Fiction Friday --

This Week’s Theme: Pick an unusual phobia and explain why a character has it. Oh boy, this was fun. First, I went to Wikipedia for a list of phobias. There are some good ones. The theme called for UNUSUAL phobias. So, that ruled out characters like the school teacher who is afraid of the color red, an Erytophobe, who therefore can't ever fail a student because that means using a red pen. Or the surgeon who is afraid of blood or of performing surgery; either Hemophobia, or Ergasiophobia or Tomophobia. Or the chef who is afraid of food or heat: Cibophobia or Thermophobia. The Blogger who is afraid of computers: Cyberphobia Barber afraid of chins: Geniophobia Barber afraid of bald people: Peladophobia The cat afraid of mice: Murophobia And the new bride who is afraid of her mother-in-law: Pentheraphobia The comedian afraid of laughter: Geliophobia These are all just ironic phobias. Not unusual ones. (Though I had not heard of being afraid of chins or bald people before.) So, what qualifies as a truly unusual phobia?? FINALLY, here is one in the list that I consider quite unusual: "Peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth- Arachibutyrophobia." and "Phobic prefering fearful situations- Counterphobia." and "Words, long- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or Sesquipedalophobia." And then a couple really unusual phobias popped up: Luposlipaphobia — the fear of being pursued by timber wolves around a kitchen table while wearing socks on a newly-waxed floor (fictional, also from Gary Larson in the cartoon series The Far Side). and Anatidaephobia — fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you (fictional, from a Gary Larson cartoon published in The Far Side Gallery, 4). and Anoraknophobia- fear of spiders wearing anoraks: it is a portmanteau of "anorak" and "arachnophobia. Used in the Wallace and Gromit comic book Anoraknophobia or Aibohphobia — a joke term for the fear of palindromes, which is a palindrome itself. Okay, now for the character with the unusual phobia and the explanation of why this character has this phobia. His name is Jonathan Livingston; he's a seagull. He lives along the coast of southern New Jersey and he has heard the stories over and over. For generations the story has been passed down about Uncle Poop-Plop and the Sticky Peanut Butter Stuck tot he Roof of His Mouth. Uncle Poop-Plop was the best mussel hunter along the coast. One day he and a few of his cronies decided to check out the Gull Ladies on Gull Island. That meant leaving the ocean beach and flying north along the bay beach of the island. Usually it was a very uneventful flight. Boring even. This day, however, was different. There were two young turks, thinking quite highly of themselves, in a small sailboat down below. Uncle Poop-Plop, never one to miss a chance to live up to his name, decided to fly in closer. Eh, regular, run of the mill teenagers. Not even the type to try to draw attention to themselves to get the girls on shore to watch them. Geeks, for sure. Just as he was about to take aim, Uncle Poop-Plop saw something flying through the air toward him. Other gulls were making mad dashes to try to catch it. One of the geeks had thrown it. UPP caught it. A saltine cracker! People food was gross (hotdogs, for example), not so bad (UPP remembered stealing that cheeseburger off the picnic table at Mc'y D's -- getting that kid in trouble for its disappearance --a doubly good steal), and fair-to-middling . This cracker fit into that category. Human food was never as good as seafood, but often was much easier to get hold of. More crackers came flying through the air. UPP and his cronies forgot about the gull ladies and joined in the fracas for the goodies being thrown away by such silly geeks. Who would believe him if he told them about FUNNY GEEKS? It was an oxymoron, for sure. There was a short lull when no more crackers were thrown. UPP watched, waiting for a good opportunity to do "his thing" now. Most of the other gulls had gone off to do other things. Even his cronies had headed up to Gull Island. It was just him and old Sma' Beak left. Sma' Beak was sure the geeks were going to throw something else. UPP just wanted to make a plop and hit his mark: the geek with the glasses. A large blob of something came his way. It was easy to outfly Sma' Beak because Sma' Beak was also a runt and scrawny, couldn't fly so fast. UPP caught the blob. Peanut butter! No cracker, just peanut butter. The wad was too big for his mouth. He couldn't get his tongue to move, to try to dislodge the wad stuck to the roof of his mouth, stuck to his tongue, plastering his beak lips together. He tried to dive into the bay water in attempt to loosen the wad. He was stung by three jellyfish. Ironic, peanut butter and jelly fish! Up out of the bay he flew, trying to open his mouth, trying to dislodge the wad. Trying to get his tongue to push it out of the way. He crashed into the bay again, still hoping the impact would loosen the sticky wad. The impact pushed the wad further into his beak and almost clogged his esophagus. One more crash into the bay below and four more jelly fish stung him. His head felt numb. He could barely breathe and was beginning to feel dizzy. He took to the air again, flapping toward Gull Island. Maybe one of the Gull Ladies there could help him. Well, Jonathan Livingston was never ever going to have peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth! No way! Uncle Poop-Plop had found help and being as addle brained as he was form the lack of oxygen and the jelly fish stings, he asked the Gull Lady who rescued him to become his wife. There has never been such a hen-pecked gull in all of gull history and Jonathan was not going to let peanut butter do THAT to him!
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