Your biggest fears, irrational or otherwise...

Those helmet-cam videos of guys climbing 1500-foot radio towers to change the light bulb at the top give me the willies.

posted by CenterBHSFan

Outside of a dog show, I've never seen a standard poodle. They've always been those little teacup bitches.

They are very tall, and their noses look like pointy beaks. 

posted by Laley23

Rational:

• Terrified of ledges. Not heights...just the ledge. I could be 300 feet up in the middle of a deck and be fine, but inch me towards the edge and I might die.

Irrational:

• Absolutely petrified of floating off into space. The movie gravity, when Clooney floats away, almost made me puke.

Weren't you the one who posted a picture of yourself on a cliff ledge?

I hate snek.  Spiders don't bother me as much as they used to, but snek is bad.  I surprisingly haven't seen any this summer, but I know they are lurking in my pasture.

Also, as I get older, heights bother me more and more.  Wouldn't go so far as to say that Im frightened by them.

Motorcycles- will not ride one.

White water rafting- will never do this.

I guess most of this comes from having friends killed in motorcycles and rafting accidents.

posted by cat_lover

Motorcycles- will not ride one.

White water rafting- will never do this.

I guess most of this comes from having friends killed in motorcycles and rafting accidents.

It's interesting how traumatic incidents shape our minds - maybe because they happen at a particular age or time of life?

.  I've had friends killed riding motorcycles (I was early 30's)  and whitewater rafting (mid-50's),  but I'd do rafting again, and I'm looking forward to getting my 2-wheel license in the next yer.

posted by Fab4Runner

Standard poodles. 

I'm not a fan of yippy poodles, but my old boss had 2 standard poodles and they were just normal dogs. I liked  them a lot. 

Yeah these happened at different stages of my life. The one motorcycle accident was my friend the day before we graduated from high school. That hit really hard. The rafting one was early 30's and he was a long time friend as well.

I don't turn my nose up at people who enjoy these activities but it just isn't my bag.

posted by Commander of Awesome

Secondly, Job Security. This is probably due to graduating college in 2008 and having to work shit jobs just to get back for a yr plus. I've never been fired, but anytime something little goes wrong at work I get all worked up thinking I'll be getting fired.

I do the same thing... there are days I'm happy to make it until 5 because then I know I have a job until at least the next day... For me, I worked for the same company for almost 18 years. There was a change in management and things went to hell. My wife was 8 months pregnant when I was laid off. It was an exciting time to say the least. 

posted by ernest_t_bass

Weren't you the one who posted a picture of yourself on a cliff ledge?

Yes. And I inched my way up and crawled my ass back. I did not really enjoy that experience lol. 

Opening champaign bottles. I am absolutely terrified of it. I've never once opened one myself. And I can't be in the same room as someone else doing it. No fucking clue why.

posted by SportsAndLady

No fucking clue why.

Because you don't want to put your eye out.

Being in the water with anything bigger than about three feet long.

I know it's not reasonable, but I freak out.  On our honeymoon, I was about stomach-deep looking for shells, and my wife pointed out a bunch of porpoises swimming along the coast that would have passed by me at about 20 feet away.

I've never moved so quickly in water.

The feeling of having a hair in my mouth really freaks me out, even if I know for a fact it was mine. One time I had a faulty toothbrush and all the bristles fell out in my mouth; made me dry heave for about 10 minutes.