Your oddest fears
 

So what are they? Are you scared of paint drying? Parrots that talk? Hmm?

I'll start:
I'm scared of storm drains. I hate walking on or near them. Even driving by them I'm a bit freaked out. I'm thinking of two possibilities: somehow I'll deny all laws of physics and fall into them, then not beable to fit back out. Or I'm afraid a monster will reach out of it, grab me, and drag me in to the drain, again denying all laws of physics.

I hate getting stuck in traffic on bridges. I'm always scared they're going to collapse.

Swimming pool drains, although I'm mostly over that now.

I'm always afraid that I'll miss the ramps when I take the car to the car wash. Which is stupid because I'm a very accurate driver/parker and have never missed them yet, but still, I was putting off going longer each time... It got so ridiculous that now I just ask beest to take it in.

I am afraid when I dream that the big eyed alien bug people will mess up my bed sheets..:eyebrow:

My oddest fear is a variation of pyrophobia. I love bonfires, campfires, etc. but even a tiny flame (such as a match or candle) anywhere near my face makes me freak out.

I have an irrational fear of thermonuclear warfare.

I am paranoid about the chances that if I enter a bathroom and lock the door, I will be unable to unlock the door.

No idea why this happens, but it's happened since I was a teenager.

i would be most chagrined if i was pooping at work..... and forgot to lock the door....and someone walked in on me. this would scar me, i fear.

My most terrifying imagined experience would definitely be trapped in a coffin underground. No room to really move, completely conscious, no one to hear you and no way to get out. I don't get scared easily, but I would flip the hell out if that ever happened to me.

Well Bullit, the good news is according to Mythbusters you'd run out of air in a very short time, long before you had a chance to die painfully of starvation. You'd black out even faster if you were busy screaming. :)

I'm terrified of my car plunging off a bridge with the kids in the back seat. I've obsessed countless times over the best way to get them out of their carseats and out the car windows.

- Breaking my cheekbone. I picture myself falling to the floor or into a wall and being unable to protect my face. SMASH! It seems the worst thing in the world to me. Except being impaled by a railing in the same spot. I will cross the road to avoid railings, even if they are higher than my head.

- Mirrors and relective glass. More specifically seeing something in one which isn't there in real life, or seeing my reflection change.

- Fear itself. I worry that my mind will snap. I know it doesn't really happen like that, but from when I was a child I have been scared that one day I will be so scared by something that I will no longer be able to function as a rational human being. This is why even hokey haunted houses scare the bejesus out of me. And rollercoasters (although I love them too). And the dark insde houses. And clowns.

Croutons. I can't even walk near a salad bar. <<Shudders>>.

Seriously, my oddest fear is oversleeping and being late for work. I have never overslept, well...maybe once. It is to the point that my body clock wakes me up at least 45 minutes before my alarm goes off. I really don't even need the alarm clock.

I'm afraid to post my fears here because ECHELON might glean it and then "they" would use it against me later. Also paralyzing illness/trauma that would leave me unable to exercise my right to death if that is what I chose.

I am very afraid that I may develop some dumbass phobia that makes me scared of stupid, harmless shit.

I'm also afraid that some day I will forget to put a smiley on a post and it will be misinterpreted. Oh wait, I just did that! :(

I wouldn't say "afraid" but holes give me the willies. Like some ugly suspended ceilings...with that uneven pattern of holes. Things like that. shudder.

I don't know why.

Spiders. Very irrational.

Other than that, I'm pretty fearless. I don't have enough sense to be afraid of much in the physical world...the powers of the human mind can give me pause, though.

Those metal grates in the sidewalk. Actually, I'm not afraid of them, but my wife hates them and will detour around them. She's subconsciously trained me over the years to avoid them when walking with her, and now when I'm by myself, I avoid them too, out of habit.

Once, a couple years ago, I was walking down the sidewalk alone and changed my path to avoid a grate. This guy walking in the other direction saw me do it and started laughing at me. Said real in a real loud mocking tone "Oh no! A metal grate!" I hadn't even noticed that I did it, and had to laugh at myself. I mean, wtf? What else do I do without realizing it?

Pick your nose.

Quit it glatt!

:lol:

:D

I fear the hard hot center of the Earth - and that nothing stands between it and us but this thin shell, this fine flaky crust, this fragile, shattered plate whose bits float and bump on a sea of molten rock.

I fear being alone. I am always only one person away from disaster.

I also fear "the dark" -- not what may be hiding in the dark, the dark itself, like the Nothing in The Neverending Story. This formless, black shifting mass will smother me to death.

Apparently, the 90% of the universe that is dark matter has been hiding in my closet all this time! :haha:

funny. my wife is the same way. She will not under any circumstances walk over grates, manhole covers, or the like. Both of my kids love to jump up and down on them. it's pretty funny watching her go into seizures.

I'm another one of those people with an inexplicable aversion to metal grates in the ground.

I wouldn't say I am afraid of ants, but I am definitely disgusted by them. I try my best to rescue most creatures that end up in our apartment, but ants trigger a "Destroyer of Worlds" mode that I have yet to find reason for.

My oddest fear is that someone will break in and murder me while I am showering. I imagine myself defenseless with nowhere to escape, and completely surprised since the sound of the shower would have masked the robber's entry. A few weeks ago, I thought I heard someone trying to break in. Dripping wet, I grabbed a towel and sidled up to the front door, then flung it open ready to kill whatever was on the other side. All I found was a flyer for the new Chinese place down the street. The racket had been the poor advertiser fighting our weather stripping to get the flyer tucked into the door.

Wow, there are a lot of you afraid of grates?

Do many of you also fear heights? Just wondering if there is a relation?

I'm not afraid of heights -- I'm afraid of falling.

ETA: which I guess does relate back to the fear of metal grates

To be fair, grates can be a little slippery when it's been raining, and they often ice up first when there is freezing rain. So I don't like them when it's wet out. You are liable to wipe out. Otherwise, they are actually pretty cool. You can imagine you are walking on air.

walking on the large grates always takes me back to my childhood when my cousins and i would pretend the large series of grates near the house were the deck of a star wars spaceship.

my super-awesome nerd rays are blinding you aren't they?

My father in law was a chemical engineer before he retired, and once when we were visiting him, he took us on a tour of his plant. It was pretty impressive. Halfway through it, when we were up on this second floor catwalk thing, I looked over at my wife, and she was making a strange face and pointing down. I couldn't figure out what she was pointing at. I looked through the grate we were standing on at the concrete floor about 60 feet below, but there was nothing there. "What?" I asked, and she hissed "the grate!" and it wasn't until then that I realized we had been walking all over on the grates and remembered how much she hated grates. She earned big points with me that day for putting her fear aside so she wouldn't disappoint her dad as he showed off his plant. Plus, it was kind of funny after that as we kept climbing higher up around these enormous vats.

A spaceship? That would work, but I'd think of the Bespin carbon-freezing facility first for grates.

I fear personal contact with other people.

Aha! An IT type! :lol:

I'm afraid you're going to have to leave.

Your grate and manhole-cover fears are not entirely unjustified. When she was younger, my mother stepped on a manhole cover that was not properly secured, and she slipped down halfway into it, breaking her leg. True story.

Did she say "That's just *****?"

We had a rash of exploding manhole covers not too long ago in this area. Never did hear the official explanation. But the covers would shoot up into the air like an anvil shoot and come crashing down randomly on cars and stuff. Weird. They use slotted ones more and more now so the pressure won't build up.

In some cities there have been problems with the grates becoming electrified and shocking people and animals that have touched them.

And when you walk on a grate, just remember that that's the only thing between you and the hot hard center of the Earth.

Maybe your wife and glatts are secretly afraid of doing a 'Marylin'?

I am irrationally afraid of being in the shower or worse, a bathtub full of water and falling through the floor with it. I am worried that the floor/subfloor underneath has been so rotted from water, that it will eventually give way with my weight and the weight of water and I will go with it through the floor. This fear is so great that I refuse to take showers with my husband, because I don't want to add to the odds of it happening by being too heavy with both he and I.

When I was a kid I was afraid I would get killed in the shower. I took baths until I was at least 12 or so, so I could always see and hear what was going on. I think I watched Psycho at too young an age.

Oh, and I am also afraid of mold...if I find it on a piece of bread I freak out and drop it. I can't stand to get near it at all. Gross! Ew!

There's an add on telly here at the moment about home insurance that has exactly that scenario case. It's ok though. The guy survives and gets a nice new bathroom too if he's properly insured. ;)

Nooooo! Don't tell me that actually happens. My husband tries to tell me "Don't worry, floors are reinforced and they are designed to withstand the weight, etc. blah blah" but it doesn't really help.

Well if it's any consolation, I think you'd have to be hella unlucky for anything like that to happen, and I reckon you're a pretty lucky person case. :) And besides, if your husband says that's how it is, then he must be right. ;)

It seems that I am fairly lucky, but if I am so lucky in so many other ways, that could be my one unlucky moment. Or something. Yeah, I better just believe hubby.

I have an irrational fear of slipping on ice and falling over. I don't want to look a twat, and I don't like pain but these are not sufficient for the magnitude of my fear ... Anyway, I end up looking like a twat taking teeny-tiny pigeon steps on any icy surface ...

You should move here limey. Then you wouldn't have to worry about icey footpaths and stuff. ;)

On the other hand, you would have to worry about snakes and sharks and other nasty stuff. lol

::raising hand:: I also walk around the grates. They disturb me deeply for some reason (ha! I doubt reason has much to do with it) and I walk around them. The idea that terra firma is shot full of holes freaks me out. My brother once sent me a story about a physicist who spent his life studying atomic structures, and became so concerned about all the space between the components of atoms that make up matter, and particularly floors, that he'd wear oversized shoes so to not fall through to the level below. It makes sense to me. Unfortunately. :o

I also have a fear of accidentally eating maggots or bugs. I've had this fear since I was a kid...I think I found some sort of worms in my breakfast cereal once when I was really little.

This past summer my house got infested with flour moths and it took me nearly three months to eradicate them as they had eventually infested about $250 worth of food in my pantry. I am far from wealthy and have been indoctrinated from childhood not to throw out perfectly good food, so I would only throw food out once I knew it was infested. Finally one day I went through the entire pantry and threw just about everything out. It was disgusting. There were moths and maggots everywhere.

About a week or so ago my friend made rice for dinner. I looked down in my bowl and one grain of rice had a semi-segmented look to it. I had to throw out my dinner and could hardly force myself to eat ANYTHING the next day.

I kinda have the grate thing too. I think mine stems from the movie "Hunchback of the Notre Dame" , (Ithink it was) where the monster was held captive in an underground grate covered thingy. Kinda like the movie with the doll cutting ankle straps from under the bed. And then there was that ad in the old comics about smallpox right next to the xray glasses and disapearing ink.:eek:

I can't believe how many people are afraid of grates. It's really quite amazing.

I'm wondering if it's the falling in, or something coming out that's worse.

Your weight? Your weight? What could you possibly weigh? A hundred pounds? You could have a fat chick under each arm and not weigh enough to take out a full bathtub.

You skinny.

:headshake

Actually...one day I was walking off the bus to get into my dad's van (bus stop was a mile from the house and parents figured that I'd get kidnapped or something) and as I walked over and reached out to open the door...all of a sudden I was eye level with the front tire. The grate that the township had installed had been clogging heavily due to massive amounts of rain washing leaves out of the woods, and flooding the road...so they just decided to cut bigger holes into it...and one of my legs was stuck inside all the way up to my thigh. I wasn't afraid of grates, but now I double check them...just to be sure nobody decided that they weren't draining properly.

PS my mom BITCHED at them..because my dad had to pull me out of the grate...and they turned it around the other way...so the road still floods

I'm sure that story will help some of the posters in this thread Razz. lol

You too, huh? I've gone over that in my head more times than I care to remember.

But the one thing that really makes adrenaline squirt out of my eye sockets is being attacked by wasps.

Its really not as bad as some other things I've dealt with but for some reason, just the thought of those murderous nano-bots from HELL collectively focused on simultaneously injecting their toxic, super-concentrated venom directly into every available vein....

[breathe... breathe...]

I have no idea why that bothers me so much.

Storm-drains=grates in the road/lot (in my original post)

I too am afraid of bridges or overpasses collapsin, especially after what happened last year in Minnesota. Whenever I'm behind a semi truck and they drive under a bridge, I'm afraid they misjudged the height and the top of their trailer will hit the bridge, causing big chunks of concrete to come off and hit them/me/other drivers.
I'm scared of semis.

Many of these fears so far are rational. This shit does happen. It's just not that likely.

Yeppers glatt. Almost same incident happened here in Dallas not too long ago (as in I still remember it). I didn't look up the story though.

When I am the only one in the basement I must have the lights on if it is dark outside. If I have to turn out the light before going up, I run up the steps. Yes, even in my own house. I just get the creeps. [/big ninny]

I also have this fear when I am driving on the highway or interstate next to a semi truck on one side that it will blow a tire and cause me to somehow get into an accident. I don't mind it if I am passing them, I just can't stand being forced by other traffic to be driving alongside one. I'll go just slow enough that I am behind it without leaving enough room for other vehicles to squeeze through until the car ahead of me is far enough ahead of the truck that I can zoom up passed it.

I don't mind driving over bridges as long as traffic is moving. It's when all those cars are stopped on one for some reason that I get nervous.

When my daughter was an infant, I had this terrible fear that I would drive to work and forget her in the car like those stories you'd hear on the news. I almost did do it once, too. I was so focused on a presentation that I had to give at work, and she was being so quiet that I totally blew by the exit I needed to take. It wasn't until several minutes later as I hit the edge of town that I realized what I had done.

Scared that they won't make it the rest of the way up, or what'll happen once they make it there? :eyebrow:

That's because you are even closer to the boiling magma of the Earth's core. [/HungLikeJesus]

Greatest fear? That they will all one day, be realized. :)

I fear ventriloquist dummies....but my greatest fear is that something bad will happen to my daughter.

I just thought of another one....

When I am at a home I have never been at before and have to use the bathroom, I am totally paranoid the toilet will clog.