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There are rational fears and irrational fears. Rational fears are things such as not being able to afford rent, getting an STD (especially the one that grows inside the lady until it explodes out and forces you to raise it), not having health insurance, airplane turbulence, choking on a sandwich, your sports team losing and ruining your life, or dating a black girl who, while otherwise charming and lovely, is a huge fan of Tyler Perry movies and forces you to watch them. Those are rational fears.
Irrational fears are the things that terrify you, despite the fact that they make absolutely no sense, or have nearly no chance of happening. These are some of mine.
Coming Face To Face With My Future, Literally
I sometimes see old, sad looking men and panic, thinking that they’re me, travelled back in time from the future to watch their better days, and live in a better time. They’ve come back because the rest of their life has been a miserable train wreck, presumably filled with financial ruin, divorce, estranged children, possibly a stint in a foreign or space jail, and Mizzou still hasn’t won anything. Just a total nightmare, really.
I was once walking down Guadalupe in Austin, trying to flag down a cab at noon on a Saturday. I was painfully hungover and 11 miles from my car, thanks to my passing out at a random house near 50th Street the night before, and my phone being dead. True story: I was so drunk that earlier I had fallen asleep for a short time in the WhichWich bathroom at The Triangle. Needless to say, I was feeling like a gigantic piece of shit in that moment. So, when I was shouted to by a sad old man in weathered sweats and a t-shirt stained with food, holding a bag that I assumed was filled with something depressingly odd that an old man would have, like oranges wrapped in newspaper, I had one of those panicky moments in which I assumed pathetic future me was trying to reach out.
I was still so morning drunk and delirious from the hangover and the dehydration the beating Austin summer sun had caused, that I almost screamed, “Stay away from me pathetic, old Rob! YOU CAN’T HAVE THIS YOUTH!”
There he (probably) was, old me. The man who had lost everything and finally scraped together enough money to travel back in time via one of those time machines from Looper that, despite being the pinnacle of technology, looked like the furnace from an early 20th century steamliner. How did he raise the money? God knows. Giving blood and selling newspaper wrapped oranges? Blowing our future Chinese and/or lizard overlords? Anything was possible. Now Old Rob was here, eager to interact with his young, vibrant self, to brighten what was left of his dim and waning life.
That’s not the only time I’ve had that outrageous suspicion, and it always leaves me wondering, “When does the descent begin?” My future ex-wife could be right around the corner (ladies). After I meet her, it’s only a matter of time before the company I work for goes under because patriotic apparel is banned once the Chinese (equipped with lizard alien technology?) take over, making my stock worthless. Then I find my wife cheating on me with our reorganized territory’s military governor. The man’s rule over Colorexashoma is as powerful as his vigorous love making to my ex-wife, which he boasts about often in propaganda holograms, to assert his masculinity. It pains me as a patriot, but my children are now safe, so I let my family go. Oh God, this is all getting too real. If I see some old, tattered white guy today I am going to lose it.
Also, he’s come back to this time!?! This is the pinnacle of my life? Shit.
Murder And Mistaken Sexual Identity
I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating, because it’s SUPER POSSIBLE, you guys. Well, all possible with the exception of the whole me being married part. That might be a stretch.
Essentially, one day I’ll be masturbating in the shower and finish up assuming everything is normal. I will go about my showering business as usual after that. But here’s the catch: during the post-solo coital cleanup, for whatever reason, some of my knuckle children cling to my knuckles, unbeknownst to me. Then, during the back and ass portion of the washing, my straggling seed slides free of my hand and slips inconspicuously into my crevice. After that I finish my shower, go out into the world, am murdered, and my body is ditched in a field.
A week or so later my body is found, and during an extensive autopsy the medical examiner discovers traces of semen in and around my b-hole. The medical examiner then informs my family that the murderer probably had his way with me either before, during, or immediately after the killing, making the crime seem that much more horrific to my loved ones. They become even more tortured than before by the nightmare that is not having me in their lives anymore. BUT, when the police try to match the semen they found to the murderer’s spunk, they can’t, because it isn’t his. Not having the intuition to check and see if it’s my own semen, and not being able to hear my ghost scream, “IT’S MY JIZZ! IT WAS A FREAK ACCIDENT! NO ONE WAS PLOWING ME!” the authorities will assume that I was having illicit rendezvouses at a truck stop not far from where my body was found, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Actually, no, there is something wrong with that. “That” being having gross sex that’s drier than the very urine soaked floor you’re getting just annihilated on. Also I’m married and my wife’s lasting memory of me is that I was cheating on her with dudes in filthy truck stop restrooms.
Crime And Unusual Punishment
I can thank Seinfeld for planting this seed.
I don’t really do anything all that illegal, but part of me always assumes there will be a random night where I’ll get drunk and do something extremely stupid and very much against the law, and get caught doing it. My guess is it will be something accidental, like meeting some seemingly nice Colombian men at a strip club and becoming chummy with them. That leads to the Colombians inviting me into the seedy strip club back room for some VIP, high roller action. Party time! After an hour of fun, the room is raided by the FBI, who arrest the Colombians. Then the feds mark me guilty by association, which makes sense, because after the lights come up I realize there’s blow everywhere and the man sitting across from me is Marco “El Decapitador” Sanchez, the merciless drug lord who specializes in offing his rivals with garden shears.
This is Texas, so legal leniency isn’t exactly commonplace, but fortunately my record is otherwise clean and I’m white enough that I’m able to make some sort of absurd plea deal. I ask if I can just join the army, but everyone in the courtroom looks at me laughs for a solid five minutes before I’m sentenced to be an assistant/butler to the spoiled son of a wealthy Texas politician, in order to keep him under control.
Of course nothing goes to plan, and the guy is a psychopath. My life becomes an adult baby-sitting hell in which I’m driving him away from bar brawls and escorting hookers out of his father’s mansion in the morning, making sure they don’t steal a vase or chandelier crystals after they realize they aren’t getting paid. Eventually I’m forced to join the politician’s son on drug fueled, whore mongering trip to Tijuana where we run into El Decapitador, probably at a donkey show. El Decapitador has escaped from prison and is convinced I was an informant. I get my head chopped off by a pair of garden shears and since I probably jacked off in the shower that morning you can refer back to irrational fear number two for the rest of the story.
Respond
Rob Fox
Rob Fox is a Senior Writer for Total Frat Move (as Bacon), Rowdy Gentleman, and Post Grad Problems. He is a graduate, without honors, from the University of Missouri. From St. Louis originally, he currently lives in Austin, Texas, and still has not admitted to his family what he does for a living. He is also prone to having wet nightmares ever since losing his virginity in a haunted house. Email: rob@grandex.co
@BaconTFM
@bacontfm
Good Lord, you have some serious issues.
When are you going to write a book?