I Am An Olive or Do You Think You Have Pantophobia?
Lucy:
"Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, then
you have hypengyophobia."
Charlie Brown:
"I don't think that's quite it."
Lucy:
"How about cats? If you're afraid of cats, you have ailurophasia."
Charlie Brown:
"Well, sort of, but I'm not sure."
Lucy:
"Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you
have climacaphobia. Maybe you have thalassophobia. This is fear
of the ocean, or gephyrobia, which is the fear of crossing
bridges. Or maybe you have pantophobia.
Do you think you have pantophobia?"
Charlie Brown:
"What's pantophobia?"
Lucy:
"The fear of everything."
Charlie Brown:
"THAT'S IT!"
____________________________________________________________
The above exchange has been racing around in my brain all day like two Roborovski hamsters on three cups of coffee and two tablets of speed. A Charlie Brown Christmas has always been required viewing for me during the holiday season. This year it was watched on my laptop in my empty apartment with what I believe was my final mug of tea in that place. In fact, it was probably the ONLY mug remaining at that point. Humanity seem to be digressing ever backward when it comes to the holiday season. Within the last two years, at least, it has been an all out festival of sheer lunacy. Well, it is if you are looking at it through the eyes of the media. The War on Christmas fiasco sure makes Charlie Brown’s depressed state of mind regarding over-commercialization, to coin a popular idiom, pale in comparison. Messages and themes aside, two fractions of dialogue seem to stick with me passed the final few weeks of December and are quoted sometimes, much to the chagrin of friends, family and coworkers, I’m sure, ad nauseum. The first bit of Schultz’s comedic genius pertains to Lucy never getting what she really wants for Christmas. A curious Charlie Brown asks her what it is she really wants. Lucy replies: “Real estate.” Sparky, sir, that is not only pure gold but also silver, bronze, platinum and maybe even a touch of palladium. The second bit, of course, is the conversation above dealing with Chuck’s fears, anxiety and neurosis. Today, I can honestly say I feel like Charlie Brown. Lucy get out of my head! (As a side note: do you think Charlie Brown was a Bipolar eight year old undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia? Discuss.)
Now with an actual placement location, health insurance, plane ticket and currency, the reality has closed in on me like crushing walls of a garbage compactor (It’s Star Wars, people, get with the program!). Prior to this morning I had been fairly lax about such a life change. It was as if I was not even heading off to another country, another job, another life; as though I were only heading out to the grocery store for another box of Count Chocula. Today, though, the rumbling began, that sensation some call butterflies but felt more like pterodactyls to me. It was happening. Japan! Teaching! Kids! Karaoke! Sushi! All of it. Real! Really happening!
ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And, like Good Ol’ Charlie Brown (more like Morose Ol’ Charlie Brown), I started to develop a rip roaring case of pantophobia. Yes, I had the fear of everything! One thing did not supersede the other. It was just a constant mesh of pulses in my brain and sucker punches to my gut. Waves of extreme terror washed over me and then flowed back out to sea leaving a beach full of kelp and dead flounders on the mindscape with each representing some new anxiety to discover.
One second would bring me the fear of the children. Oh, those unknown children. They are the paragons of innocence, are they not? Yes, yes, this may be the case but the notion struck me today that all Japanese children are subjected to ninja training in the third trimester (when they kick, they KICK!) and by the time they are two they posses a green belt in Shotokan Karate and are advancing well within the primary stages of basic weapons training. In short, one false move, one unappreciated step, one breath that they might deem insulting and these paragons of innocence will kick my thin Canadian ass!
Another second would strike me with the horrors of the train systems and the fear of being trapped, rat like, within. Toronto’s subway system, a U shape and a straight line, was intimidating at first but one glance at the Tokyo subway map page in my Lonely Planet guide is enough to cause a multitude of aneurysms. To illustrate my point please follow the following steps:
1) Walk to your nearest grocery store and find the pasta section.
2) Pick up your favorite brand of spaghetti. Nighthawk here recommends Catelli but you go get what you like. Zafarelli, Primo…whatever.
3) Purchase the pasta. Don’t walk out without paying. Nighthawk does not advocate shoplifting.
4) Bring the pasta home and cook it up nice. Add a little salt to the water so the noodles don't stick. Chef Emeril suggests ½ a teaspoon but I use a full dose, you know, just in case. BAM!
5) Okay, are your noodles nice and soft? Not sticking? Wonderful! Now, pick up the entire pot (let it cool first, ya dummy!), turn it upside down and allow the contents to spill out onto your kitchen floor.
Now you may think that what rests at your feet is a rather large mess and, well, it is. What are you doing cooking up a pot of spaghetti because somebody on the Internet told you so, huh? Yes, it is indeed a mess but that mess resembles a map of the Tokyo subway system. You see each individual strand of pasta there? That’s a separate subway line each with a name you don’t understand going someplace you’ve never been overflowing with people you don’t even know! Now place an olive in the middle of the spaghetti, dig your fingers in deep, and toss those noodles like they were a garden salad. Stand back, breath in, and realize that you are that olive.
I repeat: ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And then I was outnumbered. The fear of eating poison fish struck me from behind and was followed in quick succession by the fear of being late for work because I can’t read the street signs, the fear of not knowing what type of bill or coin pays for whatever it is I just ordered and the fear of thinking I just said “Hello” to a sumo wrestler when, in actuality, I'v said “Yo’ mama so fat she has been declared a natural habitat for Condors”. From the left snuck the fear of contracting something my health insurance doesn’t cover and from the right crept the fear of not being able to convey my illness to a doctor. How will I call 911 if I don’t know the language? What about earthquakes? How will I ask for help? For Directions? For Count Chocula? Will I be lonely? Homesick? Will I be a good teacher? Will the children enjoy me, respect me, listen to me or will the start a mutiny within the first three seconds, flash their katanas and swarm!?!? And, above all this, how in the blue hell do you use chopsticks?
Questions! Concerns! I was defenseless against them. Why didn’t the ref just call the fight!?!?!?!
And then it passed, terror replaced with anticipation, fears transformed into confidence. Where once I was griped with the horrors of one dangling high above a pool of starving switchblade wielding piranhas from the testicles of a constipated polar bear, griped by the panic of being trapped in a closet with six black widows, two aroused lions and one Richard Simmons, I was now suddenly at ease as I can to the realization that it is not only the unknown in Japan that sparked such tension. I get that way when I am asked if I want paper or plastic. The cure to my fears was a simple one. Should these feelings attack me again I will combate them as I do the question in the checkout line: I just place my head between my knees, breath in, breath out, sing the entire opening act to My Fair Lady backwards, stand, smile and move onward.
Now, Lucy, 5¢ please.
