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Of course I’m afraid of choking alone in my apartment, the plane I’m on crashing, and getting a scary disease diagnosis like any other person. Those are Big Fears that keep people up at night. This list is more of the little things that I encounter or think about that give me the willies but I deal with them. My favorite professor used to tell us to do one thing everyday that scares us. Some days, these are those little things.

1. Escalators. My little brother almost got the bottom of his pants caught once when we were young. Ever since then I always take a giant step off, bordering on a leap.

2. Mannequins. They’re so effing creepy, but the ones I’m particularly creeped out by are the ones in museums that are posed in historical clothing. Bonus creepiness if they’re Animatronic.

3. Straining my back while half naked, calling my friend to help me, only for her to be busy and send her boyfriend over to help me, while I’m still lying on the floor half naked, like Miranda and Aidan in that Sex and the City episode (I wish I was kidding).

4. Moths. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the way they flap around lights as if possessed, the way they lay flat against walls, or the gross fake eye patterns on their wings. Actually, I would say all of those things are it.

5. Trying a new food, hating it, and then dying two seconds later because it turns out that I have an obscure allergy to something in it. If I’m going to die from eating something, it should be the best damn thing I ever ate.

This doesn’t stop me from trying new foods. It actually makes it more exciting. And if I have to scare myself everyday, so should you.

Edit: After I read this over, it came off a little I-seige-every-moment-of-life-and-so-should-you-preachy-preachy. To clarfiy, there are definitely days where I don’t do anything that scares me. I have many days in ‘get up, go to work, come home, and sleep’ robot mode.  However, when I have the opportunity to do something that gives me that nervous feeling in my gut, I take it. And even if it doesn’t go the way I planned, I usually have a good story (which is always important to me). End note.