Episode 136 • Fear
Scare the living sh*t out of someone
Have a crippling fear of something
Shake like a leaf
Brace yourself
Hold on for dear life
Story
Steve: Hey Matt, I’m over here at the entrance waiting for you. Where are you?! We were supposed to meet 15 minutes a-
Matt: Boo!
Steve: Oh my- Matt, you scared the living sh*t out of me!
Matt: I know, sorry, I couldn’t resist. So, ready?
Steve: Yeah. I think so.
Matt: Okay, where do you want to go first? There’s just so many cool rides here!
Steve: I don’t know… But remember? I told you on the phone. I have a crippling fear of roller coasters, okay? So I’m not riding one.
Matt: Yeah, well, we’ll see. We can talk about that later.
Steve: No, I’m not doing it. I’m telling you. You can’t convince me.
Matt: Wait a second. Hear me out.
Steve: No, I don’t want-
Matt: What about this one? This one doesn’t look too scary, right?
Steve: I don’t care. I’m not getting on it.
Matt: Oh my gosh, look. Isn’t that Mary? The girl you like?
Steve: Oh my gosh, yeah. Wait, she’s- She’s coming this way…
Mary: What’s up guys? I didn’t know you guys liked roller coasters. Hey Steve!
Steve: Hey Mary.
Mary: Are you in line? You’re getting on this?
Matt: No, we’re…
Steve: Yeah, yeah, we are.
Mary: Oh wow. It looks a little scary for me. I’ll just look at you guys from down here. Have fun!
Matt: Wait, what’s happening? I thought you didn’t want to get on-
Steve: Shut up. Mary’s looking.
Matt: Okay. Alright pull this down. There you go. Oh my gosh, dude, you’re shaking like a leaf. Are you sure you want to do this?
Steve: I’m fine.
Matt: Okay, brace yourself. Here we go.
[roller coaster]
Steve: Wow. That was a-mazing. I can’t believe I didn’t want to get on it. I mean, I was holding on for dear life the entire time, in fact I was holding on to this thing so tight my hands hurt now, but like, oh my gosh, how cool was that? Do you want to go again? I think we should go again.
Matt: I-
Steve: Matt, are you okay? You don’t look too well.
Matt: That- That was a little much for me. I think I’ll wait for you down here.
Questions
Okay, So somebody conquered their fear of roller coasters, apparently. Good for him. I would definitely not ever do that. I don't care how much I like a guy. I don't care how much I want to impress the guy. There's no way I'm getting on any roller coasters. But, yeah, like I saiad, good for him.
Scare the living sh*t out of someone
'Matt, you scared the living sh*t out of me!'
• If you scare the living sh*t out of someone, you scare them a lot or just a bit?
You scare them a lot. If you scare the living sh*t out of someone, that means that they're about to have a heart attack, basically. Well, not really, but like, you scare them a lot.
• When was the last time someone scared the living sh*t out of you?
Um, I don't- I can't really remember because we kind of have a no scaring the sh*t out of anyone policy at home because my boyfriend hates to be scared or, you know, when somebody, like, jumps out of nowhere and scares him, he gets really offended when that happens. Like, he literally. Like he's such a sweet guy, but if you scare him, he's going to be mad at you for a while before he he forgives you. So I learned that the hard way at the beginning of our relationship. And so now we don't scare each other around the house.
Have a crippling fear of something
'I have a crippling fear of roller coasters.'
• Is a crippling fear a mild fear or a very big fear?
A crippling fear is a very big fear. So something that will in a way prevent you from living your life in a normal way. That's how powerful this fear is. If you have a crippling fear of something, that means that this is preventing you from leading a normal life.
• Do you have a crippling fear of something?
I have a crippling fear of heights. I think I've talked about this on the podcast before. I think it has gotten slightly better, but I'm definitely not at a point in my life where I can stand on a balcony by myself without freaking out. So I can still definitely call it a crippling fear of mine. And it's something that, honestly, I don't think I'll ever overcome, but I'm okay with it. I don't live in the mountains, so I don't I don't care as long, you know, I take the elevator. I don't really see- I have a small balcony. I try not to look down, and that's pretty much it. And then I can lead a normal life without worrying too much about heights.
Shake like a leaf
'Oh my gosh, dude, you’re shaking like a leaf.'
• If you’re shaking like a leaf, how much are you shaking? A little or a lot?
If you're shaking like a leaf, that means that you're shaking a lot.
• What might be the reasons why someone’s shaking like a leaf?
I think there might be a couple reasons. One of them is fear. So, like, you know, just like in the story, this guy was terrified of getting on a roller coaster. So he was shaking uncontrollably. He just like he was shaking so much. He was shaking like a leaf. So that's one reason. But you could also shake like a leaf when you're cold. So any time that you're trembling, that you're shaking, that you got shivers, that's when you can say that someone is shaking like a leaf, just like a lot, like you can visibly see someone shaking.
• When was the last time you were shaking like a leaf?
I know this one. So it wasn't from fear because I haven't been that afraid in a while, thank goodness. I don't- Actually, I've never been that afraid, thankfully. But I remember- So a year- What was it like a year and a half ago? Maybe less than that, actually. My boyfriend and I started our trip on the Vespa. So we were in the north of Italy and we were going from Milan to Genoa. And so it was the beginning of March, which, you know, it's not the warmest time of year in the north of Italy, but we had to start our trip. And I'm talking about- This was a 3 to 4 hour ride, because if you take the highway, it's going to take you like an hour and a half to go from Milan to Genoa, but in our case, because the Vespa that we had wasn't powerful enough, we couldn't take the highway, so we had to take all these country roads, and when you were considering that we were on a Vespa by the whole time riding this thing at 80-100 kilometers per hour for 3 to 4 hours straight. I mean, I remember I was shaking like a leaf the whole time I was on the Vespa. And then even when we got to Genoa and we immediately parked the scooter, we got into a cafe, ordered something hot. But even, you know, even after sitting there for an hour, I was still shaking like a leaf because it was just so cold. I was the cold, basically. What a terrible, awful experience. I'll never, ever forget that.
Brace yourself
'Okay, brace yourself. Here we go.'
• When do you tell someone to brace themselves? Before something happens or after something has happened?
You tell someone to brace themselves before something happens.
• Why would you tell someone “brace yourself”?
So you would tell someone "Brace yourself." when you want to prepare them for what's about to happen. Literally, it means something like prepare yourself for a disaster, but you would say it like before a bumpy ride, for example, or before a very heated argument. Any time that you know that something bad or dangerous or scary is about to happen and you want to warn the person that's with you, you can tell them, brace yourself, okay? Prepare yourself, because this is not going to be good. This is not going to be easy.
• What are some instances in which you would tell someone “brace yourself”?
So I think this happened a lot- We're going to go back to our Vespa trip in the south of Italy. So the roads in the south of Italy are not the best, especially those country roads are not the best. There's a ton, a ton of potholes. These, you know, holes that you find in the concrete when driving around. Well, there's a ton of those because I don't know, because they don't do enough maintenance or maybe the quality of the concrete is not good enough. I don't know why. I just know that we were riding this freaking Vespa around the south of Italy the whole time. Pretty much every day. And I remember every time we had to go somewhere, I was saying to myself and also sometimes to my boyfriend, okay, brace yourself. And he was saying that to me a lot because he was the one riding and I was sitting behind him. So a lot of times he was like, okay, brace yourself. When he would see like a lot of these potholes. And it was scary. There were a couple of times when I thought, okay, this is it. We're going to fall. Thankfully, I don't know how, but we never fell. So we- I guess we got lucky.
Hold on for dear life
'I was holding on for dear life the entire time…'
• If you are holding on for dear life, are you holding on to something tightly or loosely?
If you are holding on for dear life, you're holding on to something very, very tightly. You're holding on to that thing as if your life depended on it. That's why you say you're holding on for dear life. Because it's like, you feel like if you let go, you're going to die.
• When was the last time you were holding on for dear life? Why?
So I think the last time that I was holding on for dear life was when we were in Thailand. So in Thailand we used to go places by tuk tuk, which is like a hum- How, how should I describe a tuk tuk? It's like a small- It's like a combination between a car and a scooter. I guess. Like, if a scooter and a car had a baby, that's what a tuk tuk would look like. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, they're these small, motorized things that you can take to get from one point to another. But the way in which they drive in Thailand, I would say it's pretty similar to the way in which they drive in the south of Italy, meaning it's crazy. It feels like there are no laws and everybody does what they want. So it's really scary. Plus, you know, sometimes the roads aren't super even. There's a lot of potholes. There's a lot of braking, stopping, very sudden stops and all of that. And I remember just me holding on for dear life to the tuk tuk structure to make sure that, you know, we wouldn't get thrown off the tuk tuk at every curve, which was a fun experience. We have a couple of videos of us just like bouncing around the tuk tuk, but yes, always, always holding on for dear life because we didn't want to fall off.
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