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February 18, 2007
No Fear
A friend of used to refuse to order mushrooms on his pizza. He liked mushrooms, he was just afraid he was going to get a poison one that would either make him sick or kill him. This is one of those thoughts that I put in the category of irrational fears.
We all have them. A woman friend of mine used to have a fear that -- and this is a complicated one, so I'm not sure that I'll get it all right -- but that she'd be locked in a closet and somehow a tidal wave would come by and she'd be unable to get away from it. As irrational as this sounds she would later add a curling iron to the fear that actually made it worse and more irrational.
I don't know if this next thing falls into the irrational fear category but, for as long as I can remember, before drying off after a shower I'll give the towel a shake -- just in case a spider is on it somewhere. Wet or not, I don't want to be rubbing a spider on me. Especially one of those hairy ones.
If you're laughing at this you can stop.
Last week I gave the towel a shake, and a spider hit the floor.
Which, I think, puts this fear into the rational fear category ... even if being worried about spiders isn't terribly manly.
Posted by delmer at February 18, 2007 6:54 PM
Comments
I do the same thing with shoes. I always shake them before putting them on after reading an article in Reader's Digest about recluse spiders.
Posted by: The Phoenix at February 19, 2007 8:43 AM
I'm so glad I'm not the only one - I do that shoe-shaking thing too! I'm petrified of spiders and then was informed that over a life time humans consume something like 5 spiders whilst we sleep - they crawl into our mouths! Anyone got any duct-tape?
Posted by: Pen at February 19, 2007 10:57 AM
I've heard the spider thing before so I had to look it up.....
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/spiders.htm
Posted by: Mikeo at February 19, 2007 9:06 PM
Phoenix: That is a worry I hadn't considered. I'll have to put it into use.
Pen: There's some good new regarding your spider fear. And the better news, of course, it rather than being British you could be Australian ... the average spider there eats five humans each year.
Mikeo: The MythBusters Website (and those guys are gods) had a bit on the spider thing too.
Posted by: delmer at February 20, 2007 8:48 AM
I learned to check my footwear before inserting foot back in 1982 during a week long stay at Oklahoma University. You also don't want to go barefoot there; the place is lousy with scorpions. Also, I used to have a cat that liked to hide toys in my shoes. I don't eat spiders because I keep my mouth closed when I sleep (it's the only time). I have never shaken a towel, though.
Posted by: icymt. at February 23, 2007 11:51 AM