A few years back on her television show about phobias, Tyra Banks confessed that she had
delfiniphobia which is the fear of dolphins. It’s not the most unreasonable of fears but it is not one that’s hard to avoid. She could live one mile inland, steer clear of aquariums and not watch Nick at Nite for fear of seeing Flipper reruns.
I thought her case was odd until I read about Woody Allen’s fear of dogs, deer, sunshine, insects, small rooms, crowds, children, heights, cancer, being outside of Manhattan, pocket lint, shoe laces, insects, pocket watches, teeth and fairy dust.
There are some rational fears like terrorism-phobia which doesn’t have a snappy and catchy like it could. Seinfeld made us aware of germophobia, worser known as mysophobia which has led to the Purell Act of 2010. It says that if anyone gets within fifty feet of a government building, they must be dunked in a fifty-five gallon drum of antiseptic sanitizer. I use Purell on a daily basis and it’s not just because of the germs; people are just really gross.
When in a public restroom, most people don’t wash up even though the sign says they have to. The faucet and soap dispenser are of the automatic no-touch design as is the hand dryer so there’s not much of a chance of getting someone else’s germs at these stations. The door however, is not automatic. The only way to keep your hands clean and germ free is to make the door automatic to avoid the lackofhygieneinthebathroomgerm, earwaxococus, lickedfingersfungus, and groinscratchteria fungi metamorphosizing on the door handle.
Captain Kirk’s Starship Enterprise had automatic doors, which made the patented swoosh sound, in the 1970s. Why can’t we have those for public bathrooms in the 2010s? And now I have publicpeeaphobia because, after my visit to the restroom, there’s no fire hose of sanitizer nearby.
That’s why I’ve graduated from the handshake, to the fist bump and I think I’m going to have my hand permanently put in a cast so I have an excuse not to greet anyone by touching. Bob Dole was way ahead of his time when, during the Roosevelt administration, he began carrying that rolled up piece of paper in his right hand so he could avoid the shake.
FDR said “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” but he never had to grab a restroom door handle in a bar on all-you-can-eat-ribs night. Franklin Delano’s quote is coming full circle because now people are afraid of fearing for the fear that they may realize they’re afraid of everything. And this may result in contracting phobophobophobia which is the fear of people who fear fearing.
There are many phobias that are not yet main stream, but could be if we put forth a little effort. Bogyphobia is the fear of Humphrey Bogart. It’s not really but it could be and the fear of a dead actor, whom you can easily avoid, is just as believable as any of the other phobias. Eleutherophobia is the fear of freedom that only Lindsay Lohan seems to suffer from. Ommetaphobia is the fear of eyes; and now I know what Oedipus was really suffering from when he carved them out.
Phronemophobia is the fear of thinking but the cure is too easy; just don’t think about it. Eminemaphobia is the fear of being perceived as a white man even though you are. The fear of knees is Genuphobia which has plagued the mafia for decades. KanyeWestaphobia is the fear of not having the spotlight on you every waking hour of the day. One of the symptoms of this fear is taking microphones from female teenage country singers and spewing so much garbage, that you have to wipe your mouth with toilet paper. I’d love him to try that with Mike Tyson but then he might have bleedingoutmyeyesaphobia.
The list of phobias used to be a part time gig but now it takes a full time staff to keep up with naming the new fears; there also has to be cross-referencing to make sure an old fear isn’t named twice which is bobbyjoe-aphobia. This is a list of fears that have two names:
-the fear of hair is both chaetophobia and trichopathophobia
-the fear of words is verbophobia and logophobia
-the fear of Fabio is referred to as icantbelieveitsnotbutteraphobia or Fabiophobia
As a result of these new fears being identified and invented, work for psychologists has to be way up. And some of these people have so much fear of therapy that they have pyschophobia which is the fear of Norman Bates; no really, it’s the fear of therapists which it makes sense after all of the therapy.
I see a phobia therapy session going something like this:
Therapist: “Why have you come here today?”
Patient: “Because I have a fear of phobias.”
Therapist: “The only thing to fear is the fear itself.”
Patient: “Exactly.”
Therapist: “That will be $75.”
There seems to be no help for some of us as the new phobias multiply like Monsters under a five year olds bed. For now, I have a fear of fearing phobic people that no amount of sanitizer can cure.
