Monsters. When I was about nine years old, my grandfather and I watched the movie Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, I loved the movie so much that I wanted to watch it again later that week. I accidentally watched the actual Frankenstein movie for about an hour before my grandfather realized that the screaming that woke him from his afternoon nap was coming from me. That incident made me terrified of monsters, ghouls, vampires and the like for about seven years. The likelihood of a monster killing you in your sleep is very, very low based on the fact that they do not exist.
Sharks. My father is particularly terrified of sharks and, for a large chunk of my existence, he projected this fear into my day to day life. He made me fear my dolphin wallpaper by saying that “Dolphins are just sharks with smaller teeth. That’s so it takes longer for them to eat you.” That’s not true dad. And later, when I wanted a tiny shark in my aquarium like my friend Jordan had, he told me that “Those are just baby sharks. If you grow them in your house, they grow legs like you and then they eat you in your sleep…” That’s also not true dad. If you were wondering at this point, why I was interested in writing an article about my fear of death, my father’s “wisdoms” may be a source of my morbid fears. I’m sure we’ve all heard that vending machines kill more people per year than sharks and that the great majestic beast of the sea is slowly dwindling away because of the Asian shark fin soup craze, so why are people still terrified of sharks? Have you ever heard of the goblin shark?
As scary as that demon is, from 2000-2004, there were about 57 to 78 shark accidents per year worldwide. Each year, only 4-11 of those accidents were fatal (SHARK-ATTACKS).