Category: Humor

Paranoia by any other name

USA Today has an article today about potential 24-cent gas price increases in which the Oil Price Information Service’s senior analyst coins the term “Petronoia”

The analyst, Tom Kloza, defines petronoia as the state in which the rational thought process of petroleum traders becomes overridden by fear over the possibility of extreme shortages of gasoline in the future, causing them to over-purchase now, driving up prices at the gas pump for no good reason.

It’s a fun little word applied to something that affects most of us on a day-to-day basis, which makes me wonder what other words we can make up for the odd little fears that strike the average person every day.

Some candidates include:

  • Parkanoia – The irrational fear that taking the first parking spot you come across wastes time walking, causing you to drive around the Wal-mart lot for fifteen minutes searching for that killer spot near the doors, thereby wasting taking three times amount of time it would take to walk from the furthest spot possible.
  • Stockroomanoia – The irrational belief that the store employee is lying to you when he says he’s out of a particular item, causing you to force him to go “check in the back” despite the fact that “the back” consists of an employee restroom and mop closet.
  • Toiletnoia – The performance anxiety you suffer from when you’re trying to use the restroom at a party and fearfully believe everyone outside can hear every last bodily noise you make as you attempt to relieve yourself.

When you think about it, it’s not hard to see how the private mental health industry stays well-funded with all the psychological fears and worries we have.

Garage jumping teens prove Darwin wrong

Local 6 News in Orlando, Florida, has a story about teenagers jumping from parking garages for entertainment. Apparently running in traffic and sticking knifes in wall sockets have lost their thrill for the teens, who are making the leap to jumping from one city-owned six story parking garage complex to another privately owned complex next door.

One boy, Tim Bargfrede, apparently never heard the old parental cliché about jumping off bridges because your friends are doing it, because he fell more than 80 feet off the parking garage roof during an evening with his teenage friends doing exactly that.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a story from Florida if there wasn’t a lawsuit involved, and the family’s lawyer, Vincent D’Assaro, is currently looking at filing suit against both the city and the private owner for not preventing these teenagers from doing their community a greater good and removing themselves from the gene pool early.

“There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening,” Lawyer D’Assaro said in response to the city erecting a small fence in order to prevent such stunts. The family believes that both garages need to do better and have continued on with their litigation.

No doubt the Darwin Awards committee is already preparing a space on their winner’s list for these kids.

Ain’t gonna learn about no zombies

When the dark days of the apocalypse come upon us and Hell no longer has room for the souls of the damned, Lexington, Kentucky is going to be the first to wish they hadn’t put a stop to the efforts of one young man’s attempts to educate his peers on how to properly react to a zombie outbreak at your local school.

Wincester police arrested eighteen year-old William Poole last week for what they claim are materials at the teen’s house they claim outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Their evidence? A short story Poole wrote about an undead outbreak at an unnamed school, done for the student’s English class.

Charged with a making a second-degree felony terrorist threat, Poole says, “My story is based on fiction. It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”

The teenager is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center for his brave attempt at educating the youth of today about the dangers of mixing algebra, history, phys ed and the undead.