It's a Conspiracy

A while back, a friend emailed me a photo of a theater prop from her phone. She sent the picture and apologized that it came out upside down, claiming ineptness with her new iPhone. The odd thing was, it came out upside down on my desktop PC. But it came out right side up on my Mac laptop. 

Which led me to wonder—did the Apple electronic devices talk to one another to get the picture right side up in spite of the human beings involved? Clearly, the phone refused cooperation with the inferior life species known as a PC. If this is possible, is it also possible that my computer talks to other random Apple products I am unaware of? Does my phone, for instance, have a good laugh with its friends over my iTunes playlists? Do they make a habit of talking to one another? If so, do they sit around chortling their keypads off, and saying things like, “What fools these mortals be?” 

With all the talking behind our backs we mortals already worry about, now we have to worry about our electronic devices having confabs about their owners? Or do they call us owners? Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe as I type this thing is planning on going all G-Force on me and taking over the world. Or at least the living room. It's welcome to it if it plans on cleaning up. 

I know this computer already has a lot of goods on me if it chose to use it. I've seen my image on Skype. That gorgeous under-the-chin angle? I would pay whatever blackmail it asked to keep that from going public. 

OK, this is not truly a fear of mine. You don't have to get concerned and consider blocking me from your Facebook account. But irrational fears claw their little roots into all of us in one way or another, and one person's irrationality is another's perfectly logical fear. 

My daughter runs for cover whenever birds fly overhead. She is certain they're going to do their business on her hair. This seems rather irrational, though it is a great source of entertainment for us. I used to be unnaturally afraid of seaweed. I could not swim anywhere the stuff might reach out its slimy arms and touch my defenseless leg. I don't know what I thought it was going to do with my leg. The same daughter has a friend who is afraid of . . . fruit. Not kidding.

A lot of irrational fears center around animals. Bats, birds, rats, snakes, mice, spiders, wasps. Many focus on the unknown—darkness, murky water, tunnels, and the possibility of life in our toilet pipes waiting to come up and bite our unprotected derrieres. Another common set revolves around what we view as unnatural. Clowns are a big one here. As well as puppets, mimes, masks, and Snookie.

So last year I decided to tackle one of my biggest fears head on and actually allow someone to put a tarantula in my hand. A living one. And you know what? We both lived through the experience. You know why I did it? Because I decided I don't want to allow anything to control me. (Except God. He's good at it.) But I did not want to remain at the mercy of spiders or anything else that could control my choices but shouldn't. We spend way too much of our lives giving over control to fears that don't deserve it. Do you want to quit? Me too.  

So what's your best irrational fear? Why do you think it's so scary to you?