Irrational Things I Am Scared Of

There will be a recap of the semester probably tomorrow, when everything's over.  Today, I have to give a three-minute presentation on why there should be rigid standards of truth in advertising (thank you, tobacco industry, for giving me SO MANY EXAMPLES), and then I have a final in History (not comprehensive) and a final in Business Computing (comprehensive).  Both of those are open book/open notes, so I'm not very stressed today.

Upon walking from my car to the building this morning, I realized that I'm irrationally afraid of some weird things.  It's not terribly surprising, because I can freak myself out about pretty much anything, but I feel like I've really outdone myself with a few of these.

1.  Curbs.  Sidewalk curbs, specifically.  Every time I step off a curb, I do it really slowly and carefully, as though I am just relearning to walk after a terrible hovercraft accident, because I'm 100% positive every single time that I'm going to step off wrong and break my ankle.  I know that this fear is loosely based on my friend KC, who, years ago, had trouble getting into a Jeep and broke her ankle in the most horrific way possible.  This somehow involved curbs.  It even more involved a Jeep Cherokee, but for some reason, I'm not bothered by those.  In fact, I drove one up until a few months ago.  I have no idea why the sidewalk curb is catching the brunt of this irrational fear and not the truck that actually caused the problem, but I think it might have to do with the Jeep's V-6 engine, which I really miss.  A four-cylinder just is not the same.

2.  Walking up the stairs.  I have no problem walking down the stairs.  But walking up the stairs makes me worry that I'm going to trip up the stairs and fall and smash all of my teeth out.  Even the ones in the very back.  This has never happened to me or anybody I know, but it's been a lifelong fear.  I prefer the elevator for going up, but I'll totally take the stairs going down.  I wonder what the statistics are for injuries going up and down stairs.  But even if I fall going downstairs, I think that maybe my teeth are safe.  And that's really all I care about.

3.  Pedestrians.  Well, I'm only really scared of them if I'm in my car, driving.  There's always a little voice in the back of my head that tells me that if I am not absolutely hyper-vigilant, that guy walking on the sidewalk like he doesn't have a care in the world will suddenly realize that his life is meaningless and launch himself in front of my car to end it all.  Too bad for him - I drive a PT Cruiser, and he would probably just get a really nasty burn from the friction of my bumper - but maybe he doesn't realize that PT Cruisers are relatively harmless, and then I'd have to live with the fact that I gave a dude a bumper burn for the rest of my life.

4.  The Nursing School students.  They are so stressed right now that at any moment one of them may snap and start menacing us all with their stethoscope.  I'm not exactly sure how a stethoscope could become a weapon (short of hurling it like one of those balls-tied-together-with-rope weapons), but if anybody can figure out how to get the most harm out of one, it's a nursing student.  They know about anatomy and shit.  (I'm also starting to get really afraid of my body, given the lecture notes they read out loud while studying.  Your body can really get you into some serious shit.  But you probably already know that if you listen to the "fine print" on the drug ads on TV.)

I probably should be afraid of toilet seats, given that one tried to hurl me off earlier this morning, but so far, no dice.  If I think about it hard enough, though, I could probably scare myself into total paralytic fear any time I encounter a restroom facility.

There is probably a medication for this (and it's probably called "Daxin" - hi, TKers!), but the side effects could be so serious that I don't really want it.  Side effects may include: sweating to the oldies, spastic thumb disorder, internal seepage of Kool Aid even if you haven't had any in twenty years, unluckiness, uncontrollable sobbing and even death.

I think I'll stick to my compulsive walking-like-an-old-woman for the curbs and stairs problem, and total avoidance of nursing students wherever possible.  It seems safer.