FEAR!
Fear! Even the word scares me! Actually there is a certain amount of healthy fear that each individual must have within them. Without such fear we might just walk off the roof of a 10 story building, cross the street in front of oncoming traffic, or trust our kitty cats too much! In doing research on the subject of phobias I noticed that there are no less than seven terms for the fear of cats? Why so many? I don’t know but any animal that has eyes made of marbles should not be trusted. In fact there are quite a number of fears related to animals. How silly. The only justifiable dread that rings true to me is alektrophobia which is the fear of chickens! Having spent over a decade on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware where the chicken industry is akin to New York’s Wall Street I can tell you about our devious feathered friends.
They turned the famed Frank Purdue from a handsome businessman into someone who actually resembled a chicken! Aside from farm after farm of chickens and their low rise houses there is the ever present fragrance that you can get a whiff of when the wind blows just right. This is a phenomenon no matter how far you live from the offending birds. It’s sort of a skunk cologne meets polecat perfume! While most areas have an official state bird, flower, song etcetera, the Eastern Shore of Mid Atlantic States has an unofficial smell all its own and it’s fowl alright. The foul stench of chicken!
Sure chickens look stupid enough especially after falling off the truck on its way to the factory. The dislodged poultry wobble down the road yelling “hey wait for me!” You haven’t got a clue about hen deceptiveness however, until you step into a chicken house amidst all of the squawking and they all quiet their clucking at the same time and look at you as if to say “what?” Their beedy eyes focus upon you in a show of silence when you know perfectly well that they are up to some sort of planning. They look at you as if to say “We weren’t talking about regrouping this evening while you and Mrs. Farmer are sleeping. We’re not going to sneak into your house and shred your grandmother’s family heirloom pillows to shreds with our incredible voodoo like claws. We weren’t planning wild moonlight frenzy on the kitchen table and then finding your beds to beak you to death.”
Any aficionado of children’s literature who’s seen the movie “Chicken Run” knows what those cleaver creatures are up to no good at any given moment. That is why the smart farmer sleeps with a shotgun near the bed (for the chickens and to help a perspective groom decide to do right by the farmer’s daughter. Farmer’s also eats chicken 5 times a week! You gotta let ‘em see you’re not afraid even if you are! You know what the chicks were up to but you just let it lay because they’ll be gone in a couple of weeks and you have other things on your mind.
For instance dealing with someone who has coulrophobia (the fear of clowns) comes to mind. After all of the trembling, shaking, weeping, wailing, and the panic stricken look in the face at the circus you hurriedly escort your family away from the offending painted minstrel so as to prevent starting a stampede. You solemnly promise you’ll never go there again. The kids object to leaving but you have to explain that mommy just knows Brownie the Clownie is really a spooky version of Attila the Hun! You drive home among the disgruntled children listening to a chorus of “He was looking at me I swear,” repeated over and over by a woman who keeps rocking back and forth in the front seat like she was a character in a straitjacket from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. As the man you don’t understand it, but then again you can forgive the ranting because you know you have some smidgeon of inconvenience that you offer when it comes to your own fears.
Most people of course have the usual phobias: dentaphobia (fear of dentists), acroiphobia (fear of heights), achluphobia (fear of darkness), claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces), Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), and Alliumphobia (fear of garlic)! That last one is especially troubling if you are a vampire or an Italian. The latter can get you leaned on by the Don if you don’t hide that one well. No one wants to wear cement shoes because they are scared of an herb that comes in clove form!
There are some real interesting and historical ones (not hysterical I said historical) for instance the Biblically renown fear of toads (bufonophobia). You tick off God and watch plagues of frogs fall from the sky like rain and you too might have a healthy fear of slime (blennophobia).
Chirophobia is the fear of hands. Exactly how to you keep from being afraid all of the time, wear mittens? Your hands are with you all of the time (the sneaky evil things), and you have to see them a lot during the course of the day. It’s enough to make me long for the days of my youth when the only irrational fear I had was ponophobia (fear of overworking). You might be able to see this in your own teenager at home. If you’re kid is in bed at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon you can bet it’s an anti-work kinda thing! There is even a fear of things to the left side of the body (levophobia). That could bring a whole array of things into play that you could potentially fear. It would change with every move. I think that left side fear probably starts for men when they get married considering the woman is usually on the left side of the aisle. That fear never really goes away either. You can tell if a husband has it because you will often hear him repeat the phrase “yes dear!” Every man usually gets hit with a double whammy as a result of the wedding too. There is pentheraphobia (fear of the mother in law). I don’t have that one, I swear! I keep telling my wife that but I’m not sure she believes me.
In any event the whole fear thing is kind of silly. It tickle’s me like a feather. Unfortunately I have a fear of being tickled by feathers (pteronophobia). It probably has something to do with that chicken thing! Actually I have no such set of fears. According to the website The Phobia List “Phobias are marked and persistent fears that are excessive and/or unreasonable, cued by the presence or mere anticipation of certain objects (e.g., spiders) or situations (e.g., heights). Nearly 5% of the nation is affected by phobias of one kind or another.” That means the chances for you or I to have serious phobias is quite slim. However with so many overweight people in the population those of us obese individuals have a good chance of encountering geniophobia (fear of chins). Everytime I look in the mirror these days that one keeps getting worse and worse for me. I am lucky. As a man I can hide those extra chins. Women have no choice but to display the horror outright! The other option for them is to have a plastic surgeon lift and hide the extra skin. The next time you’re with a good looking, over 40, woman check behind her ears. If it’s fat back there you know it’s really just her chin! It could be some other things too if she’s had a body lift…then it might be more fun than you thought to look behind the lobes.
As I age and take to account all of the possible things to fear in life I realize as Franklin Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That is so true especially if you have counterphobia. That is the preference by a phobic for fearful situations. Sometimes we call that being a daredevil. Other times it’s known as just plain stupidity. Well even a nervous Nellie has to have some fun. After all there is nothing to get your heart pumping like a good old fashioned scare real or imagined or chicken oriented!
They turned the famed Frank Purdue from a handsome businessman into someone who actually resembled a chicken! Aside from farm after farm of chickens and their low rise houses there is the ever present fragrance that you can get a whiff of when the wind blows just right. This is a phenomenon no matter how far you live from the offending birds. It’s sort of a skunk cologne meets polecat perfume! While most areas have an official state bird, flower, song etcetera, the Eastern Shore of Mid Atlantic States has an unofficial smell all its own and it’s fowl alright. The foul stench of chicken!
Sure chickens look stupid enough especially after falling off the truck on its way to the factory. The dislodged poultry wobble down the road yelling “hey wait for me!” You haven’t got a clue about hen deceptiveness however, until you step into a chicken house amidst all of the squawking and they all quiet their clucking at the same time and look at you as if to say “what?” Their beedy eyes focus upon you in a show of silence when you know perfectly well that they are up to some sort of planning. They look at you as if to say “We weren’t talking about regrouping this evening while you and Mrs. Farmer are sleeping. We’re not going to sneak into your house and shred your grandmother’s family heirloom pillows to shreds with our incredible voodoo like claws. We weren’t planning wild moonlight frenzy on the kitchen table and then finding your beds to beak you to death.”
Any aficionado of children’s literature who’s seen the movie “Chicken Run” knows what those cleaver creatures are up to no good at any given moment. That is why the smart farmer sleeps with a shotgun near the bed (for the chickens and to help a perspective groom decide to do right by the farmer’s daughter. Farmer’s also eats chicken 5 times a week! You gotta let ‘em see you’re not afraid even if you are! You know what the chicks were up to but you just let it lay because they’ll be gone in a couple of weeks and you have other things on your mind.
For instance dealing with someone who has coulrophobia (the fear of clowns) comes to mind. After all of the trembling, shaking, weeping, wailing, and the panic stricken look in the face at the circus you hurriedly escort your family away from the offending painted minstrel so as to prevent starting a stampede. You solemnly promise you’ll never go there again. The kids object to leaving but you have to explain that mommy just knows Brownie the Clownie is really a spooky version of Attila the Hun! You drive home among the disgruntled children listening to a chorus of “He was looking at me I swear,” repeated over and over by a woman who keeps rocking back and forth in the front seat like she was a character in a straitjacket from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. As the man you don’t understand it, but then again you can forgive the ranting because you know you have some smidgeon of inconvenience that you offer when it comes to your own fears.
Most people of course have the usual phobias: dentaphobia (fear of dentists), acroiphobia (fear of heights), achluphobia (fear of darkness), claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces), Triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), and Alliumphobia (fear of garlic)! That last one is especially troubling if you are a vampire or an Italian. The latter can get you leaned on by the Don if you don’t hide that one well. No one wants to wear cement shoes because they are scared of an herb that comes in clove form!
There are some real interesting and historical ones (not hysterical I said historical) for instance the Biblically renown fear of toads (bufonophobia). You tick off God and watch plagues of frogs fall from the sky like rain and you too might have a healthy fear of slime (blennophobia).
Chirophobia is the fear of hands. Exactly how to you keep from being afraid all of the time, wear mittens? Your hands are with you all of the time (the sneaky evil things), and you have to see them a lot during the course of the day. It’s enough to make me long for the days of my youth when the only irrational fear I had was ponophobia (fear of overworking). You might be able to see this in your own teenager at home. If you’re kid is in bed at 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon you can bet it’s an anti-work kinda thing! There is even a fear of things to the left side of the body (levophobia). That could bring a whole array of things into play that you could potentially fear. It would change with every move. I think that left side fear probably starts for men when they get married considering the woman is usually on the left side of the aisle. That fear never really goes away either. You can tell if a husband has it because you will often hear him repeat the phrase “yes dear!” Every man usually gets hit with a double whammy as a result of the wedding too. There is pentheraphobia (fear of the mother in law). I don’t have that one, I swear! I keep telling my wife that but I’m not sure she believes me.
In any event the whole fear thing is kind of silly. It tickle’s me like a feather. Unfortunately I have a fear of being tickled by feathers (pteronophobia). It probably has something to do with that chicken thing! Actually I have no such set of fears. According to the website The Phobia List “Phobias are marked and persistent fears that are excessive and/or unreasonable, cued by the presence or mere anticipation of certain objects (e.g., spiders) or situations (e.g., heights). Nearly 5% of the nation is affected by phobias of one kind or another.” That means the chances for you or I to have serious phobias is quite slim. However with so many overweight people in the population those of us obese individuals have a good chance of encountering geniophobia (fear of chins). Everytime I look in the mirror these days that one keeps getting worse and worse for me. I am lucky. As a man I can hide those extra chins. Women have no choice but to display the horror outright! The other option for them is to have a plastic surgeon lift and hide the extra skin. The next time you’re with a good looking, over 40, woman check behind her ears. If it’s fat back there you know it’s really just her chin! It could be some other things too if she’s had a body lift…then it might be more fun than you thought to look behind the lobes.
As I age and take to account all of the possible things to fear in life I realize as Franklin Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That is so true especially if you have counterphobia. That is the preference by a phobic for fearful situations. Sometimes we call that being a daredevil. Other times it’s known as just plain stupidity. Well even a nervous Nellie has to have some fun. After all there is nothing to get your heart pumping like a good old fashioned scare real or imagined or chicken oriented!
posted by Giosue' Santarelli at 10:05 AM
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