Irrational Fears

Do you know how many times you press the Ctrl key on your keyboard in a day? I never thought about it . . . until mine stopped working. You know, right after I had replaced my power cord. Sheesh. But now I have a fabulous new wireless keyboard and mouse, and I’m wondering why on earth I’ve been using that stupid little touch pad for my mouse all these years. This is amazing!

With all these little wonky things going wrong with my computer, I’ve been growing insanely paranoid about losing all the pictures, digital scrapbooking, and family history books I’ve been working on lately. (But not my writing. That’s already backed up in four or five different places, don’t worry.) So I’ve been coming up with all these crazy schemes to back up those files several times, until my eternally patient husband reminded me that all of these files are also on his computer and our external hard drive, and many of the pictures are on my family blog and other family members’ computers as well. So I guess even if my computer does go crazy and corrupts all my picture files, I won’t lose ALL of my baby’s pictures. (You know, all ten billion of them.)

I still maintain that my fear of losing our photos is not completely irrational, but it got me thinking about those amusing irrational fears that crop up at the most unexpected times. I knew someone who was afraid of stickers. Another, onions.

Me? Play-Doh. I cringe when I’m in the same room with it. I can’t tell you how much I hate the smell and the feel of it. If it’s fresh homemade play dough, I do okay–it doesn’t smell as bad, and it doesn’t feel quite as soul-shudderingly horrifying. But even homemade play dough starts to get gross when it’s been sitting a week or two.

What are some of the weirdest irrational fears you’ve come across? Or some of your own?

And, for your Monday writing challenge:

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Write a humorous scene where one of your characters’ irrational fears comes into play.

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