can’t sleep. clowns will eat me.
If you’ve been around here very long, you’ve read something about (or seen comments by) Christina. She’s one of my co-workers, and an all-around good sort.
She even loves the robin’s egg-espresso colour combo that seems to be infecting my wardrobe and interior design efforts as of late. And Starbucks. And musician boys (she married a drummer.) So we have a lot in common.
One thing we do NOT have in common, however, is a fear of rebar.
Christina? Is petrified of rebar. Do you know what rebar is? Let me show you (Christina, don’t look!):
I don’t think she believes rebar will jump out and attack her, but I DO think she is somewhat concerned that she might fall on some rebar, and be injured or impaled by it.
I don’t think there is a scientific name for this fear. But it’s real.
And she probably shouldn’t have told me.
After Johanna noticed a story in one of our free dailies about a man getting stabbed in the face with rebar, she said, “Ooh, we better not let Christina see that.”
I ran to show her.
She feels a little faint right now.
I don’t know why I’m such a jerk, really, especially considering I have some very weird fears of my own:
Clowns
Butterflies
Scorpions
Blue foods
Losing my hair
Cutting my fingernails too short and touching styrofoam
What are you scared of, both rationally and irrationally? What totally makes your skin crawl?
March 27th, 2007 at 11:26 am
CLOWNS CREEP ME OUT! And my sister collected them. And we shared a room. *shudder*
March 27th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I am insanely afraid of sharks…and anything that might get me in the ocean. Especially Giant Squid. Every time I jump off the wharf at Keats I am CERTAIN that a Giant Squid is going to attack me. You know that they found the largest one on record off the coast of Vancouver Island. I’m not kidding! I think it is because I grew up in the land of lakes, where it’s just little fish and such swimming around out there.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am
OH MY GOD, FINALLY I have found someone who understands my fear of butterflies!
Friend: “What’s the matter? They’re just pretty little things”
Me: “NO. They’re giant flying insects with a coloured disguise so they can fool you into thinking that they don’t have creepy crawly legs and creepy crawly bodies”
I once had to run through a butterfly farm on a school trip because I was so freaked out. Imagine the humiliation.
I also worry about losing my hair. What if this work stress turns into alopecia? What if being bald suits me as much as it does Ms Spears. No, stop worrying. It’ll make it worse. Can’t. Stop. Worrying.
See? Complete irrational freak.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:55 am
WE ARE SO KINDRED. That’s amazing. My friends will read that and totally wonder if I have a split personality, and you’re the other one.
March 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
I always call butterflies “ugly men in pretty dresses.”
March 27th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Cockroaches
Breaking my nose
Blowing a tire while driving on the freeway/interstate
Bees and other stingy bugs
Losing my teeth - Seriously, I floss every day.
March 27th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Clowns — I get. Totally freaky. Can’t even look at them. But blue foods? All of them? I hope that doesn’t include Slurpees, because … yum.
Funny story — so evil.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Bees and wasps
Grasshoppers
Vomitting
March 27th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I can’t touch cotton balls. The texture makes me scream!
March 27th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
OH MY GOSH, ME TOO. I hate that feeling ESPECIALLY WHEN MY NAILS ARE TOO SHORT AAAAH!
March 27th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
You are not a nice person.
;-)
March 27th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Amazing. I post about my fears and get zero responses; you post about your fears and get eight responses. You’re a phenomenon, Meg.
Re: Rebar: When I was on my internship in South Florida, a piece of rebar flew through the windshield of a minivan and impaled the teenage girl sitting in the passenger seat. Her mother, a nurse, drove straight to the emergency room, where the rebar was very carefully removed from the girl’s chest. It narrowly missed her heart, and she was young enough that her lung would heal.
So. Your co-worker’s fear may not be all that irrational.
March 28th, 2007 at 1:06 am
Vomitting and the fuzz on peaches. Each one is worse than the other. Just the thought of that fuzz almost makes me throw up but i cant because then i’ll be dead. I actually even hate, really hate the actual V word - give me puke anytime. Its the ugliest word in the dictionary and it was really hard for me to even type it. ewwwwwwww
And actually seeing a peach or heaven forbid touching a real one. ewwwww its making me have convulsions right now and i feel like V’ing. I will never live in the Okanagan. Strangely enuf guess what my fav fruit is? You got it, but i’m talking about the ones in a Del Monte can.
March 28th, 2007 at 4:54 am
I used to watch “Trauma: Life in the ER” and Christina is right. There are way too many rebar accidents.
My irrational fear: snow. I see those travel section photos of winter vacation locations with snow and snort: Yeah, right, who would want to do THAT?
Because obviously anyone who wants to be where it snows is craaaaazy.
Clowns, too.
March 28th, 2007 at 5:13 am
Spiders. Hate them.
Falling down escalators. It’s related to a fear of heights, but it’s weird — I’m fine with heights if there’s a railing or something else that I can hold on to.
I’m not afraid of clowns (heh) but I understand why people are. When I was one, I never tried to inflict myself on kids who were scared.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Centipedes - they have far too many legs.
Breaking a cheek or eyebrow bone.
Touching shower walls with any part of my body except my hand(unless it is my shower). Hello OCD.
OH! I once watched this clip where a womyn had a grub inside her head and they pulled it out and that totally makes my skin crawl. ewww, nasty.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:03 am
clowns, glass elevators, stinging/biting insects and ants.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Moths. Ditto on the death-by-rebar. Clowns. Wading in muddy water. Dirt on spinach leaves.
March 28th, 2007 at 10:35 am
- Centipedes! Heather, I totally get you. There was one in my bathroom yesterday. I couldn’t go in for hours. creepy snakey spider creatures.
- Clowns. as a child I was warned there was a man abducting children while dressed as a clown. It stuck with me.
- Heights/Bridges. I cross a bridge almost every day. joy!
- The word ointment. Blech
- Things on the bottom of lakes. I’m an ocean girl, born on an Island, hope to die on a (more tropical) island.
- wide open spaces/crowded spaces. Both make me feel insignificant.
- (re)starting a blog
March 28th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Sharks. I live in Edmonton. Don’t ask
Thunder. Not lightning. Thunder.
November 27th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Fear of rebar? Good reason… My husband was a truck driver and fell backwards off of his flatbed trailer onto a piece of rebar. 18 inches of rebar impaled him through the rectum. Luckily he is still alive today, by the grace of God. He spent 8 months in the hospital and had numerous surgeries to repair the damage. The rebar was not protected but either way it is still dangerous.