I used to work in a big box retail store. One day the owners decided that the building's roof needed to be refinished. They proceeded to hire the biggest group of idiot roofers I've ever seen. The guys even managed to light the roof on fire at one point when they left their equipment for keeping the tar hot turned on. Anyway, we were working inside and whatever they were doing up there suddenly started to produce loud, hard banging. It was shaking the building and deafening to us inside. And that's when it started: the fluorescent lights started to fall out of their fixtures and shatter like bombs on the floor. Ever seen one of those explode? It sucks. Now, suddenly, we found ourselves in a minefield. Someone had to get outside to tell these guys to quit, all the while little pockets of violently exploding glass were going off at random points all around us. As lame as it sounds, particularly given the situations I've put myself in during my life, when people ask me when I was the most terrified that is what comes to mind. As in, adrenaline-pumping, mouth-dry, might-freeze-up terror. Focus: Tell a story about when you were the most terrified. Alt. Focus: What thought or idea or story scares the shit out of you? Mine involves driving down the road and having someone, who unbeknownst to me had broken into my car, sit up behind me in the back seat. I don't even like it when it happens in a movie.
Alt-Focus I have a deep, deep, DEEP love for all kinds of music (not POlka, though). The mere thought of where the music industry is heading scares the living piss out of me. I mean, let's compare the last 20 years of music: The 1990's Most Popular New Artists: Nine Inch Nails Nirvana Rage Against the Machine Cypress Hill Tool KoRn A Tribe Called Quest Snoop Doggy Dogg/ Snoop Dogg Pearl Jam Marilyn Manson Eminem Green Day Boys II Men Oasis Smashing Pumpkins (NWA came out in 1988/89, so I can't include them) The 2000's Most Popular new artists: Kings of Leon Billy Talent Soulja Boy T-Pain Kanye West Coldplay Fallout Boy The Strokes Faber Drive 50 Cent & G-Unit The Pussycat Dolls Lil' Jon ..are your seeing the point? "Boring" doesn't even begin to describe what people consider to be cool music nowadays. Where the fuck is Dr. Dre when you need him?!
Alt Focus: - Self-aware robot spiders who are angry at their human creators. - Worldwide beer shortage - impotence
I have an incredibly irrational fear of cooking with no shirt. For some reason I think that any dish that sizzles or drips hot cheese will go straight for my nipples. I can't eat grilled cheese naked because of this, it's an embarrassingly powerful fear.
When I was little, there was a show on television called SWAT. After seeing that show, whenever the UPS truck came in the neighborhood I would run like hell. Now in my neighborhood, we have a mosquito control truck that drives around our neighborhood spraying chemicals to kill the mosquito. They always seem to be spraying when I'm on the road bike. I live on a ridge of land surrounded by water on all sides. It's five miles from one end of the neighborhood to the other. One way in. One way out. The driver is a sadistic fuck and I just know he speeds up and chases me when we cross paths. I mentally hum the SWAT song as I try to get away from him.
When I was little, there was a Ghostbusters cartoon with an episode featuring the boogeyman from the closet. The Boogeyman would open his closet door, and there would be a winding, topsy-turvy labyrinth of stairs leading to the closet doors of every kid in the world. I have to sleep with the closet door open to be sure there's not some a monster climbing an other worldly stairway to come and get me.
The most irrational fear I have is having blood drawn. Whether it be to donate it, or at the doctors office. One time I tried to sneak out of the doctors office before they could take my blood. This would be cute if I wasn't 23 when it happened. I donate my blood whenever I can because it helps so many people (and I get a half day off work). The half hour leading up to my appointment I usually spend puking in the bathroom. I really thought donating it would get me over the fear, but it hasn't gone away at all. I'm also afraid of birds. I really don't think that is so irrational. Those fuckers can fly, have sharp beaks and talons! If they were any smarter they would rule the world already. Just watch the movie The Birds. Or better yet read the short story. It is even scarier.
Alt Focus Spiders. Any size, any kind. I hate them and will tear up at the sight of one in fear it will get close enough to touch me or something.
Spiders, which is a pretty rational thing to be scared of, I on the other hand act totally irrational when in the presence of one. Alt. Focus: What thought or idea or story scares the shit out of you? I was just thinking back to my early college days and how frightened I was of being mugged and killed while walking off campus. Unlike regular schools you see in movies with huge grassy knolls and changing fall leaves year round, UC is placed in the middle of the fucking ghetto. There is no end to the stories of this shit happening. My freshman year there were 15 gun point robberies in 15 days in February when some shitball kids from the ghetto high school nearby decided to rob people with a sawed off shotgun. Later that spring somebody stabbed their would be mugger in the neck leaving him to die in a cut through ally we all used. The absolute worst, and the most deep seeded fear of any guy, was sophomore year when a male rapist was on the loose. The guy broke into a house on the next street over from mine and raped a guy at knife point. You wanna talk about fast stepping off campus?
Laugh at me all yall want, but I'm still 100% certain that one night in my sleep, this guy is going to rip the roof off of my house and get me: I'm not kidding, I had nightmares for years when I was younger about my starship crashing in the woods and getting eaten by this guy and his giant spider pets. The good news is that when it does end up happening, I'll probably be saved at some point by Warwick Davis, so that'll be fun.
When I was little (~10 years old), I used to have a fear that I'd wake up at night to see something awful standing next to my bed and staring at me. It wouldn't attack while I was asleep, but when I woke up, it would be the last thing I'd ever see before being torn to pieces. I came up with the idea of putting a chair next to the bed right where the thing would stand, so that it couldn't get to me. It worked. I'm fairly sure this had something to do with watching X-Files late in the night.
When I was 16 yrs old, I spent the night at a friend's house and we watched some stupid horror movie. It wasn't particularly scary and it didn't have spiders in it, but apparently it put me in creeped-out-mode. At this point I should note that my friend had decorated one wall of her room with the deflated remains of mylar balloons, the curly ribbons still attached. At some point in the middle of the night, I was having a nightmare and apparently decided that all those curly ribbons were the legs of a humongous spider that was hanging out on her wall watching me. I proceeded to let out a blood-curdling scream (which led to her screaming), then I stood up in the bed, ran in place a few moments, and tore down the stairs to her mother's room. I sat on the edge of her mother's bed, waiting for her to come down after me. You know, because people run away when they have giant spiders in their rooms. Instead I saw the light come on up the stair case and she called down asking me what the hell my problem was. Her mother asked me the same thing and I explained the giant spider. It took them awhile to convince me it had been a nightmare. Ever since then, I periodically have dreams where I open my eyes and a spider (not huge, but sufficiently evil-looking) would be sitting on my blanket, on the wall, on the ceiling, bedside table, wherever. The dream usually seems so real that I jump out of bed and dash to the light to turn it on. It always takes me a few seconds to realize it was my imagination. I've had that dream less and less frequently over time, but I still get it. Just a few weeks ago, in fact.
I grew up in the Philly area and there were routinely news stories about people getting shot for their Nikes and left to die. Anytime my mom made me get new shoes I would completely freak out and assume that I was going to die. I always immediately tried to get the new shoes dirty, so I wasn't a 'target'.
This can be actualized in one of two ways: prison or marriage. Focus: I've got a hang up about people sitting behind me. Being tall, I was always relegated to the back row in school, so that may have something to do with it, my perspective always being with everyone else in front of me. I've also got a thing about germs--I'm using hand sanitizer constantly (more OCD than anything else) so, when we went to see Avatar, and the guy behind me was coughing throughout the movie, it was miserable for me. Theatre was packed, so we couldn't change seats. I don't go to the movies very often.
Rejection. More humorously: fucking spiders. I didn't think I was that fearful of them, until a couple weeks ago I was about to step into the shower, and lo and behold, a big hairy fucker right on the shower curtain. Being naked and practically defenseless, I froze for probably a full 15 seconds staring at it, trying to think of what to do. My shower head is barely moveable, so I couldn't just point it at the spider, which was near the top of the shower curtain. I think I settled on flicking the outer side of the shower curtain to hurl it into the bathtub, along with shaking the curtain itself. Once it was in the tub, I turned the shower on full blast, but the thing had legs of steel and took literally 2-3 minutes to get to the drain. The only way it moved was when there was so much water it had to float, and otherwise it was able to walk and it always ran away from the drain. I've never felt like a bigger pussy my entire life.
Alt Focus:Chickens. Live chickens scare the ever loving bejesus out of me. A chicken coop might be the scariest place in the world as far as I am concerned. Was attacked by a rooster my dad kept when I was 2 or 3. 30 years later, you want to see me curl up in the fetal position and cry like a girl, put a chicken in front of me. With their little beady eyes, no intelligence. Creepy little shits who need to be killed and their offspring served in a delicious omlette. Needless to say I give a shit about "free range, organic" and any other shit that deals with my feathered nemesis. Oh yeah, and flying roaches. When I was stationed in Biloxi, they had these 4 inch green and brown flying "palmetto bugs". Fuck that, those were damned roaches, and the little shits would chase you. **shutter**
Ok, laugh all you want, but "group homes" scare the living shit out of me. Focus: Growing up, I had a mentally/physically disabled uncle that lived in one with others in similar conditions. There was this one goofy son of a bitch "Bobby" that had taken some sort of liking to me. He would sneak up behind me when we'd visit my uncle and pet my head, or grab my arm, etc, which would send my mother and the staff into a frenzy getting him to control himself. Sometime around age 5, we were at a family picnic for the facility in a public park. Now, I feel nothing but sorry for people with disabilities, but when you're a 5 yr old kid and this loud, drooling, inarticulately speaking dude with ataxia and flailing limbs comes tearing after you, all sympathy and reason go out the fucking window and you dodge and evade. Motherfucker, cut me off from my mom and the staff when I was playing on the playground and chased me down. The staff intervened before anything happened (not sure if his intentions were geared towards my young anus or not) and Bobby was taken back to the facility. Even now at almost 33, I STILL won't go anywhere NEAR one of those places.
ALT FOCUS: Because of watching that damn Stephen King movie IT at a young fragile minded age I will be forever terrified of clowns!!!! I mean curled up as a 27 year old man crying in the fetal position scared.....Also have an irrational fear of someone breaking into my bed room when I am asleep. I always position my bed in the back corner with a full view of my room at all times .
BANNED! How dare you speak of my husband this way. 1. The second I get in my car I lock my door. I have a fear of stopping at a light and someone jumping in. 2. I also, probably because I've lost two far too early, have a fear of something bad and life threatening happening to one of my dogs. Oh and Ballsack hunting me down. See number 1.
Fucking Aliens. I am certain that they exist in one form or another, but am undecided on whether or not they visit Earth and abduct people. But there is the possibility that they do. And I saw "A Fire In The Sky" when I was about 10. Ever since then, I will have random panic attacks when I'm alone in the dark, convinced that an alien could be waiting around the corner to take me away for awful experiments. Motherfucking god damned aliens, making alien/human hybrids to become immune from our diseases and take over our planet and shove shit up our orifices for sport. Fuck them. I need a big Will Smith cardboard cutout.