On the fears we face...

While enjoying my Sunday morning coffee and reading blogs and the like, I read a post on Bakkouz's blog about Parthenophobia, the fear virgins or young girls. I have to agree with him. This is a rather strange phobia for a person to have. In my life I have heard of or read about various types of phobias that human beings suffer from. After having done some browsing, and seeing lists of phobias that have been documented throughout the years, I know that many of them are more bizarre than I could have ever imagined.

In my opinion, the weirdest one has got to be:
Arachibutyrophobia - fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.

Here are some others I found rather amusing:
Geniophobia - fear of chins
Peladophobia - fear of bald people (I suppose this makes sense if it's a group of skinheads chasing you with baseball bats)
Consecotaleophobia - fear of chopsticks
Nomatophobia - fear of names (So do these people spend their lives walking around calling others "Hey you!"?)
Bibliophobia - fear of books (I suspect that some of my students suffer from this one)
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia - fear of the number 666 (I'm not even sure how to pronounce that one)
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia - fear of long words (And then they give it a threatening looking name like this?!!)
Barophobia - fear of gravity (Ok, and how are you supposed to deal with that? Go live in space?)
Phronemophobia - fear of thinking (Not quite sure how one would deal with this either...)
Linonophobia- fear of string
Ithyphallophobia - fear of seeing, thinking about or having an erect penis
Xanthophobia - fear of the colour yellow or the word yellow
Lutraphobia - fear of Otters (huh?!!)

Here is a list of phobias that people suffer from. What phobias do you have?

phobias

Exploding Phone Charger (enough to ruin my day)

I had never thought about this before. I had never even heard of it happening (though apparently it does).
Had you asked me about mobile phones before I moved to Slovenia 10 years ago, I would have just rolled my eyes at you. My friends and I would actually make fun of people we saw talking on their cells. I suppose the fact that phone calls from landlines and pay phones are much cheaper in Canada than they are in Europe had something to do with this. After coming to live here and witnessing the mobile boom in the 90s, I eventually gave in after receiving several complaints that it was impossible to get a hold of me. Since then, using a mobile phone and everything that comes along with it has become daily routine, every day stuff… not really something I think about twice. Well, until now…

I recently purchased a new charger for my mobile. What happened the first time I plugged it in? It exploded! Seriously! There was this loud pop sound and the thing blew up! I couldn’t believe it!






This was on Sunday and unfortunately, the shop where I had purchased the charger was closed. I immediately looked up the manufacturer’s website and wrote them a letter strongly suggesting that they do something about quality control. They still haven’t responded. After taking a more careful look at their packaging, I also noticed that their English and German instructions really don’t make any sense. For example: “Vor dem laden ist die Cebrauchsanweisung zu lessen” Huh? This means absolutley nothing! Millenium, you people suck!

On Monday, I went to the shop with the remnants of the blown up charger. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: I bought this charger here on Friday and when I plugged it in, it exploded.
Guy: That shouldn’t happen.
Me: No shit, Sherlock. Did you accidentally give me a model from the “Suicide Bombers’ Series” or something?
(Guy gives me a perplexed look…)

The guy didn’t give me any hassle to exchange it. I also made him plug the new one in the shop before I agreed to accept it.

Just as a warning to all of you… these things do happen. From now on, I’m always going to have things tested/plugged-in at the shop before I take them home and they blow up in my face!


exploding mobile charger