Halloween is coming up and recently I just read an interesting story about the scariest things on earth. These are some of the top things that people are scared of:

 Public Speaking

Spiders

Snakes

Confined spaces

Heights

Flying

Thunder/Lightning

Holes

Darkness

Needles

It seems everyone is afraid of something, but some hide it better than others. For instance if you are afraid of snakes but live in Ireland or Antarctica, your secret is probably safe. On the other hand, if you are afraid of spiders you are pretty much out of luck because spiders live everywhere.

At any rate, there are zillions of things that scare people, it just varies from person to person. Some people are known to be afraid of the color purple. Why not red, or green or black? Don’t ask me, but “porphyropobia” is a real thing – the fear of the color purple.

Another bizarre phobia is the fear of butterflies. Yep, it’s a real thing, too. Of course you farmers know that many times those lovely little butterflies flitting around your field later turn into armies of cutworms. This might not make you scared of them, mostly it just makes you mad…and glad you have ways of going after the little monsters. 

There are lots of other weird things people are scared of too. The fear of ducks, the fear of bridges, the fear of feet (yes, feet), and even the fear of bananas are all actual phobias. And even though some of them are funny, you just try getting through life while being afraid of bananas. 

So this Halloween, if you plan to dress up in a scary costume, maybe try something different. Instead of being a boring old witch or vampire or zombie, try being a banana. Imagine a Halloween party where everyone is dressed up as ducks, butterflies, giant feet and bananas. 

That might not be much fun if you were actually afraid of bananas, but it might be okay in the long run. 

Say you were afraid of bananas and you kept it a secret for many years, but you go to a party and freak out at the six year old wearing a banana costume. Your secret would be out. You would be known as the banana person. All your friends would be sure to bring bananas around and make banana jokes whenever they saw you (what are friends for?) After a while of being humiliated, you would be so sick of hearing about bananas that you wouldn’t be scared of them anymore. Problem solved.

So no matter what scares you, Halloween is a great time to face your fears. Go to a party and talk to that cowboy or clown or princess. If public speaking is your fear, talk to all of them. You can conquer a fear and get candy too. Isn’t Halloween great?