye as you bend over to wash your face). They run like the wind, too.

I'd never seen them before I moved to this area (southeastern Pennsylvania), and I hope I never see them again after I move next year!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I have an irrational fear of walking into a public restroom, pushing open the door to a stall, and finding someone dead on the toilet.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Firebats sound like some of the many spawn of Satan.

Bean, sorry, but: HA!!

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

cubby (Derek, is that you?), I am dying laughing at you -- no offense or anything.

I'm afraid of tater tot casserole.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Jackie, you obviously didn't grow up in Nebraska. Tater tot casserole rules!

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I forgot my biggest one! I have a great big hairy fear of driving on steep surfaces (and living in San Francisco, I get to deal with this fear plenty). I actually have nightmares about it. The fear of verticality ties in nicely with my fear of parking perpendicularly on steep hills. I am always positive my car will flip over and tumble down the hill.

Laura-who-has-the-fear-of-the-SF Bay Area-- I can TOTALLY relate!! only diff is that _my_ Weird Locational Fear spans most of NorCal: from Petaluma, north, all the way to the California-Oregon border. I get exactly the weird uncomfortable squidginess feeling that you described. God it's a relief to know I'm not alone! No one ever understands that fear/discomfort when I share it.

Gwen, yer a goddess for starting these kickass topics.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Klee! Are we kindred spirits? Not only are you not alone, but my mother shares the northern California fear! and we've both felt very out-of-place and alone, what with all the "ooh, the Golden Gate! Fisherman's Wharf!" tourists in the world. I can't believe that you LIVE THERE!!!! I had heard rumors while living there that there is a sort of "devil's triangle" of negative energy that encompasses the area we fear...I wonder?

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Klee, I have nightmares about the car flipping over backwards on steep hills too. And I don't even live in San Francisco.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

OK, now I can't get RID of the popsicle stick shivers..... OOOoooogggh.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

This one is odd (i hope): I'm afraid of starving. I keep food on my person, in my car, and have a full drawer in my desk at work with Top Ramen, tuna cans, crackers, salt, pepper, catsup packets, trail mix, etc. People at work think I'm weird, but when they need a snack, they are all up in my drawers. I don't keep, like hamburgers or sandwiches in my purse, just zip-lock baggies with crackers and vitamins, and mints and stuff. I've been this way since I was 17 and was driving and ran out of gas and had to wait for someone to come get me and was really hungry. I have water bottles, Nilla Wafers, cans of tuna and Cheeze-its in the trunk of my car right now. I know I'll never eat this stuff, but it comforts me that it's there.

I'm also terrified of potato bugs - anyone ever hear of those? In Spanish, I believe they are called "Ninos de la Tierra" which means babies of the earth, which is exactly what they look like: little fetus's buried underground. EWWWWW!!

I thought I was the only one afraid of driving up steep hills. I have nightmares of driving my car on a roller-coaster - it sucks. I'm making a weird face right now, cause I'm all weirded out.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Laura, I had always heard that semi-trucks cause such a draft that it can be dangerous for motorcycles. I've never tried to determine this empirically however. Maybe your parents heard that trains do the same thing. My dad worked for a railroad and I was told never to get near moving trains because there can be ropes or stuff flaying off them that can hit you. That is true. Gwen, my phobias are so bizarre I'm kind of afraid to tell anyone. What if, very unlikely, someone at work happens to read this and decides to torment me? OK, I'll start not too weird. I'm afraid of swimming pool drains (just great for someone who also likes to springboard dive). Some news show last year validated my fear however because they pull a vacumn and have done very, very gross things to people. OK, I am a scientist. Keep in mind that the definition of a phobia is an IRRATIONAL fear. I know that. I have tried all kinds of stuff to get rid of this, but I can't. I have a phobia of tissue paper honeycomb party decorations. You know, the kind that unfold. If you'll notice, many times they are in the shape of something living, fish, turkeys, etc. I feel that they, no matter what their shape, have life. It is a visual thing also. There is something about the geometry they have and the holes. I am also phobic of paper pop-ups (paper and similar triangular geometry). I have a dear friend who is a graphic artist who LOVES those things. She is very accepting. Bad news for the parent of a 7 year old who loves pop-up books. I'm separated from her dad. All the pop-ups are over at his house. Most of them are from my in-laws (a little passive-aggresive here?). I have generalized these fears to quite a few things too numerous to mention. There, I did it. I am basically an intelligent, normal, (if not slightly neurotic) individual who functions well in society. My mom visited last week. She makes me really anxious. One night I dreamed that I opened up her freezer door and the freezer was stuffed full of round and oval honeycomb balls. I shut the door but they kept sticking out so I tried to poke them back in with something. No hidden messages here. I have heard of a worse phobia. A dorm student was afraid of cotton balls. Her roommates thought a bag of them in her bed would be funny-NOT. Please don't get me folks. I've seen "gift boxes" that when you open them, spring loaded "harmless" honeycomb balls fly out. I would seriously die.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I am terrified of potato bugs too. When I was five years old I had a fever so my mom was trying to get me into a bath of coolwater. Well, I hallucinated that the tub was crawling with potato bugs, and screamed my head off. She couldn't figure it out, and I was so hysterical I couldn't talk. Thank god she didn't force me into that tub, that would have been pretty traumatic. So my motto is always take your kids seriously, just to be on the safe side.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Bean, I have sort of the same thing. I always check behind closed shower curtains (even my own) to make sure there's nothing back there - no corpses, no spies, no giant squid, etc. I'm not sure what it is I'm worried will be behind that curtain. I just always need to check.

Gwen, earwigs are hard-backed beetle-y things (I don't know if they are actually beetles or not) with pincers on their behinds and long feelers. They smell bad. They like damp things so if your house is infested they will surprise you under towells and stuff. I really really really fucking really fucking hate them.

Joanne

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

I'm still afraid of whatever is under my parents basement stairs. Driving on icy roads. I'm petrified of getting varicose veins. And clowns.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

i have a fear of dentists. not really of dentists, but rather of a specific procedure- frenulectomy. -ectomy, as in the removal of; frenulum, the little fold of skin under your tongue that holds it to the bottom of your mouth. ewwww! i like my frenulum right where it is, thank you very much. i know i would never have one (its only done to small children), but it scares me anyways.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2000

earwigs are also known as pincherbugs (at least that's what we called them as kids). the 'tierra-fetus-in-the-earth' bug thingys are potato bugs, also known as Jerusalem Crickets (swear to god, not making that up). Potato bugs scare the living crap out of me, even though they move so slowly there is no possible way one could ambush you. Part of what makes them so creepy is the way they hitch along so slowly. *shudder*

Neurotic Vicki, I'm honored you shared with us. It makes me feel a lot better to know I'm not the only one with bizarro fears. I would never put honeycomb decorations in your bed, I promise. :)

I had a big fear of getting my braces off in 12th grade. I was positive the ortho was going to snap my teeth in half when he popped off the glued-on brackets. I'm the only person I know who dreaded getting her braces off.

My friend's sister has a fear of cylindrical objects. The fear increases with the size of the object. Once, on the hwy, she found herself behind a flatbed truck that was loaded with huge cement tubes and she had to pull off the road to calm down. Drinking straws make her uncomfortable, but she can deal with them a little better.

I _like_ this thread. I feel like I'm with My Peers. :)

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Hummingbirds. Because my dad thought it would be neat for me to stand holding the hummingbird feeder while they buzzed around my head. Their pointy, razor sharp nose-beaks thrusting dangerously close to my eyes. All i could do was stand. Stand so very still. I could not even scream....

I just looked up the word "beak" in the dictionary to make sure i spelled it correctly and this is the definition: a bird's horny projecting jaws. ohhhhh gooooodddddddd!

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Yikes...I have the popsicle stick fear too. and the hair in the bathtub thing...disgusting. My roomate's new boyfriend leaves his hair EVERYWHERE in the bathroom (and he leaves the toilet seat up too- gross). I also hate, like, if am at a public swimming pool, and I go into the bathroom, and the floor is wet. That grosses me out so bad, cause like is it pool water? did someone pee on the floor? how do you know?

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

I'm terrified of going to Debtors' Prison. Yes, I know it doesn't exist anymore, but my parents told me about it when I was a kid.

Lighting the gas pilot lights, especially in an oven. I've lived here for a year and a half, and have yet to use my oven. (At least I don't have to clean the thing!)

Things blowing up. Yes, my parents always tried to keep us kids in line by telling us "Don't touch that! You'll make it catch on fire and it will explode and burn the house down!!!!!" So, as a result, I'm always afraid my car, stove, anything electrical, gas stations, etc., will blow to bits if I get near.

And the thing about pointies flying in your eye? I thought I was the only one with that...I can't deal with it if there's a place setting across from me and the fork is aimed at my face. I have to reach across and move it. (My friend Karl loves to torture me with that...) And I have to have certain things just so...or, yes, some catastrophe will occur and it will be All My Fault.

Maybe I just need a lobotomy...

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Amber -- because of your fear of both popsicles and hair in the bathroom I must tell you this really gross story about me:

After a night of insane partying and drinking, i came home and promptly started puking my guts out. I had to take off all of my clothes because the coolness of the bathroom floor against my bare skin felt so good. I lay on the bathroom floor, naked, and my boyfriend walked in. He was sympathetic. He asked if i wanted anything to make me feel better. I replied weakly, "a popsicle please." He returned and waiting patiently for me to finish my vomiting, he handed me the popsicle. I took a few licks and then it dropped. On the floor. The bathroom floor. I don't clean the bathroom that often and sober, i had often noticed the pubic hairs and head hairs and other abso-fucking-lutely disgusting things that collect and live on a dirty bathroom floor. I picked up said popsicle, wiped it off (with my puke-covered hand) and continued eating it. There i was naked, licking a hairy popsicle, and loving it! My boyfriend was so sickened by what he had seen me do he had to leave the room. It is the grossest thing i have ever done.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Alisha--ewwww!

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

When I was little my (older) sister and I were watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The Oompa Loompas scared the dickens out of me, I had nightmares for days. Just when I was almost over it my sister whispered something in my ear just as I was getting under the blankets: "The Oompa Loompas are under your bed". Bitch. Is it possible for a 4 year old to have a nervous breakdown? I was afraid that their little orange, pudgy hands would grab my ankles while getting into bed. To this day I still take a flying leap to the bed after turning off the light.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2000

This was a fear I had until adulthood. I'd just kind of kept it quiet because it was easy to avoid. I was afraid of making copies with the lid of the photocopier up. Very afraid. I once went with my husband to school to copy some notes and while I was chatting away with my back turned he turned proceeded to make a copy with the lid up all the way. (He didn't know about my fear.) I didn't notice until the blinding flash of light.

Then I screamed and staggered over to the far wall. He was like, "what the hell is wrong with you?" "The copier! How could you?!" "what? copier?" "I feel sick."

Of course later on I just felt stupid.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2000

I have a completely irrational fear of Bloody Mary. You know, when you turn the lights off and look in the mirror and say Bloody Mary three times? I can't go to the bathroom with the lights off at night. I don't like to sleep in rooms with mirrors.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2000

Alisha-gross! But I hate to say, that sounds like many of the nights I have had, so I can't say you're too gross.

Erica, I have the Bloody Mary fear thing, too. I can't look into mirrors in the dark for fear I will see 1-Bloody Mary looking back at me or 2-I will see the Candyman looking back at me.

I also think the drink, Bloody Mary, is quite disgusting as well.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

I had to think about this for a while. I am ready to acknowledge my fear of being hit in the eye with a gravel while driving with the car windows open. If I see gravel flying around, I'll shield the corner of my eye. I'm also really afraid that I'll see a dead body when I'm driving through the woods at night. I live near a national forest and there have been a few murders there through the years. I'm afraid I'll be the person who finds the body.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

Cubby, I'm scared of the Oompa Loompas too!

I'm also insanely afraid of centipedes. I have always hated them and been horrified by their nastiness. One time my sister stomped a huge one, and I swear it screamed.

I drew myself a bath the other day (bubbles!) and when I sat down I was swishing my hands through the water? And I felt something in the water, which I thought was a dried out piece of soap? And I picked it up?

AND IT WAS A CENTIPEDE!!!

I'm still making "ick" jerking motions with my hands as I write this. There is still a water stain on my bathroom ceiling from me spontaneously levitating out of the bathtub.

Ew.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2000

Clowns - but so is everybody, so they should be illegal.

Walking down stairs - sounds crazy, but I'm always bloody terrified I'm going to trip and go down face-first.

Airlines losing my luggage. I had a panic attack about this one at Heathrow yesterday.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Alison, I'm also worried about finding bodies. But the reason I bring it up is that I have a friend who, as a child, used to read accounts in the paper of "the body was found by a woman . . . " and think to herself, "how do they do it?" So she would go out looking for bodies. There was a field near her house and she thought she'd spotted one several times but they all turned out to be sticks.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Clowns are bad.

I'm afraid of centipedes. I dislike the slimy outdoor variety, but they don't freak me out as much as the fuzzy, fast-moving, prehistoric-looking indoor variety. They are WRONG and bad and if one should be unlucky enough to enter my house, instant death is the result.

I also fear the creepy life-like dolls QVC is always hawking. Don't people know those things come to life at night? I wouldn't want them in my

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

house. Sorry, my browser is cutting off my replies.

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Yeah, saskatchewan, and you know what else? A couple of years ago there was a big search on in my town for a missing woman. It was suspected she committed suicide by drowning herself in a lake at our university. Eventually (after the lake was drained) some little boys found her body while playing in the lake's tributary. Poor little boys!

-- Anonymous, June 20, 2000

Holy shit, just *reading* about the Bloody Mary thing made my hair stand on end. I remember the exact moment, and everything about it in eerie clarity, when that whole thing was explained to me in third grade on the playground. And the picture of it in that horrible book that is inexplicably available to children in the public library: "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark." The illustrations in it are gruesome and horrible. (Later the Candyman fear was added on.) BTW, for fellow Bloody Mary sufferers, there is something that will make you feel better -- read some history about Queen Mary of England, which is who the Bloody Mary thing is modelled after. Watch _Elizabeth_, the movie. She was plump, staid, and not at all likely to some back from the dead. It is unlikely to help with your fear of mirrors (or at least, didn't help me with that) but does help with the actual fear of Bloody Mary as an entity.

Nonetheless I would never do the whole dark + mirror + chanting thing. Do I look stupid? No, I do not.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

...and I forgot to mention the other stuff I'm scared of.

Wasps and bees, because I've been told I'd probably have an allergic reaction to their stings, but have managed never to be stung, so I don't know.

Spiders and most other bugs, especially flying bugs. Fiddleback spiders especially, with which my current triplex unit is infested.

Showering alone late at night. Specifically, I'm afraid that while I'm washing my hair with my eyes closed or washing my face (anything where I can't open my eyes up right away and see) something will somehow get in the other part of the shower (it's a bathtub shower and I'm at the front end where the nozzle is), something scary, something insubstantial but evil, something, most likely, out of the bathroom mirror.

I can't sleep with closets open. Not at all. Not ever. Even during the day I don't like it.

I am occasionally afraid that evil things will crawl across the ceiling at night and get me. This is why I have a bedside lamp (invaluable for the frequent reader of horror novels).

I won't sleep with the door shut unless I'm in a hotel or there is some other urgent need, and definitely wouldn't if I had to sleep by myself.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Old, abandoned houses in the country freak me out. Especially the ones with all the furniture still in them. (what happened to the people that they'd run off and leave all their stuff?)

I also hate steel wool. My friend's father pushed some into a crack in their basement bathroom wall and painted it yellow to match. It looked like a hive for some kind of really nasty bug.

I am really, REALLY afraid of being run over by a bicycle. The kids on campus don't pay attention (once some girl kicked me in the leg when she was going by; that didn't help any), and I just think that would HURT. If you're walking and get hit by a car, you're prly going to die anyway, so you won't feel it for long. A bike would be more likely just to paralyze you from the waist down or something.

The Sailor Moon dub scares me too. But I think that's perfectly understandable.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Tracey,

Are firebrats those things with the legs all curly and wild so they look like hair? Those are *scary*. Truly terrifying.

Other fears: When people give a jump to a dead car battery, I'm afraid of it exploding.

I'm afraid of getting a tiny piece of steel wool under my skin because then I will get blood poisoning and die (or so I've heard).

I'm terrified of Bloody Mary, too. Every now and then I consider chanting in front of the mirror to prove to myself that nothing will happen, but I'm too scared.

www.citygrrl.com

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

I used to be terrified of Bloody Mary, and for the longest time I was afraid to look at myself in the mirror because I worried that my reflection would do something weird... like make an angry face at me. (That just begs for psychoanalysis, doesn't it?)

Then one night I had my same old reoccurring nightmare about being forced to go up to some attic and look into a mirror. And I went and finally got to the mirror without waking up in the ol' cold sweat. And I looked, and when I saw my face it did scare me, but only because I looked so panicked and scaredy-cat. And then I laughed. And after that, I wasn't afraid of mirrors anymore.

I can't say that I've been brave enough to try the Bloody Mary game, though.

-- Anonymous, June 23, 2000

Glad to see I'm not alone in my fear of clowns. Also you can throw puppets in there, you know those "vantreliquist" looking ones. Roaches, definitly. Have you seen a new C.D. cover (don't know who's) that has a close-up picture of a roach on it! I almost got sick right there in the store! Also afraid to fly in an airplane and must get smashed to do it. It was kind of hard to stay smashed for all those hours on the way to Europe recently. I was ready to run and I.V. line. Also afraid of money! yeah money! Afraid when I have it I'm going to lose it or not spend it wisely and afraid when I don't have it where and how in the hell will I get it!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Lets see...Every time I'm baking I'm terrified the oven door is going to slam shut while I'm reaching into it! I keep imagining my arm burning right off at the shoulder so badly the doctor will never be able to sew it back on! It really freaks me out. And bats. I've never actually seen a real one up close, but just seeing them on tv gives me chills. When I'm in the shower, I get really really REALLY scared if I see a bug or spider in there with me. I'm fine if I see 'em anywhere else, but something about them being in my bathtub...yeeech. Oh, and at night when I turn off all the lights downstairs, as I'm walking up to my bedroom, I suddenly start shaking and have to run the rest of the way. I figure if there are any serial killers hiding in my living room, this is when they'll grab me! Thats all I can think of for now though. Thanks, now I've gone and freaked myself out bigtime! :)

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2000

I used to have a dread fear of poultry, too, till my first job out of college was evaluating broiler chicken houses for energy efficiency. It's not uncommon for there to be 20,000 birds in a broiler house, and I had to stroll in there amongst them, creepy little bastards. Till my coworker showed me a little secret. Walk in and swoop your arms up and down. You'll make a shadow that looks like the shadow of a hawk, and all the birds will rush out of your way. If you do it too long they'll rush into the same corner and smother each other, so you gotta be careful if they aren't your chickens.

It's hard to stay freaked out at something that will kill itself rather than get too close to your shadow.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

http://www.phillyburbs.com/intelligencerrecord/news/news_intell/807009 .htm

For all us clown-fearers.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 2000

*shrieeeek!* *shudder*

I'm so skeeved right now.

I don't like horror movies. I can tolerate cheesy ones, but if the production values are a notch over ketchup and bed sheet ghosts, "Cheepnis", "Night of the Lepus", or "Plan 9", I'm scrooood.

My first scary film was _Poltergeist_, which many of you have referenced. I was told it wa a wussy, gentle, simple little film, not scary at all. So I went, since I'd been promised I wouldn't be scared. Gaaah! The carnivorous tree was scary, the creepy little woman with the squeaky voice was scary, the static on the TV making noises was scary, the big gobbets of purple Jell-O flying out of the ceilign was scary, that damn clown thing was only creepy until it jingled off to hide under the bed and grab the kid...then it was terrifyingly scary, the guy peeling his face off while the maggoty meat writhed on the counter was gross and scary...but the capper was the swimming pool scene.

My first nightmare ever was when I was about four. It was a typical chased-by-bad-things dream, where you run and the hallway keeps getting longer or you don't go anywhere, and I was being chased by skeletons with nasty decaying hunks of flesh falling off. Mind you, I was four and had no access to anything that would have told me what someone's insides looked like. Even so, scared the hell out of me. So I submerge this memory for YEARS, and the same damn things crawl out of the muddy end of the swimming pool. And I had a habit of leaving a light on in my (walk-in!!) closet at the time, but the first night home after Poltergeist, I was too scared to get out of bed to turn it off because I knew the clownthing was under there and I was too scared to turn my closet light off because I'd have to get close to it and I might get sucked into some evil vortex by angry dead people. It was a long and nervous night.

I think I was 14 or 15. That's pretty sad.

I feel traumatized and am going to go shriek silently in the bathroom for a few minutes.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

I do fear burglars, because I confronted one in my kitchen in February and he had a big ol' crowbar less than six feet away from me and I was home alone and half nude at the time.

I'm scared of getting whatever mental disease Michael Jackson has. Actually, I'm totally phobic of being mentally ill, period.

Clowns are scary, and anyone who says otherwise can be shut down with three words: John Wayne Gacy.

Serial killers are scary. I know someone who narrowly escaped from one and there doesn't appear to be a reason why, other than luck.

I don't fear debtor's prison. (Talk about a stupid policy--throw people in jail until they pay their debts...uh, how do you work to earn the money to repay your debts if you're rotting in jail?) I grew up in Savannah, which was where a bunch of folks from a debtor's prison were sent to to try and grow silk, make wine, etc. I suppose we don't see the stigma. (Anyway, there is TOO a debtor's prison. Try not paying the IRS for a few years. They WILL fling your ass in jail.) Now jail in general--THAT I am scared of. Being locked up for something I didn't do. Groo!

Someone asked about trains and trucks on the highway suckign people into some kind of wake. Actually, if you follow (tailgate) a big truck, you do get pulled along and can save a little on gas mileage, but you risk serious injury if the truck slams on its brakes and the trucker can't see you. Have no idea about trains, but I wouldn't get that close to one to find out. I do worry about getting stuck on a train crossing. Down escalators used to scare me, but I almost fell down one when my shoe laces got wrapped up in something or stepped on. I was small and fell forward onto my dad's back, which kept me from getting seriously hurt. I am still leery but no longer so phobic that I'll find stairs or elevators to avoid them.

The things that are crosses between spiders and crickets are camelback crickets and they scare the hell out of me. We had a basement full of them in Winston-Salem. You'd turn the lights on and hear this scuttling, boinging noise coming from all areas of the basement. *shriek* I was convinced they bit but have been told they don't. Don't care, they suck.

I'm totally phobic of roaches and can trace that fear to at least three concrete sources. I can only get over my fear if I'm forced to kill one. Forced = if I don't, I'll lie awake all night wondering when it is going to leap out and chew on me or crawl across my face. *shudder* They terrify me, and we had palmetto bugs AND German cockroaches in Savannah. Three inch long flying roaches are fucking intense, man. I defy anyone not to squeal like a girly-girl when you get one flapping around in your hair. *groo!!!*

I'm scared of leftovers because I've successfully given myself food poisoning multiple times. Now I won't eat even hours-old food unless I'm desperate.

I'm scared of Ouija boards and bad energy, black magic, curses, whatever you want to call it. Egyptian mummies are scary, but the possible curse is worse in my mind. Don't like messing with possibly malevolent forces. You note that the northern Cali area is 'negative'...I think that would make me itchy. I've usually lived in places deemed 'neutral' (Atlanta is spiritually neutral, supposedly), but parts of Savannah have a very heavy 'negative' energy. There's a lot of addiction and crime and general craziness running rampant down there. Paranormal activity is rumored to be extra intense.

I'm scared of parking on hills or valleys (even at drive-thrus), so you're not alone. I also hate parallel parking and get sweaty and anxious when I have to do it. I also get nervous making left-hand turns. Idiots run red lights here. I've had two people run into my car, though, so I'm understandably leery of getting tooclose to other cars in any fashion.

I'm not happy when I have to talk to strangers on the phone, but not phobic. I have to do it from time totime for my job. I do, however, have a 'phone voice' that is different from my natural speaking voice. I don't know why.

I'm scared of things in the ocean possibly touching or biting me, but I can't dwell on that too much or I'd never go swimming again.

My mother told me a story about an heir to the throne who died from blood poisoning after a blister on his foot got infected. I have blanked on who this was (history buffs?) but now when i get blisters, I assume I am close to death.

I'm not scared of dirty dishes, though I get physically ill if they aren't my own. Then again, I get physically ill when I smell coconut, so I'm not a good sample subject. I'm scared of *disposalls*. I always have visions of the thing coming on at the wrong time and spewing a bone splinter at my eye, or grinding my fingers when i retrieve a piece of errant silverware. Scary.

Other than that, I think I'm functional. I can deal with the dark, heights, widths, etc. and I'm not scared of most animals, including non-venomous snakes and tame rats and other rodents and reptiles.

None of these things give me nightmares. I used to have terrible ones that interfered with my sleep and got me shaking/upset, and one day I woke up from one, while a sophomore in college, and said angrily, out loud, that I'd had enough. I'd had half my night wasted with anxiety dreams and other horrible things, and I felt helpless and pissed off. Since then, though, no more bad dreams. I guess I'm a lucid dreamer when I have to be...if something's getting uncomfortable, I get to back up and try another tactic. I can not, though, decide to dream about something and then go to sleep and succeed. Hard to explain. I sleep very well now, though. No nightmares for over ten years.

-- Anonymous, July 10, 2000

OMG, I am laughing so hard. This is my first visit to the forum so please excuse my jumping right in.

Whomever said they were afraid of losing their luggage, you should be. Mine was lost 2 times in 5 years. Big giant suitcases full of all my favorite posessions.

My biggest irrational fear is being murdered, or having a loved one be, tortured and multilated. I live, eat, sleep this fear.

Another biggie, underwater mechanics. Like fountains or anything metal under the water. I'm afraid my toe will get caught or sliced off. Erg, it's giving me the skeevies right now.

Creepy dolls. I have this fear that if I'm not really nice to them during the day I'll see them creeping around my doorway at night.

Spiders, if course. I actually scream like a lunatic and jump on furniture when I see them. We had recluses in Winston-Salem and now we live in Texas so I am just waiting for my first tarantula.

Ice. I can't stand to touch ice and if a cube touches my teeth I have to be hospitalized.

A boogie man getting my son. I read Stephen King's short story The Boogie Man and now I am horrified.

Slicing my finger to the bone on a really sharpy pearing knife.

Being unable to stop myself from jamming my hand into the disposal while it's runninng.

As for those evil Camel Crickets, they are straight from hell. I swear, they actually will jump at your face.

Amy

-- Anonymous, July 20, 2000

Snow Baby figurines by Studio 56. The all have blue eyes and a black dot for an iris. Sometimes the dot is off center in one or both of the eyes and it gives it a demented, evil, chuckie-like look about them. I'm convinced the people that 'ooh' and 'ahh' over them have been put under their evil spell.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2000

I'm afraid of the monster at the end of this book.

-- Anonymous, July 23, 2000

The monster at the end of the book? But it's just cute, lovable, furry...well, no, you'll just have to find out for yourself.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2000

Clown dolls. And the food on my plate touching. I hate buffets.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2000

Shannon--is it a fearor aversion? I don't like my food touching either, but I don't run screaming from the table or anything.

My grandfather used to take his fork and make a big swirly motion and season everything before tasting it. We'd all get sick just looking at his swirl art dinners, man. Needless to say, he thought I was persnickety with my "don't let the beet juice get on anything else" attitude. I don't like beets, give me a break. He said it all ended up in the same place anyway, so why not mix it up beforehand and save time? This is the man who ate three TUMS a day and was twenty pounds overweight, mind you. I say this with love, but it's the truth, y'all.

I think that as he got older, his tastebuds disappeared, that's all. Or he learned how to "Eat Like A Puppy", where it doesn't matter what it is, you can wait until it's half-digested to decide whether or not you like it or it likes you.

Anyway, no one else has ever confessed to the "Keep 'Em Separated" food quirk before. I feel understood. Solidarity!

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2000

I forgot the weird quirk I was comign here to report, because damn if this isn't the quirkiest and most charming phobia I've heard yet.

I know not one but TWO people who are squicked out by cotton balls in medicine bottles. Actually, I know them via my pink-haired cool granma pal L., thus one is an acquaintance at best. One is afraid of cotton balls in general and will get heart palpitations and have to sit down if she sees one. She was afraid of Star Trek Tribbles. Bags of cotton balls in drugstores make her sweat. She gets tension headaches and must have the drugstore people open her bottles and remove the cotton before she leaves, and if she forgets, then her roommate has to do it for her. The way poofs of cotton feel just gross her out. She recalls throwing "Pat the Bunny" across the room at an early age, terrified of the poof ball. I hear that her ex- husband used to freak her out by running after her with them, and the ultimate feak-out is if you pop a cotton ball in your mouth in front of her and mime chewing it. (Actually, that grosses *me* out.) She is not, however, skeeved by cotton make=up remover pads, clothing, Q- tips or batting. Just the little round white balls.

L.'s brother, a big macho burly guy, is also squicked out by medicine bottle cotton wads. He can remove them without asking for help, but he gets nauseous and skeeved out.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2000

I can't stand too close to the edge of anything, especially cliffs. I am not planning a trip to the Grand Canyon in this life time. I am afraid of finding a dead people in a public toilet. My worst fear is being stabbed. I can deal with clowns cause they are not real, just people pretending. I know this cause my son is a clown and he is not John Wayne Cacy.

I hate the original King Kong movie cause when I saw it on TV as a little kid I thought he was going to escape and get me. I hid in a cardboard box outside for hours while my parents and bothers tormented me. Now, just how was he going to get from New York to Ohio just to stomp on me? But I know he was cause he was King Kong. The cardboard box saved my life.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2000

Sitting out at Steamers in Santa Cruz (white shark capitol of the west coast)or the TJ Sloughs (might as well swim in the sewer)on a real stormy day that's really overcast. The water is all turbulent and full of dead seaweed. You are very cold and you can't see very far. Then you get this uneasy feeling and the hair stands up on the back of your cold neck. Then it starts to make you feel like something is watching you from below and you pull your legs up out of the water. And then before a big set comes through the boils really start swirling and by now you're really panicky "knowing" you're just about to lose a foot or a leg or have 100 sharp jagged teeth clamp down on your leg. And then out of the fog comes a "huge" 15 foot set wave. And you paddle for the horizon but don't make it and it breaks right in front of you and rips your board leash off your leg. And now you have to swim through the swirling water diving under wave after wave in the dark forbidding cauldron. It seems to take forever to get to the stairs. SHIT! SOMETHING BRUSHES UP AGAINST YOUR LEG!! Crap! It's half of your $350 board. Now I have to go buy another board. No it's not the fear out in the water, it's the fear of having to tell my wife I need another board. I shudder just thinking about it. James

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2000

Or standing on the boardwalk handing out BombPops to the pretty girls so they will smile for my camera and up walks kdrock and I won't give him one because he's mean to me. MEANY!!!!! Pretty as a Picture

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2000

Milla, word, "divided plates"

plus, putting a napkin under one side of the plate to tilt it and keep the juice from the peas in their own territory....

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2000

Having a really stinky bike messenger get off the elevator before I do and when new people get in the elevator, they think I am the one stinking up the place; thinking spiders walk across my lips when I am sleeping - and if I wake up coughing, it means I swallowed one; being falsely incarcerated (I have never even had a parking ticket!)

-- Anonymous, September 18, 2000