I think Halloween is just one of those things I’ll never fully understand. The thought of being visited by a demon is more exciting than scary for me. There are so many things in day-to-day life that make me lose sleep that made-up ones really don’t cut it anymore.

Babies: Babies seriously freak me out. Anything that small and seemingly useless has to be dangerous in some regard. Pregnant women as well, for that matter; I have two nephews and a niece so I’ve experienced this fear more than anyone ever should. Pregnant women are often emotional and visibly carrying the human equivalent of a parasite. Terrifying.

Birds flying overhead really freak me out as well. This doesn’t stem from some childhood exposure to Alfred Hitchcock movies though. It stems more from my acute fear of being defecated on. I don’t know, I just feel as if that happens enough in my life figuratively that if it were to literally happen I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

People not washing their hands after the big swine flu scare a couple years ago scares me now. Nothing says doom for the rest of our species like a guy walking out of a stinky bathroom stall and exiting the restroom without even as much as a glance towards the sink. I feel like this contributes to aversion to shaking people hands. I get chills when I’m in a public restroom and the soap dispenser is empty. I can’t help but think to myself “What if I’m not the first person to realize this and everybody else just kept going?!” My heart can’t take that kind of worry.

Who am I kidding? I could go on forever. I have irrational fears of: Sitting with my back to doors, seeing people look back at me through a window when I’m inside my house, shower mold, people who turn around too quickly in my peripheral, slow driving cars (I don’t know if it’s the Scruff McGruff commercials I watched as a kid, or growing up in Flint, but that’s a real bad one), people walking towards me quickly in any situation, warm fruit, stiff towels and the baby from Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs … And the list goes on.

So if we’re watching a scary movie and I don’t seem scared at all until a pregnant woman enters the theater, or I cringe and cry a little if you shake my hand, you know why…and I’m sorry.

[email protected]