Saturday, August 23, 2008

Scoleciphobia

One of my favorite parts of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is when Lucy describes phobias to Charlie Brown. As a kid, I was amazed how a little girl knew so many big words, like pantophobia. There is a phobia for nearly everything and if you go to The Phobia List you'll probably find several you can relate to yourself. When I was little, I used to have a fear of being behind a cement mixer while riding in a car. I guess I thought it would dump cement and bury me alive. I remember telling my mom I was allergic to dump trucks -- silly.

Some phobias are silly, but others are real. Most know what claustrophobia is, and for those who have it, being in confined places can be terrifying. I have scoleciphobia, which is the fear of worms. Yes, it's a silly phobia and it's not a big deal. I know I won't die if I'm around worms. I simply don't like them -- not even a tiny bit. Taking the picture above was hard for me. My husband was working on a fountain in our yard and came across some worms. As much as I hated to do it, I needed a picture for a book I was writing about animals, so I took the picture. I decided to confront my fear even more by writing a story about worms. It's a silly story that rhymes, about a little worm who is always mad and wants some peace and quiet. While researching for my story, I discovered that a single acre of property can have nearly 1 million earthworms in it. Yes, one million. That's a lot of creepy, wiggly things. It makes me think twice when I'm laying on my lawn. I love birds and enjoy photographing them. Watching American robins pull worms from the ground nearly makes me faint. Better in their bellies than anywhere near me, I guess.

Things could always be worse. I could have peladophobia, a fear of bald people, or genuphobia, a fear of knees. I guess being scared of silly worms isn't so bad. So, how about you -- what are you afraid of?


7 comments:

  1. Rena,

    I never cared for worms, didn't like their slimminess. But one of my grandmothers and her husband raised the things and sold them to fishermen. When I was visiting, I would have to dig out the worms, count them, and put them in a can for the customer. *shiver* Make me like them less.

    Vivian
    http://vzabel.multiply.com/journal

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  2. Oooh Vivian, I could never do what you did. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it. When I lived in CA, our house was surrounded by oak trees. Every spring all these tiny green worms would parachute all over the yard. I never spent much time outside during "worm season" there. ICK!

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  3. I am claustrophobic, and it can be quite difficult for people to understand that when they don't suffer from it...

    Have you ever watched the t.v. show MONK...he is a detective and he suffers from EVERY phobia there is...I love my MONK...he makes me feel normal...grin...

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  4. Stinging insects. Any kind of bee, wasp, or hornet makes me freak out.

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  5. Brenda -- I haven't seen that show, but I've heard of it. My husband used to work with someone like that. Everytime he heard someone talk about an illness they had, my husband's friend immediately thought he had all the symptoms too. What a goof.

    Marcia -- Stinging insects are no fun at all. Eeeks.

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  6. Rena, a couple of years ago my oldest child had an assignment at school to take care of a worm. Of course my children feel the same way as you about worms, so this wasn't his favorite assignment. One morning not long after the worm came home we came downstairs to find it had escaped it's container and was on the kitchen floor. The worm was kicked out of the house after that. I had to be the one to take it outside, yuck!
    Erin

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  7. Hey Erin! Thanks for stopping by. Oh gosh, I'd faint at a school project like that. I had a hard enough time carrying a raw egg around for health class. Remember when they used eggs and you had to pretend they were babies? Thank heavens they didn't use worms or I would have freaked!

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