Don't tell me i'm being irrational

I was having a long chat with a good friend yesterday, when he suddenly blurted out, "I hate amusement parks."

Now, I, myself, hate amusement parks, so was interested to find out if his reasoning mirrored mine...

"I am afraid of some kind of stampede."

Um. No. That is not at all why i am afraid of amusement parks.

 

A selection of my infinite things-i-am-afraid-of list (the majorty of which, i realize, revolve around the fear of losing control of my bodily functions).


Birds. I am afraid that a bird will land on my shoulder and peck me on the back of the neck and it will be surprising and not only will I pee my pants in public because I’m so surprised, the bird will also have pecked a hole in my neck/spine, and my spinal fluid will have leaked out, which brings us to number 2.

Paralysis. I want to be able to move whenever I want, and I don’t want anyone else to have to help me use the bathroom. And I would probably kill myself if I ever had to have a colostomy bag. No offense to anyone who does. But it’s not for me.

Bananas. I don’t like them. I think they are disgusting. The smell makes me want to barf and the thought of the smell makes me want to barf. And sometimes boyfriend says that he is going to eat one and I get all nervous, wondering how long until I will have to avoid kissing him or being within a foot or two without the possibility of emptying my stomach all over him.

Roller coasters. I am afraid I will fall out and go splat (or that my legs will get snapped off by a rogue cable), or I will vomit and it will fly back through the whole roller coaster and hit people, and if I know anyone who happened to be on the ride, every time I see them for the next few years, they’ll say ‘remember when you puked on me?”

Being completely forgotten. In the follow up to explaining this fear, i say that i am afraid everyone i know/am related to/work for/etc will forget i exist and i will be like george bailey when clarence is showing him around Pottersville (NOT Bedford Falls). "George Bailey? Who's George Bailey?"


Walking down stairs in wet shoes, and slipping and my head going bumpbumpbump all the way down. And being dead afterwards. Or worse—paralyzed (see above).

Getting old. And looking like Betty White. Who is not an awful-looking old person, but still looks really old. If that is a hot old person, I want no part of it.

bus friends

I was sitting on the bus today between two gentleman who had boarded the bus as strangers but quickly fell into a comfortable bus friendship. The friendship was helped along by a string of questions about landmarks along the journey, asked by the man on the right (an early-30s gay man) and answered by the man on the left (an old man with impressively long ear hair).

It went a bit like this:

Man on the right: is that a bike shop(in front of a bike shop)?
Man on the left: no--that's where you can get cupcakes.

Left: so are we in the lakeview neighborhood? (Which we definitely were)
Right: no--this is what they call 'greek town (which is a falsehood, as greektown is several miles to the south and west).

When there was a bit of a pause, the old man decided to offer a bit of unsolicited information. Though he was apparently not aware at all that he was in lakeview, which does contain the gayest street in all of chicago, he still knew he was near to the gays:

"Now, you wouldn't believe this, but just a block away, there's nothing but gay sex for two miles. That means a man and a man doing sex things."

I will never forget the look on the younger(AND VERY GAY) man's face as he tried to pretend that he didn't know that gay sex meant 'a man and a man doing sex things.'