One of my sister won't even come into my houes if the snake is out... My grandfather is a tough old man. One of the old school "manly man" type of guys. I can't think of too many times that I've seen him visibly afraid of anything... Until I showed him one of my baby balls. He ran... and I mean that literally. He ran from me made even more impressive by the fact that my grandfather was in his early eighties at the time. This is a man that has been to war and all types of stuff. Was raised on a farm in rural mississipi has been to war and ran from a baby ball python. To this day its the only instance in my lifetime that I've ever seen him move so fast.

By contrast I got my 3 year old son "his" first pet. A ball python and he was so fascinated by the thing that it blew my mind.
go figure.

On another note I know someone who has a fear of people on stilts. I thought he was BS'ing until a buch of us went to a haunted hay ride one holoween and a some characters came out in stilts and dude freaked out and balled himself up in the corner of the haywagon...