The Duchess Lists

Top 10 Irrational Fears

Living on my own for a grand total of 3 weeks has taught me many things. Grasshoppers are dicks, you need to use properly wattaged lightbulbs, having a sparkling clean bathroom is thrilling, and left overs are gifts from god. What I have also had to learn to deal with are my many, MANY, irrational fears. Quite frankly, I'm not sure how I survived to 22 (I'm assuming none of the below fears will come true in the next 24 hours), being that I'm afraid of everything. But so it is. Do me a massive favour and don't use any of these against me, okay?

1. Spiders

This isn't really irrational because spiders are horrifying in every respect. They have so many damn legs, and they're hairy and spindly and just....ugh, shudder inducing. Usually, I suck them up in a vacuum so I don't have to feel the crunch of their horrifying corpse inside 7 layers of paper towel. Now that I'm by myself, I don't even have a boyfriend to do my murdering for me. I'm learning to be brave. Ish.

2. Serial Killers Who Are Also Robbers

My one issue with sleeping alone is that every noise in my house has me convinced that someone is breaking in to kill me and steal everything I own. Usually, it's just my pet rat Socks knocking over her food dish. She's kind of an insensitive dick like that some nights. Anyways, at some point last year, I slept with a bedside light on and with a knife in my nightstand because I was convinced that we were going to be domestically intruded. Because all serial killers moonlighting as robbers are afraid of light, right?

3. Under the Bed

I try to cram as many things under my bed as is humanly possible so that there is no room for creatures/monsters/humans of any sort. I sort of blame Freaky Stories on YTV for this, but I've always been terrified of what may or may not be under my bed. To this day, I will not put my feet on the floor in the dark, there must be a light on, and I try to get as far away from the bed as possible as rapidly as possible. I also long jump my way back INTO the bed. Just in case. WHAT IF SOMETHING GRABS YOUR ANKLES?!

4. Closets

I am so so so so terrified of closets. Closets with mirrored panels are especially evil, but I'll explain that next. Closets can harbour monsters, but also spiders, and murderers, and wolves, and really bad things. If the closet door is open, even a crack, I cannot and will not sleep. For some reason, if the door is closed, I'm safe. CLOSE YOUR DAMN CLOSET DOORS PEOPLE.

5. Mirrors

Partly, I blame a friend in the 4th grade who told me about Bloody Mary and had me scared shitless for years. Like, my mom had to take the full length mirror out of my room at the age of 9, and the next time I had a mirror in my room was not by choice and I was 18 years old and living in residence. You never know what the hell is going to be in that mirror, see #6.

6. Flushing the Toilet at Night

This is entirely linked to #5, but flushing the toilet at night has FAR worse consequences. This is complicated, so listen up. First of all, you have to get out of bed without anything grabbing your ankles. The house is dead quiet. You flush the toilet. 3 things could happen: a)a wolf comes out of the air duct which is always, ALWAYS conveniently located near the toilet, making you TRES vulnerable; b) Bloody Mary gets the call and shows up to fuck you up in the mirror; c) nothing. Usually, C is what actually happens. But still. I've learned to deal with this fear rationally, but as a child, I felt that going back to my room was dangerous so I would fall asleep on the bathmat with the light on and my dad would have to find me and carry me back to bed. True Story.

7. Touching Noses

One time, I realized that somebody touching my nose was HORRIFYING. Subsequently, my coworkers learned of this fear and took advantage of it. It was hiiiiiilarious. I basically freak out and start shrieking and flapping and generally flipping out because its just SUCH A WEIRD THING TO DO. WHY WOULD YOU EVER TOUCH SOMEONE'S NOSE?! What am I supposed to do with that?

8. Teeth Destruction

I have this constant fear that I'm one day just going to be walking along the sidewalk and eat pavement SO HARD and knock out teeth. I have had DREAMS about losing teeth, teeth shifting, gaps in teeth the width of a 1950s Cadillac, etc. I just have this fear of mangling my dentals, and quite frankly, I feel this one is also justified. Getting hit in the mouth with a softball is pretty hard to recover from, I would imagine. It hasn't happened, but that and breaking my nose are about the last things I need to happen.

9. Medical Procedures

I really hope I never need to be in a hospital, because I can't deal with any sort of medicalness in my general vicinity. Like, I passed out when I got my belly button pierced. There is no hope if ever I need any sort of real procedure done. I'll just cry and make a big fuss out of it until a magical unicorn comes out and magically solves everything for me in a painless non-medically invasive way. I can't even think about veins too much or its over.

10. Locking Myself Out

This is kind of a cop out, but honestly, every time I leave my house now I check my bag twice before I shut the door because I am so afraid of locking myself out for the third, yes THIRD time this year. WHAT IF I WAS MAKING A GRILLED CHEESE AND THE HOUSE BURNT DOWN?! HMM!? Terrifying. Socks is lucky she has such a responsible roommate. Maybe I should make her a set of keys too...