You can know anything. It's all there. You just have to find it.

-Neil Gaiman

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Fear of Flying

They say (who's they, I'd like to know) that humans are only born with two fears.

Fear of Falling
Fear of Loud Noises

It takes a couple more months or years of living to turn into a shaking, stuttering mess of neuroses. Because, well, there's a lot of stuff to be afraid of.

I recently noticed my nephew Jack is not too keen on the dark. He does not like the lights turned off.

"Noooooooo! NOT DARK!!!!!!!! NO LIGHT OFF!!!!!!"
This is followed by some high-pitched shrieking.

I think this is a pretty common fear. I don't recall being so much afraid of the dark when I was a kid, but of what THINGS might appear in the dark. THINGS I couldn't see. Things creeping under my bed, things waiting and drooling in the closet. THINGS!

I still have two distinct fears, one of which I recently had no name for, until I read about it on a local blog.
It's called explodingdoughphobia.

Some of you already know what I'm talking about. Those tubes of refrigerated dough? The ones you slowly peel where it says PEEL HERE? The ones that are supposed to POP! when you get to a certain point on the canister seam?

I'm afraid of those. It's gotten better, through sheer use of them because Matt loves the Pillsbury crescent rolls and cinnamon buns. I've slowly been desensitized to what I refer to as dough grenades. But a few years ago, I wouldn't open them. I wouldn't even BUY them. I didn't even want to LOOK at that evil little doughboy smirking at me on the tube in the grocery store. He taunted me, that doughboy did. Little punk.

But Matt would buy them. I would pretend I didn't know how to open them. But one morning I decided to face my fear. It was Sunday morning and I did want those cinnamon rolls, so I decided to bite the bullet. Or pull the pin, as it were.

So what did I do? I started peeling the label, practically quivering with fear. I tried to close my eyes, but then thought that wouldn't be a good idea. I peeled the whole wrapper off. No pop. I looked at it, holding it at arm's length. It said to press a spoon on the seam. No way was I going to do that. I could already see the spoon ricochet from the explosion and embed itself into my skull.

Then I read that it said to tap lightly on the counter. I tapped it. Nothing happened.

So I threw it across the room. It hit the wall and POPPED! I picked it up off the floor, proud of myself, and tried to wipe the cat hair off. I think I got most of it.

My other fear is an actual medical phobia. Coulrophobia.

Fear of Clowns.

I chalk this up to reading IT by Stephen King when I was 12. That, and that horrible clown from the Poltergeist movie.

But honestly, even Ronald McDonald gave me the bejeezus.

My husband's fears are a little more common. Dentists and snakes. But he is truly terrified of them. If he were to go to a dentist that had a terrarium of snakes in the waiting room he'd probably have a stroke.

I try to tell him that snakes aren't slimy or scary, but who am I to judge when the idea of opening flaky, buttery crescent rolls give me nightmares.

So last night we were trying to watch Snakes on a Plane. Trying. And I didn't even want to see it; Matt was the one who put it on the Netflix queue. I figured the only redeeming thing about the movie would be Samuel L. Jackson.

As soon as the snakes hit the cabin Matt made a noise not unlike a six-year old girl being dangled above a pit of hungry crocodiles. That scared me more than the snakes. He actually said, "Turn IT off! I don't wanna watch this anymore!" Then he pulled the blanket over his head.

Now I'll never know that movie ends...

The things I do for love.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You're not missing much with Snakes on a Plane. Trust me. I'm the biggest Sammy J fan, but that was probably the worst movie he's ever made.

Clowns and mime creep me out. I'm not afraid of them, but I want to punch them in the face. Spiders and centipedes (basically most multi-legged insects) will illicit glass-shattering shrieks from me, though.