Thursday, February 21, 2008

What Frightens You?

Right now what frightens me is that Tooth No. 19 is a goner. It's coming out as it is cracked, infected, and an all around pain in the mouth. What's coming in its place is an implant, some oral surgery, and a nice hefty price tag (I know how I'm spending my tax surplus check).

Here's a list of phobias (courtesy of the online page-a-day calendar I receive by email every morning). Many of these have to be made up (let's start with the fact that spell check didn't like any of them):
  • anthomania - fear of flowers
  • balletomania - fear of ballet
  • cytheromania - fear of sex
  • dromomania - fear of running; roaming
  • eleutheromania - fear of freedom
  • flagellomania - fear of flogging; beating
  • gamomania - fear of marriage; proposing
  • hexametromania - fear of writing hexameters
  • islomania - fear of islands
  • jumbomania - fear of mammoth proportions (or graduates of this university?)
  • klopemania - fear of theft
  • lypemania - fear of mournfulness
  • melomania - fear of music (and the subsets "Mariahmania" and "Madonnamania")
  • nostomania - fear of nostalgia
  • onomatomania - fear of words; neologisms
  • polkamania - fear of dancing polkas (c'mon, who doesn't love a good polka)
  • pteridomania - fear of ferns
  • rinkomania - fear of ice-skating
  • sonnettomania - fear of sonnets
  • squandermania - fear of reckless spending (oh, I'm not afraid of it, I'm really good at it)
  • timbromania - fear of postage stamps
  • uranomania - fear of celestial power
  • Whitmania - fear of Walt Whitman
  • xenomania - fear of things foreign
  • zoomania - fear of animals
Then I received this nugget in my Google Reader about a woman who lives on Staten Island and was afraid of the Verrazano Bridge, once the world's longest suspension bridge. For those of you who aren't familiar with the greater metropolitan NYC area, Staten Island really is an island and you need that bridge to get to Long Island. Then I saw this story in the Poughkeepsie Journal about a planned refurbishment of the Tappan Zee Bridge.

I personally don't like to drive across this bridge, but I am not sure why. It might be the pitch or the fact that you can see through the drains to the water below. I've driven across a lot of bridges. I grew up in New York and that meant bridges (or tunnels - but that's a story for another day). I crossed at least one bridge every day while commuting. When I moved to DC, more water, more bridges (although I didn't cross this bridge for the first time until last fall). For a while, before I moved, I drove across a bridge that was built in the same model as the Minnesota bridge (it was on the Beltway - so it didn't get a lot of traffic, nope). I like bridges, the architecture, the design. I really wanted to cross this bridge when I was in New Orleans and this bridge-tunnel combo is something that I want to do as well.

I am an intelligent person. I understand the bridge is not going to collapse . . .



and yet?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is a nice drive, but a little spooky. They have a nice rest area on one of the supporting "islands" for the bridge.

Still waiting for your random 7, dude.

Anna van Schurman said...

I don't know what kind of a lunkhead they have working for them at page-a-day, but zoomania is a passion for animals. Zoophobia is the fear. I wouldn't go with spellcheck to decide which words are words. I know that sororal is the opposite of fraternal, but spellcheck doesn't like it.

As for the fudge, it's different because it's the only one my sister likes. Other fudges are creamy and this one is sugar-y. So there's something to the recipe.

Brave Astronaut said...

OK, hi. I think I'm the lunkhead here. I may have confused "manias" with "phobias." I know the difference but completely spaced out about it when I decided to write about the page a day list. The list was called "manias" and not "phobias"

So, "strike that, reverse it." or whatever you need to do to make that list work for you.

Anonymous said...

Two things - First, I've put off getting my dental implant for TWO YEARS because I'm a fraidy cat.

And, I never want to drive through the chunnel.

dd

Mary Witzl said...

Damn. Anna beat me to it!

As for dentists, I'm right there with you. I take scrupulously good care of my teeth as I am petrified of having to have dental work done. Sad to say, my kids share my fear of the dentist, but not my strategy for avoiding him/her.

My youngest (the former tantrum queen) just had a molar pulled. She apparently had a toothache for months but did not have the nerve to tell us. By the time she did, it was past fixing. The dentist would happily have given me the Bad Mother of the Year Award: I neglected to nag her to have her last check-up. S i g h.

Mary Witzl said...

Ahem. That's s i g h.

Brave Astronaut said...

C - I have looked at pictures, videos, Google Maps of the bridge-tunnel, only makes me want to do it more.

Anna - Mea Culpa. I know better. I will have to go and console myself with some fudge.

DD - Tunnels are OK for me unless it's the Lincoln Tunnel and I am a character in "The Stand."

Mary - Always good to see you over here. Normally, I don't mind the dentist. For the longest time, I had really good teeth and then all of a sudden, chaos. The root canal that has failed is only the second in my mouth and the first that has failed.