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Irrational or not, fear is what I got

By Graham von Carlowitz, Editorial Editor

I celebrated my birthday a few weeks ago -- I'm an October baby -- and while all the recognition for a job well done on, uh, living another year is fun, I couldn't help but look ahead to the day at the end of my birthday month, the 31st. Like one's birthday, Halloween tends to remind people that they should be glad they have survived this long. Congrats, here's some candy!

I tend to look at it a little different, though, analyzing the many sources of fear my life offers. In my experience, I have learned that fear, while never providing a shortage of paralysis, can be broken down into three categories: there's rational fear, like the fear that the smell of one's fart might make it to those around him; there's irrational fear, like the fear that somehow one is responsible for a crime they are sure they did not commit, like smelling someone else's fart and fearing that you might be responsible, despite your concerted effort to hold all flatulence in; and last, there's the fear of the unsure, that is, the fear could be rational, but it could also be irrational, like when no one's sure who just let one loose.

On the phone the other day with my brother Clay, I encountered a thought-out, rational fear. Clay lives in Brooklyn and, as such, utilizes the subway system daily. After leaving a movie screening at a hip bar one night, he and his wife waited on the subway platform for their train. Clay, always an anxious one, leaned over the side to see if any trains were incoming. In doing so, he bumped into what happened to be a featherweight girl who took off upon contact, flying onto the tracks below.

"Jesus," I said, "was she all right?"

"Yeah, she was fine. We helped her up with time to spare -- the train wouldn't be coming for another ten minutes," Clay started. "Then, when she was safely back on the platform, she just took off. I mean, she ran away without saying or doing anything."

"What the hell? No 'thank you' or anything?" I asked.

Clay went on to explain his fear -- a rational one indeed -- that perhaps this girl regularly found her way onto the train tracks and, upon being rescued, would poke around for some reward, some pity coffee or cash to make her feel better. He feared that she was a crook, a roundabout pickpocket bent on feeding off the sympathy of Brooklyn subway riders. The reason she hadn't prodded at him was because first, he was with his wife and thus unlikely to offer a sympathy date, and second, because he felt no guilt in the supposed crime at all.

"It was like she jumped onto the tracks and used my brushing her as an excuse," he explained without remorse.

I experience Irrational Fear when I sit in my apartment, where I live with two guys who were just names to me a few months ago named David and Sam. Oftentimes I sneak into the vacant fourth bedroom, which now exists as a den of sorts, a room with a couch and television. Officially, the room is "totally free to anyone," but I fear that, since both the furniture and TV belong to Sam, whose room neighbors the "den," I am not truly welcome.

Sitting on Sam's couch, I find myself jumping up at the faintest sounds, fearing that this time, the footsteps outside belong to Sam, who will burst through the door in a psychotic rage and kick my ass right off his sinking sofa. Since such action is so imminent in my mind, I have a plan of flight prepared that sees me shivering, standing in the doorway with the remote in hand, ready to dismiss the television's service while my other hand will flick the light switch. From there, I toss the remote and dash across the common room to the other side and slide into my room, safe and sound. And still shaking.

The crazy thing about it is that I know how ridiculous my escape plan is, how ridiculous my assumption of Sam's reaction is -- especially since he has indeed caught me a few times, only to offer a simple, "Hey dude." But irrational fears always have some modicum of reality -- in this case the reality that Sam could lay claim to the couch and television -- which makes them all the more powerful.

Worse still are the fears that are up in the air, the probability of which can neither be confirmed nor denied.

For example, I fear that David, the blonde hulk figure who works as an athletic trainer, is going to kill me, or at least punish me in some way. The thing is, when you live in an apartment with a community fridge, sharing is inevitable -- or micro-stealing is, at least.

So those mornings come around when I don't feel manly enough to drink my coffee black, and thus need a few drops of 2 percent to get me going. Take those few drops and multiply them by five days a week, and you have a significant shortage of milk, one that might make hulk David a little angry. My fear is that he plans on force-feeding me a gallon of the milk, a fitting punishment, I might add.

But I am beginning to come to terms with some of my fears. I understand that, while some might be warranted, the worst possible outcome is that I die, and that would just make either of my roommates feel guilty for a week or two. And if I survive, I'll just lay off the milk and couch for a week or two...apparently, memories are short-lived in my head.

(If either of you are reading this, please do spare me some mercy. Hug it out?)

voncargh@miamioh.edu