Kim Jong Ill'in

Is anybody else scared that North Korea is successfully testing nuclear weapons?

What the hell is Kim Jong Ill playing at? I haven't been this scared of a little guy in a jumpsuit since Richard Simmons.

I'm sorry, K.J.I., but I kind of don't really have room in my psychosis for being scared of being nuked. I'm scared of too many other things. I think, if I were alive during the time of the Cold War, when America lived in constant fear of getting zapped by those Vodka-swilling fur-heads, I would have had to be institutionalized. And being institutionalized in the 1950s, I have no doubt, was not fun. Just ask Chief Bromden.

I will endeavor, though, to eek out a little bit of room in my cluttered, crammed, trembling little brain for the fear of nuclear holocaust, but I'm telling you, North Korea, it isn't going to be easy.

See, I'm already afraid of:

* Getting electrocuted

As a new homeowner of what probably constitutes to most people as "a fixer-upper" this is a very inconvenient fear. Currently, our house has virtually no lightswitch covers. This is the result of a combination of laziness on our part because, after the first floor got painted we just never replaced the switch covers and theft on the part of whoever stripped the first floor of wallpaper-- some of our switch covers just, um, disappeared. Conveniently. There must be a huge black market desire for lightswitch covers-- especially the ones with two slots. Those bastards are just so freaking cool. Because all of our switchplates are uncovered, I know that, one day, I'm going to try to flip on a lightswitch after taking a shower and my boney index finger, instead of hitting the switch, will entrench itself deep within the open caverns of tubes and wires inside the wall and I will be turned Extra Tasty Crispy in about four seconds flat.

I wish I wasn't afraid of getting electrocuted. There are two hideous sconces that need to be replaced in our bedroom. There are lighting issues in the basement. There should be motion-sensing lights outside in the driveway. If I wasn't so afraid of getting shocked, I'd fix all this shit. As it is, I'm happy to get our electrician to do it for me, but he's almost 90 years old and doesn't show up when we schedule appointments. Maybe he's dead.

* Getting baptized

According to published reports and crime statistics, drive-by baptisms are on the rise. Just last week, a 76-year-old woman in Mozambique was accosted by three unidentified men who shoved her head inside a public toilet bowl as they shouted, "You are now one with Christ!" The other day, an undercover Christian posing as a rabbi wearing a fake beard and polystyrene nose tried to baptize a Yeshiva student in a mikvah, but was unsuccessful. Baptisms are beautiful things, but only when perpetrated against the willing. I'm just not ready to accept Christ. Not until he pays me back the $23.76 he owes me from that dinner we were supposed to split at Applebee's.

And those kooky Mormons complicate matters in this arena by insisting on conducting postmortem baptisms on Jews. They say that they've stopped, but, come on.

* Getting tortured

I have dark hair and a beard, so I know that, sooner or later, some jarhead is going to be attaching car battery cables to my nipples in some dark basement. Isn't this fear a nice complement to my fear of electrocution?

* Getting cast in a Japanese instructional video

For any down-on-his-luck actor, this is worse than doing porn, even Japanese porn where the women all make that annoying, high-pitched squeal even though they're getting penetrated by guys whose shafts are as big as a thumbnail. I just don't want to be the businessman sitting at a park bench in some recording studio and have to endure take after take of a young, Japanese schoolgirl coming up to me, clutching her stomach and yelling, "I haba bad kase ob die-ya-ree-yah!"

* Getting old

I don't mind the increasing amounts of fuzz on/in my ears or the prospect of growing bitchtits, but I do fear everything that comes along with getting old like becoming out-of-touch with pop culture, style, trends, technology, comedy, culture, table conversation, logic, and the latest advances in airport security. I also don't want to start smelling like that. Is there something you can wear when you're old to not make you smell like... that?

* Getting taunted

I'm so afraid of being made fun of that I will not, under any circumstances, attend a stand-up comedy event for fear that the individual at the microphone will peer out into the audience, quickly identify me as the most painfully awkward person there, and mercilessly and accurately attack me about everything from my shoes to my haircut to my outwardly obvious array of abberant behaviors. Even when my best friend, Dave, scored a stand-up gig at our college, I refused to attend. And, nearly a decade later, he's still pissed at me.

Unfortunately, I was unable to avoid attending middle school.

* Dying second

Statistically, I'm almost positive that this won't happen. Mrs. Apron's a year younger than me, she's a vegetarian, I'm not, and I routinely send myself over the edge in terms of stress, anxiety, paranoia and obsessive worry. This all bodes for a heart attack or stroke somewhere within the next eight minutes. Death really doesn't frighten me that much, as long as I'm first.

* Getting attacked by the dog

Sure we play rough and he's as gentle as a sedated lamb, sure he lets me stick goopy medication down his ear canal without so much as a flinch. Sure he lets me shove Benadryl down his throat without growling at me. One day, though-- one day I know that, as I'm softly petting him or rubbing his belly he's going to whip around and sink his teeth right into my neck so deeply that he'll probably decapitate me in one fell swoop. Dogs are like that, you know.

* Richard Simmons

I know I kind of addressed this at the very beginning of this post, but it bears repetition. Get the fuck away from me, please. I'd rather get my mung ass baptized a thousand times than be alive and in the same time zone with you.