Mysophobia, Entomophobia, Automatonophobia

Unfortunately, most of my fears don’t actually have a name for them. I couldn’t actually find a name for my fear of crickets, or my fear of those awful brown beetles that somehow make their way into my house during the summer. They just cling to you-I can’t deal with that- or crickets hopping onto my feet or wherever. It’s too much. Other than the crickets and beetles (because I’m already starting to get the feeling that they’re all over me), I also have a fear of heights, especially in those cases when I could easily plummet to my death. I can’t even jump off of the back of the bus. As soon as I look down, it just seems like a longer fall than it would if I was just watching. Another fear I have, even though this one is a situational fear, is my fear of wax figures, or ventriloquists’ dummies, and other strange things that could look like people. After watching Dead Silence and having some other weird encounters, I have a firm belief that I could never get near anything like that ever again. My other, more common fear, which could easily be an actual phobia, is my fear of germs. I carry around so many bottles of hand sanitizer all the time; I don’t know what I would do without them. I don’t touch doorknobs without cleaning my hands after, and I can be a little obsessive about it. I just don’t like being sick, which is fairly rational, in my opinion.

The Spider.

What scares me the most? I'll tell you what, those spiders. They have no regard for personal space, always hiding in your shoes, and your bathrooms. Some spiders will even kill you when they bite you, if thats not something to have a fear of, then you might as well not have fear. These eight-legged fiends are not what you want to find when you walk into the bathroom in the morning. Nothing worse than starting out the day engaged in combat with a spider for fifteen minutes, chasing it around, trying to kill it while at the same time, trying to avoid being bit. Like I said, they can kill you. I'm not an arachnophobe, but I, like millions of other people, do not like spiders. They come in all shapes and sized. The harry tarantula is a commonly feared one, but the small brown recluse spiders are worst. They are smaller than a penny, and one of the deadliest spiders. You can get bit by these things in your attic and not even see them. Remember that when your getting out your Christmas decorations. :)

Heliophobia

Ever since I was 7, I have been a heliophobic. The sun is just an evil thing, I don't even like to think about it. When I was just a wee little boy at the age of 7, I fell asleep outdie and was scorched with 3rd-degree burns all over my body. It was this horrific incident where I learned that the son was a gift from the devil and is out to get us. Nowadays, I like to sit inside of my darkcloset and play Monopoly against myself while the evil secretly attacks another innocent human being. If I should ever be forced to go outside under the presence of the eveil, I have created a full body suit that blends in with my surroundings so I can sneak past this evil and to safety. Some people might say that I'm just being ridiculous and the sun (OW! IT HURTS TO EVEN SAY IT!) is beautiful. These are the people in which the evil has already gotten to and brainwashed them to support it and its evil ways. But not me, I know of the capability of the evil, and will probably never be able to get past this horrendousness.

Zombehs

For a zombie apocalypse, several steps are necessary. To survive, you'll of course need the few basic things; aka food, clothing, shelter and the like. However, you will more than likely need weapons, and a secure isolated location for shelter, unlike the shelter of the good old days where we slept in caves.

In order to survive one needs food. Your location should be a place where you can secure food easily, as well as have a large supply of non-perishable foods in storage.

Clothing should be brought with you to your safe house. If you need more make it of the scraps left on the bodies of the undead.

Shelter is really a personal opinion. A while ago when my friends and I came up with our own zombie apocalypse plan, we determined the the most plausible location in which we can secure a "base" is on a large oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. However, any other isolated location is a good idea as well. for example, the far north/south where the bodies of the undead would simply freeze would also work, however you might end up with the same fate.

The only real problem left is your weaponry. One should have a minimum of three weapons. These include a melee weapon, a handgun of some sorts, and a rifle of some sorts. One should also carry a small blade with them, for varying purposes.

My personal choices are as follows:

1. A Cold Steel "Hand and a Half" sword. One can find this at this website http://www.coldsteel.com/handandahalf.html. Weighing only three pounds, it is light enough to carry but packs enough of a punch to slice strait through those nasty undead.

2. An M9 pistol. Being a military standard, once I run out of my barrels and barrels of ammo, I'm sure more won't be to hard to find.

3. An ACR. Also known by its full name, the Adaptive Combat Rifle, this gun can be a full automatic machine gun, a semi-automatic sub-machine gun, or a rifle for long distance shots. It's versatility would be undoubtedly useful in this scenario. Although I'm not sure, I believe this is also to become a military standard in the next few years, so ammo will be about for me to scavenge as well.

All of these few basic things sum up the gist of my zombie apocalypse survival plan. I can't give you all the details, otherwise you might tell your eventual zombie friends where I am! Good luck on your own, cause I'll be living it up.

Chilopodophobia

Centipedes are the one of the nastiest creature on the face of the planet. Most things with more than four legs creep me out (except for the tiny harmless ant), but centipedes are king when it comes to the most disgusting arthropods.

This fear mostly stems from what happens if the foul beasts latches onto a part of my body. An ant on an arm only causes a small tingling sensation, almost like an itch. A centipede can be up to 12 inches of pure grotesqueness. It's slimy touch causes pure spasm. Just the thought of a centipede crawling all of over my body gives me chills. They also have pairs of long legs that sprout from every segment of its body. Tentacle like appendages enables them to transport its body of vile filth extremely quickly, hence increasing the changes of human-to-pede contact. This also ranks them as scarier than millipedes, which have two pairs of tiny legs per body segment. Millipedes do not move nearly as fast.

But most importantly, centipedes are difficult to dispose of. I suppose your daddy using a spray can of bug eliminator or calling in the SWAT team would do the trick, but if you find one in your bathroom when you're alone at your house, you're on your own. The centipede is simply too big to squash under a napkin. You're bound to see it's guts or worse, only get its tail. A paper towel is bigger, but you'll undoubtedly feel the smushing and possibly the wrenching of the bug's final seconds. Simple killing requires the use of 20-30 sheets of paper towel. Also, the bug sports lighting quick agility, making the probability of a miss extremely high. In this case, you have just decreased the distance the centipede needs to attack your hand. One-on-one, you're helpless against the centipede.

Pyrophobia

Hi, my name is Victoria Salsman and I am scared of fires. I don't really know why I am afraid of fire, I just kind of always have been. This being said, one of my least favorite holidays is the 4th of July. This isn't because I don't love my country, its merely due to the fact that everyone in the entire United States throws fancy fire in the air. When I was little I was always the little loser kid who had to watch the fireworks from inside the house because I was scared. I've gotten over it a little, but now fireworks just stress me out a whole lot. Also, I absolutely hate storms because I'm scared that lightning is going to strike my house. Sounds a little weird but I've always been scared of storms because of that. In elementary school one of my friend's mom was a nurse in the ER and told us horrific stories of people getting struck my lightning and it entering one hand and coming out the opposite foot. I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty dang scary to me.

A family bike ride

Once upon a time, there was an average little family who decided to spend a day of their Colorado vacation doing a trail bike ride. The first 15 miles was all downhill, literally no pedaling required. This was good because the mom and brother were not especially athletic, so a bus came and picked them up at the bottom of the hill. On the other hand, the dad and daughter were pretty active, so they continued the 9 mile hilly krek back to the bike shop. The weather was great, and it was a really fun bonding time. The father-daugther duo made it about 3 miles away from the shop before it started raining. That didn't really both them; they were both used to running in the rain - so why not bike in it? Well, the two should have taken more precaution because out of no where, hail began falling from the summer sky. The girl and her dad biked many hilly miles through the storm, rain, and hail. They were cold, they were wet, they were tired, and boy were they scared. The pelting hail hurt so badly that the girl wanted to curl up in a ball on the side of the course and wait to die. When the pain became totally unbearable, she got off the bike and started to walk with it. The father, who was a little ahead, saw the girl stopped and came back to check on her. The girl was screaming and crying. The whole time, he had been worrying about getting struck by lightening, but it never occured to him how much he was aching and freezing - until the girl pointed it out. Once he realized this, he knew he had to act fast in order to get out of the storm. They biked off and were never seen again. Some say that when hail comes in the summer, they can still see a screaming and crying girl walking a bike... But when asked if she's okay, she just disappears.

The real ending:

We biked two hilly miles through the storm, rain, and hail. I was cold, I was wet, I was tired, and I was scared! Afterwards, I was exhausted. I took an hour-long shower, too cold to take my clothes off until about half way in. For the next week, my thighs and knuckles were disgusting. They had bruises, bumps, and a general purple-gray color all over. I had never been in a position where I thought I might die, and it scared me so much. Through all the bad, however, I did get an awesome story out of it - and some pretty brutal pictures.