FEAR

Excerpt from A Charlie Brown Christmas

Lucy Van Pelt: Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, then you have hypengyophobia.
Charlie Brown: I don't think that's quite it.
Lucy Van Pelt: How about cats? If you're afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia.
Charlie Brown: Well, sort of, but I'm not sure.
Lucy Van Pelt: Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia. Do you think you have pantophobia?
Charlie Brown: What's pantophobia?
Lucy Van Pelt: The fear of everything.
Charlie Brown: THAT'S IT.



First lets see what Webster has to say about fear:

Main Entry: fear
Pronunciation: 'fir
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English feren, from Old English f[AE]ran, from f[AE]r
transitive verb
1 archaic : FRIGHTEN
2 archaic : to feel fear in (oneself)
3 : to have a reverential awe of
4 : to be afraid of : expect with alarm
intransitive verb : to be afraid or apprehensive
- fearer noun


Here is a list of phobia’s that I found, The Phobia List

We have Necrophobia- Fear of death or dead things; Sexophobia- Fear of the opposite sex. (Heterophobia); Aichmophobia- Fear of needles or pointed objects; Arachnephobia or Arachnophobia- Fear of spiders; Chiraptophobia- Fear of being touched and the list goes on and on and on.

It is amazing the things we are afraid of. One person I used to work with had the fear of being touched. If you should ever touch him or even just get close to him he would spring up and out of there in a heart beat.

Another person I worked with had a fear of germs. We were mean to him. We were in a cubicle environment. The person on the other side of the wall from this unfortunate person started to fake sneezes. He did this many times. Now this was enough to set that person off period but it got much worse. They dipped their fingers in water and, on their next fake sneeze, they flicked their fingers toward the top of the wall. I think it took a couple attempts but you could tell when he was hit with a drop of water.


I myself have a fear of mice. I think it is because they are so fast and can go just about anywhere. The one time I had a mouse in an apartment I lived at I freaked. The first night after I saw the mouse I tucked a towel under the door when I went to bed to keep the mouse from coming to visit in my sleep. The next day I set a trap with peanut butter and, before I knew it, the trap had caught the mouse. I was not big on emptying the trap so I just threw it away and set other traps which never did catch anything.

Spiders also worry me but just at first. Once I see them and know there are there I have no problem getting rid of them. It just is that initial surprise that I do not worry about.


I did not see anything for fear of dating but I have that for sure. When ever I do try and date someone my stomach goes into a not, and, well let’s just say it is not pretty.

I tried to see if there was a fear of CrabCakes but I could not find one. I get the feeling you may not want to get her upset with you. LOL


I guess I have a fear of confined areas but not to bad. Just please never make me take an MRI. I do not think I could survive that.

I also have several other minor things that bother me but there is my one big fear. Fear of heights. I am ridiculous. I have something on my house that need to be fixed. It involved me going up on a ladder to where me feet are about 10 feet off of the ground and working there. I just can not do it. Now if I had scaffolding I could cautiously do it but the ladder, no way.

I had something I used to do at the high school I graduated from. I put microphones on the basketball back board so I could record Band a Rama. Basically it is a show to show off the talents of the band, some individual members and filled in with lots of skits and marching, including marching doing various formations while we played various songs.

You should have seen me. You would not have wanted to be underneath me. I would get up into the back board support and try and get those microphones mounted. The sweat would just pour off of me. I would get the job done, get things tested then take the microphones down so they would not get stolen. It was torture.

Well one time I stopped at the bar and had a few rum and cokes. Now I was not drunk or anything but you should have seen me. I flew up into the backboard area, reached out to the open backboard and pulled it shut and quickly put up the microphones and got back down. I could not believe what a difference it made. Gee, maybe the next time I go to ask someone out on a date I need to have a few drinks first.

Oh by the way, another place this fear of heights comes in ... driving across the Mackinac bridge. The center has steel grates which you can see right through and the guard rail ... Ha, they call that a guard rail?



So if you ever see me white knuckled some time you will know what is going on. I hope you have your fears under better control that I seem to have.


Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself - Franklin D. Roosevelt; First Inaugural Address