More Things to Fear in Life--For Phobics and Those Who Want to Become Phobic

Do you have any phobias?

For example, are you afraid of heights? Do you cringe at the thought of riding in an elevator; touching an animal, or flying in an airplane?

Or how about a fear of clocks, clouds or cucumbers?

Or maybe mice, money or milk-shakes make you want to run for cover under the nearest blankets and not come out?

Well believe it or not these are typical, well-known phobias.

But there are others, far stranger and less-documented ways of going off the rails, psycologically speaking...

Are you phobically afraid of playing cards with a squirrel?

How about a fear of swimming in a pool of tartar sauce?

Maybe you have a real fear of counting so high that you run out of numbers?

The list goes on and on. In fact, being a sufferer of all of the above as well as a full cart-load of others, I have decided to provide a public service for my fellow-phobics and list all the newly discovered phobias that I have found lurking in my own head as well as a few that were hiding out in the craniums of others.

The following are phobias without, as yet, names. Perhaps someday they will be accepted by the phobic-community at large, but at present to my knowledge they are only discussed during quilting-bees.

1. a fear of coughing in the presence of beavers

2. a fear of having my ears fall off during 'Qwanza'

3. a fear of having my mind read by an elm tree

4. a fear of dancing with a ventriloquist

5. a fear of walking my dog during leap year

6. a fear of combing my hair with a midget in the room

7. a fear of eating pork with tweezers

8. a fear of giggling while eating a crumpet

9. a fear of giving a compliment to a rodent

10. a fear of getting married inside a large cardboard box

11. a fear of barking dogs that wear hats

12. a fear of any numbers that don't add up to fourteen

13. a fear of chopping parsely during an air-raid

14. a fear of having an erotic dream about stationary

15. a fear of reading a book that has no last page

Is there hope for the phobic you ask? (Ok..so you didn't ask..but I'm answering anyway...) The answer is yes and no. There is hope that given enough time people with phobias will grow out of them. Unfortunately they often grow INTO new ones. For example I lost my fear of going downstairs but it got replaced by a fear of going UPstairs. I lost my fear of speaking the words 'dog kibble' in mixed company but I gained the fear of drinking bottled water while reading The Farmer's Almanac.

So you see there is a little hope, but not much.

The thing is to keep going, don't let your phobias rule your life and remember to watch out for men who wear socks with their sandals...talk about bad taste!