Ghost of a flea: Hell is other people's phobias

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April 07, 2006

Hell is other people's phobias

I once had to recover the remains of mouse from a friend's closet because she and her husband were petrified of it. No problem. When a dead mouse turned up under my own bed it was a different story: I asked a friend to take it away. It seems to me that many phobias are context-specific. A spider out of doors is not troubling in the same way as the one crawling on the ceiling overhead. In fact, many reasonable fears should not be described as "phobias" at all. A fear of heights can be quite sensible and a fear of sharks equally so given the right circumstances. Plummeting to one's death or being made into a snack is best avoided.

But some phobias are more difficult to explain. Take pen-lids, for example.

Pen-lids: "I have two very odd phobias. I cannot look or go anywhere near sheep, and the other is pen lids. I cannot have a pen lid on my desk in front of me. If I see one at work I have to get a colleague to come and pick it up for me. I cannot even touch it myself."

Posted by Ghost of a flea at April 7, 2006 08:01 AM

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Comments

Spiders outdoors have their own homes, paid for by their own blood sweat and tears. Spiders indoors are freeloading without rent, without a lease agreement, and living off the avails of the house (i.e. other freeloading bugs).

If they had the decency to negotiate some kind of lease agreement whereby they patrolled certain sectors at certain times, with minimum staff levels and minimum bug-capture efficiency metrics, then we could deal. Otherwise, get off my lawn, as the saying goes.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at April 7, 2006 11:35 AM

Exactly. If I had some means of encouraging spiders to stick to the corners there would be room for an entente cordiale.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at April 7, 2006 02:33 PM