This reminds me of that new cell phone commercial.
The one where the guy calls up a Tarantula pic on his phone that is supposedly so life-like it makes the chick next to him have screaming hysterics and the guy across the table yanks off his shoe and beats the cellphone with it.
That commercial is funny, but it isn't. It's funny because people react so strongly to a picture of an animal, not even the animal itself.
It is also not funny because a phobia is no laughing matter. I myself am phobic about heights. Not just afraid of heights, but phobic. It take an effort of will just to climb a stepladder. Something on the roof of the house ? It takes me a hour to get up, and three more to get down. I can't ride escalators without someone on either side of me and in front of me. I can't walk up to the stair railing in the mall looking down on the lower level.
A ride in a ferris wheel brings on a panic attack. You couldn't get me on a glass sided elevator with a 3 ton wench.
On a school field trip I managed to make the horrifying ride to the top of the St. Louis Arch. My teachers insisted I HAD to go, and thought my claims of fear were exaggerated.
Once I got off the little lift thing and felt the floor swaying, I laid down in the middle of the floor and just moaned and cried. It took three teachers and three custodians to get me up off the floor, and almost 45 minutes to get me back on the lift. I threw up twice on the way down. My teachers never made the mistake of insisting I go anywhere high again.
So yeah, people overreacting to certain things they are afraid of is funny, but don't look down on a true phobia, cause they aren't funny.
Gale
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