Speaking of phobias, a friend at work is claustrophobic.  If it gets worse, we’ll have a hard time keeping clothes on him.  He said it started when, as a youngster, he fell in a hole and couldn’t get out.  He has a problem with anything that he might have difficulty getting out of.  When he gets on an airplane he requires pre-flight alcohol/drugs.  This means that I will never fly with him because, in the off chance that he sobered up enough to move, he’d probably pop the emergency door and kill everybody.

    If you name some situations, he’ll get antsy.  I started talking about the buttons on his shirt “getting stuck” and he told me to shut up.  Obviously handcuffs would turn him into a whirling dervish.  He spazzed out once because of the little plastic bracelet they put on him at the hospital.  I’m not picking on him; we’ve just compared notes about our irrational fears.