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11 Little Known Phobias

It's Halloween time, and you can never tell what scares people. But we're going to try and find out together. See, it's not just heights or enclosed spaces or spiders (or clowns) that send people into fits of terror.
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Humorist, Author of The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm and The Official Dictionary of Idiocy

Humorist, Author of The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm and The Official Dictionary of Idiocy
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It's Halloween time, and you can never tell what scares people.

But we're going to try and find out together. See, it's not just heights or enclosed spaces or spiders (or clowns) that send people into fits of terror, but also those more nuanced aspects of everyday life that rear up when we least expect it. Here are a few of them.

11 LITTLE KNOWN PHOBIAS

  1. TypoPostophobia - The fear of spotting a typo in one of your Facebook status updates and not being able to edit it before someone has already posted a comment on it.

  • Tweetophobia - The gnawing terror that one day all political and intellectual discourse will be reduced to 140 characters. (Note: This is the most well-founded fear on the list.)

  • Statophobia - The fear that you will not be able to hold your own in a conversation about statistical minutiae with a bunch of hardcore sports geeks.

  • CarrotTopophobia - Irrational fear of prop comedians.

  • SendItBackophobia - Panic brought on by the stress of deciding whether or not to complain to the waiter about your inadequately prepared entree.

  • Compensateophobia - The fear of asking for a raise.

  • CeilingAngstophobia - The certainty that one of several dead relatives is watching from Heaven while you are doing it, either with another person or yourself.

  • Cirqueophobia - The uneasy feeling that, at some point in the future, something you love will be prostituted into a tacky multi-media extravaganza by the contortionists of Cirque du Soleil.

  • ApolloZeusophobia - A terrible, worrying obsession that you will unexpectedly be asked to say something intelligent about Greek Mythology.

  • SpokeTooSoonophobia - The nagging conviction that proposing marriage -- or accepting said proposal -- was one of the lamest decisions you have ever made.

  • TMZophobia - A crippling terror that reality show recaps, self-indulgent celebrities and sideboob will one day be more important to you than world events, the economy, or the plight of those less fortunate than you. (Thankfully, this fear is obviously unfounded. )

    • Here's hoping we can cope with any and all of these challenging conditions in our lives. After all, we have nothing to fear but fear itself; although, let's be honest, fear itself is no picnic.

    More of James Napoli's comedy content for the Web can be found here.

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