No, no! Anything but that!

We all have irrational fears. My greatest irrational fear is of clowns. They scare the crap out of me. People ask if it is because of the movie IT. The answer is no, but that movie didn't help things.

I had a friend once who was terrified of ovens. He had never burned himself with one, known anyone who had been injured by one, or even seen evidence of a major oven-related injury, but the things just scared him. He didn't learn to use an oven until he was 23.

As a kid, I overheard my dad talking about rats in the south, how they would climb through the pipes and enter the house through the toilet. As a result, I wouldn't sit down all the way until I was 10.

Why do we have these kinds of stupid fears? What is it about our psyche that requires us to be scared of lame things? There is no survival instinct related to my fear of clowns. If anything, I should be scared of women.

What are your irrational fears? Are they truly irrational?