I’m hardly the most graceful person in the world, but I probably don’t drop my keys any more often than anyone else does. And I have never dropped anything down a storm drain. (I’ve had parts of my life go down the drain, but that’s another story… and a different drain….)
And yet, whenever I’m near a storm drain (the big ones like in parking lots) I’m afraid that I’ll drop my keys and they’ll fall through the grate and be lost forever. I don’t know why I fear this, but I always give that large, gaping hole to the bowels of hell a wide berth and keep my keys in my pocket until I’m well away.
According to Merriam-Webster Online a phobia is “an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation”. I doubt this one is common enough to warrant a name of its own like agoraphobia or triskaidekaphobia. (But if there is one, please let me know.) After all, I’m weirder than you are.
Technorati tags: Another Pocket Post~blog~personal~otoh~sydca
7 Responses to “Another Pocket Post”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Let's do Something Cheap and Superficial 
My sister suffers from porcaflushaoverflowbaphobia, which is the fear of having the Altamonte Springs sewer line explode while you are sitting on the, er, throne. And I have coulrophobia, which is a fear of clowns, although that has settled now into more a distaste. And for a long time I thought that agoraphobes feared fruits and vegetables.
The author Mark Leyner once suggested that instead of having parades for ethnicities or cultures, like St. Patricks Day Parade or Puerto Rican Day Parade, we have parades for disorders, like Agoraphobics Parade. But then, he commented, no one would show up.
This is a great post. I do the exact same thing. When I’m near the storm drains I always slip my finger through the key ring and clench my fingers together in a fist to keep the keys from sliding out.
Bizarre, I know, but it takes so little effort and if it prevents just one incident in my entire life then I’ll have come out ahead.
Sometimes, when I’m climbing up the stairs, my brain imagines what it would be like to suddenly fall backwards.
Our brains are cruel like that.:(
hey, if they have a word for the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth i am sure they have one for dropping your keys in a sewer, though i’ve no idea what it is.
A friend of mine actually did this once with my keys. He needed something out of my car and was swinging them around on his finger and they flew off…right into the tiny ass slits for the drain. It took quite a long time to fish them out, and I was due to take my friend to the airport. Grrr…So, your fear is not unusual — it happens!
Me too!!! Or I’m afraid I’m going to drop a credit card down the storm drain. And most times, I’m not walking around with a credit card in my hand. But that’s what I picture each time… Amex, down the drain.
Every day when I enter the elevator (I live way up in a sky box) I am convinced my keys which are very safe and sound in my bag, are going to fall down that gap between the floor and the elevator…I see it happen and I hear it happen. And no it never has!