At least your fear makes some kind of sense, Sticks - wasps do sting, and it hurts (but then, so do bees). I have no explanation for why in run in terror from a spider.

Fear: Gustav will be another Katrina.
My house has survived hits from Camille and Frederick and near-misses from Katrina and Hugo, but we're gambling against global warming by being here for the next couple of years. Nervous as a cat every time the wind blows until 2010, at least.
Phobias: None, really. Okay with heights, crowds, clowns, public speaking, etc.. I find rodents, spiders and snakes interesting, and if a handler assures me they're safe, I'll hold them.
I would not put a boa over my shoulders because that's just stupid. If my neck smelled like a mouse (and it might due to my cuddling of all these hypothetical animals), I would feel like a fool for the last few seconds of my life.
oh, yeah. Fear: Feeling like a fool. Apparently, I fear that more than I fear death itself.

Actually being a fool has nothing to do with it.
It has to do with the fear of feeling (or looking) like a fool.

I'm not afraid that Gustav will turn out to be another Katrina. But I am afraid of the evacuation traffic I may face in a couple of days - a fresh hell unto itself.

But then again, I love New Orleans - right? I just have to keep reminding myself of that at this tme of year...

Spidermage,
I like Weasie live in Canada and we live in the same province; Ontario. You wouldn't want to come to the town I live in. When my husband goes out the door to work in the morning, he has to fight his way through spider webs !!! Our house usually has many spiders crawling around on it all the time; as a matter of fact I saw a big Daddy Longlegs on my front porch railing not that long ago !!! I have to clean the spider poop off of my window sills outside and off of my mail box at least once a week. Trust me... Canada? Not good for spider phobias

My biggest fear? My son dying before me. It's not the natural order of things... you shouldn't have to bury your children. He's also an only child. I've had a couple of terrible dreams about it over the years. One, God took him just because "he needed him more than I did"..... I never quite understood that. Then their was the dream about his school exploding. I ran around the corner and all the children were running out to their parents and they were hugging them but mine wasn't running out to me. His teacher came out and told me their was a terrible accident and the only child that didn't make it out was my Patrick. I started screaming at all the other parents because I didn't think it was fair that I lost my child and they had two or three of theirs come out to them. Why couldn't it have been one of them? They had a kid or two to spare but not me. The irrational things you dream ..... Yep, loosing my child; my biggest fear.