I have some pretty wacky fears.

(Insert horse picture here.)

(Insert clown picture here.)

(Insert a picture of a male breastfeeding a baby here [thanks, Jamey].)

Editor’s Note: I thought it would be funnier to leave Ansley’s descriptions of scary photos than insert the actual photos. Plus, no one wants to look at a clown photo. Ever.

BUT…my greatest fear is that I will butt-dial someone while trash-talking someone and they will hear the entire diatribe.

You might think I’m a nice person. And you’d be right. But, unfortunately, when someone gets on my bad side, I am VERY easily persuaded to list their faults and annoying behaviors. I can go on for hours, actually, which isn’t a good thing, but I suppose it’s a gift. I can really get going and I have this bad habit of checking my phone to make sure the person I’m crabbing about isn’t listening in on the conversation.

It actually happened today when my dear friend came over to get help on her reality TV application. My mom called and I immediately ignored the call, silencing the ring.

“Oh lord, it’s my mom again. I wonder what insane request she might have for me now. Maybe she’s wanting me to head to the grocery store to pick up some milk and then send me a text with a list of the 15 other things she needs. Or, maybe she wants me to make her bed. Or, maybe she just wants to tell me something I have absolutely no interest in hearing and I’ll have to put up with her for an entire story.”

We’ll start off with John, who wins the Snarky but True Award for pointing out a key flaw in a study that said that people with messy desks are less productive.

Perhaps people don’t work as well with a fMRI strapped to their head. Do you think the study took that into account?

There were a LOT of amazing, insightful, and challenging comments in my entry about my experience in primary and secondary education, but there were two that stood out as my favorites. The first comes from Imposter Josh as he explains that he was both homeschooled and attended high school.

I am fortunate that I had both experiences. While I’m sure that I didn’t learn as much in public high school as I would have if I had stayed homeschooled I believe that I had a strong enough foundation in grammar, math, history etc. that it probably didn’t make a material difference in my eventual “life success”. However, public school offered the opportunities of varsity sports, and competitive debate/forensics which are memories/experiences that I cherish.

The second comes from Penelope, whose child is currently enrolled in a really interesting and progressive elementary school:

I believe that even at A’s level (1st grade). His classroom is made up of 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders. His education is individualized so that spelling, math, reading, etc are neither boring nor too challenging. For him, that means he usually reads at a 3rd – 4th grade level, but is more at the 1st grade level for math.

Each week for his spelling words, his teacher presents him with a list. He goes through and tells her if it is too hard, or too easy. This process is the same for each child – students often go through 3 lists to get to just the right challenge level each week.

Another choice I love is the structure of his day. Some things are set in stone – Spanish, Music, Art, etc. But he receives an individualized card with several works he must complete by day’s end. He can complete them in any order he wants, and if he has questions he can go to his teacher or 3rd grade mentor. I love how this teaches him to take responsibility, manage time and general awareness of what subjects he favors.

My sister, Emily, had a good line after she saw that I posted a photo of her, my brother, and I on an entry about The Best Day of My Whole Life. I’ll post the photo again here for your viewing pleasure with the original caption:

I think you should have obtained signed releases from Andrew and me before posting that photo.

Anne wins for Best Comment Out of Context on an entry about how I like it when I see people not talking on their cell phone while walking their dog:

And don’t even get me started on people who consider their children a nuisance. When I was pregnant, some douche at my doctor’s office looked at my belly, then looked me in the eye and said, “Enjoy the time you have left. Your life is about to be over.”

IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE AND TWO CHILDREN.

I wanted to punch him in the nuts. Lucky for him, I was 38 weeks pregnant and wouldn’t even have been able to reach his nuts.

In response to me saying that I grew out of making a stupid face in photos in early high school, Trev revealed this juicy tidbit to the world (I swear I had forgotten that I did this! And it’s still better than the kissy face!):

Remember that phase (overlapped with your time in Japan, I believe) in which most of your photos looked like you were peeing hard on something? Feel free to explain this more or to let your readership wonder.

I was really, really moved that my mother, sister, cousin, brother (who never comments), and biological mother commented on my post about adoption. That was one of the few posts I’ve written that I truly hoped that people spread around–not for me, but for anyone touched by adoption–and people answered the call. The post has been “Liked” 165 times, by far the most of any post I’ve written. It’s tough for me to describe why the comments touched me so much–particularly my brother’s and sister’s comments–but I think it was because me being adopted was such a normal thing in our household. The subject rarely came up, not out of avoidance, but because it was such a non-topic. As my brother said in his comment, “I didn’t realize it was unusual or even worth mentioning to have an adopted sibling until I was in middle school.” I am so, so lucky to be a part of my family.

To end on a lighter note, I’ll end with this month’s Comment of the Month from Brad. It’s his response to a tip I give to introverts about how they should stand to feel more confident:

Just this morning, I assumed The Power Pose at McDonald’s and was given my breakfast for free. I then stood in the doorway of St. Jude – doing The Power Pose – and was hired as a pediatric oncologist, despite the fact that my only medical experience is a C in 10th grade chemistry.

You can see last month’s Comments of the Month here.

Those shows all have much in common. Sure, each one has disappointing episodes, but the average episode of those shows doesn’t rely on coincidences or gimmicks, grand speeches or narration that explains everything to the audience (with the obvious exception of Dexter). They don’t use camera or chronology tricks to build tension (again, with the exception of Dexter…maybe Dexter isn’t as good as I think it is).

The characters on those shows feel very real. Although there are people you root for or against, the vast majority of characters are not good or evil–instead, they occupy a grey zone of morality, just like the rest of us. When they talk, the conversations feel real, nuanced and layered. And nothing ever wraps up neatly after an hour.

This particular episode of Mad Men hit home because it was–at least from my perspective–about what it means to be a man. (Come to think of it, last week’s episode was about what it means to be a woman. That didn’t click until just now.) It was about manhood, about what us men do to feel manly and what we do because it’s simply in our nature. Men do some very bad things, and the show doesn’t condone or justify any of them, but those things are there. Those things happen.

I won’t name characters for the sake of spoilers, but there is a pivotal scene that will stick with me for a long time in which one of the men is in a bedroom with a woman with whom he’s about to have sex. The woman is cocky and confident, the man stoic, slowly taking off his tie while the woman coils on the bed and proposes different variations of roleplay. Here’s the dialogue:

Woman (leans back and crosses her legs): Oh, honey. You’ve had such a long day.

Man: Nope.

Woman (sits, twirls her hair around a finger): Um…it’s my first time. I’m kinda nervous.

Man: Nope.

Woman (gets on all fours, blonde hair framing her face as she looks him in the eye): You’re my king.

Man: Okay.

This scene isn’t about sex, not really. We all have some sort of void that we seek to fill. We fill that void in different ways, some healthy, some not so much. Maybe we wish we had more respect, more power, more fame, more empathy, more authority, more adoration. We fill those voids in temporary ways–with food (or lack thereof), sex, clothes/shoes, entertainment, overexercise, you name it–at least until we’re able to come to terms with them and deal with the problem instead of the symptoms.

As you can tell by that paragraph, it goes well beyond what it’s like to be a man. It’s about what it’s like to be human. It’s rare that a TV show can encapsulate our fragile humanity in a single hour (47 minutes, really). Hence my compulsion to write this post.

Also, I should add that in the midst of all the thought-provoking drama, this episode was laugh-out-loud hilarious. Even if you don’t watch Mad Men, you’ll enjoy this episode. Hopefully AMC will rerun it.

Back already? Good.

In Memento, a character has a memory disorder that causes memories to fade after a few minutes. His wife realizes that he’s not faking the disorder when she asks him to administer her daily insulin shot time every few minutes–she’s testing to see if he remembers giving the previous shot, which he does not. After a number of shots in rapid succession, her body can’t handle the insulin and she dies.

Now, my greatest fear is nothing close to that. I don’t have diabetes or a memory disorder. I do, however, take a daily allergy medicine. Most days I remember; others I forget. And there are a few mornings when I step out of the shower and have absolutely no idea if I took my pill when I first entered the bathroom.

It’s a baffling moment when that happens–I’m sure you’ve all felt it at some point. You have this daily routine, so it’s both ingrained into you that you’ve taken the medicine, just like any other day, and yet there’s also a void where you feel like you should remember taking the medicine since it was so recent.

I doubt that taking two Claritin in a row is going to be the end of me. But it’s that tiny fear that I’ll enter an endless loop of thinking I haven’t taken the pill even though I really have that I’m concerned about. I wonder if that’s what Alzheimer’s feels like. That’s really scary.

Do you share this fear?

I’m not even sure why I think this is a thing that can happen. I’m sure it happened once in a movie I saw in my formative years (ages 1-29). Little things in movies always make their mark on me. I have a vague recollection of a movie in which a swarm of killer bees fight their way into the house and take down a person. It doesn’t make sense, but because I saw it in a movie, I no longer walk naked around the house covered in honey.

Back to the key in the lock. Have any of you ever had this happened? Here’s the average scenario that crosses my mind:

Picture me stumbling from my car to the back entrance to my building, my arms draped in grocery bags so that I don’t have to take two trips. It’s a good thing I’m very “strong” and “manly.”

I make it to the door. I don’t want to put down my groceries lest they get water and/or feces on them (feces is everywhere. And yes, that’s officially the new title of my autobiography: Feces Is Everywhere, by Jamey Robert Stegmaier [the "Robert" is there so strangers know I'm a man]), so I grapple for the right key and insert it into the lock. This is the danger zone.

Because my arm is weighed down by bags full of mango-orange juice, cat treats, and 2-for-1 Breyer’s ice cream, I am acutely aware that this is the moment when most keys break off in locks. So I am very careful, and I manage to open the door and make it inside before I am attacked by someone waiting in the parking lot for a resident like me to fumble with my keys.

If the key actually broke off in the lock, I’d envision two things happening:

1. I would immediately go into survival mode. This means that I’d eat as many of the groceries, starting with the cat food, to build up a thick layer of fat to protect me from the elements. I would, as is my way, create a crude loincloth out of my environmentally friendly canvas grocery bags. Then, using only my wits, charm, and lighter fluid, I would create a fire in the parking lot to attract the attention of my cat in the hopes that he would understand that I’m locked out and would either call the police or FedEx the spare key to me.
2. Because I would have not only prevented myself but also other people from entering the building, I would expect my fellow residents to quickly turn on me. Gentle reminders that I kindly invited them to my Festivus party would fall on deaf ears, and they would chase me from the property.

As you can imagine, I don’t want any of those things to happen. A simple solution would simply be to not carry more groceries than I can handle, but that’s preposterous, and I will not consider it.

Have you ever had a key break off in a lock? Did your worst nightmares come true immediately afterwards?

This is Claire. She's sideways because the photo won't rotate. Despite this, she's still adorable.

Over Christmas break, I went to see my good friend Bryce, his wife Jody, and their adorable baby Claire. At least, I think their baby is named Claire. At my age, everyone has a baby, and their names all run together. Let’s go with Claire, but it could just as easily be Felicity, Emily, or Rick.

Claire is pretty adorable. I mean, most babies are adorable. But Claire has one of those angelic faces that says, “I dare you to not adore me.” In fact, that was her first sentence.

So I was hanging out with Bryce, Jody, and Claire, and I remembered that holding babies is one of my favorite things. Seriously. Even though I don’t know if I want to have kids, there is no peace like that of holding a baby. I could guarantee you that I could achieve world peace if you gave me a billion babies to hand out to all of the bullies, dictators, and Community haters of the world (okay, maybe I’ll need 6.9 billion babies).

It’s even better than holding cats. There. I said it. Good thing Biddy doesn’t read this blog.

So I asked Bryce if I could hold Claire for a minute. I had just washed my hands, so I was free of all the toxins that curse us adults (did I mention on the blog that the vast majority of grocery store cart handles are awash with fecal matter? Yeah. Think about that the next time you shop). Bryce held the baby out to me…

[I want to pause here, because it is in this moment that my greatest fear happens. The fear that I am not going to receive the baby properly and that I'm going to drop this perfect little being and it's going to break and I'm going to be responsible for killing an angel. It is a terrible, terrible fear. It isn't helped by the fact that you can't grab a baby like a football. Babies are squishy and dainty. So you are faced with the impossible task of gently receiving this squirming, fragile bundle in a firm grip so you don't drop it.]

…and I successfully received Claire and brought her to my shoulder. Success. Touchdown. No dropped baby.

Mothers will confide in you, “Oh, I’ve dropped babies before. It’s fine.” But that doesn’t fly in my world. I mean, if you’re a mother, you’ve picked up or received babies thousands of times. One drop and you’re still essentially batting 1.000. Me? I’ve picked up/received maybe 20 babies. One drop and I’m out of the game.

Does anyone else share this fear? Does any father not share this fear at some point?

You can see my other greatest fears here.

If you’re like me, you guard that ticket with your life.

I’ve played through the scenario in which I show up to pick up my dry cleaning without the ticket, and it looks something like this:

Me: Hi, I’m here to pick up my pants.

Dry Cleaning Lady (looks up from her mass-market copy of Twilight: Adapted from the Motion Picture Twilight): Sure, can I have your ticket?

Me (fidgeting): Um, that’s the thing…I lost the ticket.

DCL: You lost the ticket.

Me: Yes. I’m so sorry. Can I just show you my ID?

DCL (rolls her eyes): Your ID is useless here. The only way we can know that they’re your pants is if you have your ticket.

Me: Do you have other “Stegmaiers” in your database?

DCL: I can’t tell you that without your ticket.

Me (starting to sweat profusely): What if I describe the pants to you in perfect detail before you show them to me? That way you’d know that they’re mine.

DCL: How do I know this isn’t a setup? You could have the real Stegmaier bound and gagged in your car.

Me: What if I try them on? You’ll know they’re mine if they fit me. Like Cinderella.

DCL: You could have had plastic surgery to match the real Stegmaier’s waistline and leg length.

Me (starting to doubt if I’m the real Jamey Stegmaier): I will pay you a thousand dollars for my pants.

DCL: No.

Me: I will lay you across this oddly sticky counter and make sweet, sweet love to you until the sun rises tomorrow in exchange for pants.

DCL (sizes me up skeptically): Not going to happen.

Me (producing a spot-on Photoshopped duplication of the ticket from my pocket): Oh! Silly me! What was I thinking? Here’s the ticket!

DCL (runs the ticket through a hologram scanner and one of those machines that blows puffs of air on you at the airport): This is a fake.

Me: I give up. Have a good day.

I’m sure it’s something like that. I just don’t want to chance it.

Inevitably, your arm starts to tingle and it wakes up as circulation resumes. But what if it doesn’t wake up? What if it’s been without circulation for too long and it has died?

These are the questions that go through my head.

What I don’t quite understand is why our arms don’t die every time circulation is cut off. If there’s not blood going through a part of your body, doesn’t that part die?

I’m thankful that’s not the case. But I still worry that someday I’m going to wake up from a pleasant Sunday afternoon nap to discover that my arm has fallen off.

You might be drinking shards of ice.

True story. You see, when you send a waiter to fetch you a glass of water (especially if you say it as I do: “Waiter, fetch me a water!”), what he should do is use the stainless steel ice scooper to place ice in your glass.

But what he actually does is uses your fresh glass as a scoop. Which isn’t a problem 99% of the time. But every once in a while, a glass will get chipped as it clashed against the ice. That little bit of glass gets scooped up by another waiter, and before you know it, you have a patron who is bleeding internally due to their diet coke.

Like I said, this rarely happens. It’s much more of a concern when a glass shatters in the ice, but a good restaurant will flush out the ice bin when that happens.

However, knowing what I know about scooping ice–after all, I was one such waiter who used the glass as a scoop–every once in a while I take a sip of my drink, and a little sliver of something shoots down my throat. It’s probably just a shard of ice. But you never know…

Also, never eat potato skins at restaurants. The outside of a potato is fair game for handling in the kitchen. Any given potato has probably passed through at least a dozen hands (many of them longshoremen) by the time it gets to your plate.

This accompanies the story about the hawk in the comments section.

When I bought my Camry four years ago, I was delighted to find that it had a moonroof. “Perfect,” I thought. “Now I can drive through the country on summer nights with friends, admiring the star-filled sky through my moonroof.” That’s the dream, right?

However, very rarely have I actually used the moonroof, much less even opened the protective cover on the ceiling of my car. Why?

I’m afraid that something will fall through the moonroof onto my head.

This has to happen every now and then, right? Maybe something falls off a truck or a rock falls off an overpass. Things fall all the time.

A quick search on Google for “fell through moonroof” reveals thousands of hits, including some guy in California who wants a moonroof added to his car and an anonymous posting on a discussion board about a deal for a car with a moonroof falling through. So obviously this is a common fear.

Also, related, I roll down all the windows of my car except for my driver’s side window, lest something fly through the window and under my sunglasses to blind me. It could happen.