Wilbur’s Top Ten Things I'm Scared Of
By Brian Wilbur
For those who don’t know, I’m a disgruntled former boxing writer who left the sport after finally getting fed up. Even though I promised that I wouldn’t write about boxing anymore, I wanted to start off this week’s column with a comment about a recent bit of boxing news (what can I say, old habits die hard).
Andre Dirrell has pulled out of his Super Six fight against Andre Ward citing neurological damage. However the rumor is that Dirrell’s adviser Al Haymon told Dirrell to put in a fake injury claim because it was not in his best interest to fight Ward. The rumor suggests that Haymon never had any plans for Dirrell to go through with the entire Super Six tournament. What a sham, what a crock of BS, what a terrible slap in the face to Showtime and boxing fans.
Looks like I got out of boxing at the right time.
Onto the business at hand, my top ten list this week is a list of my ten biggest fears. I am what a five year old would call, a scaredy cat. A pirate would call me a yellow-bellied land lover. Biff Tannen from Back to the Future would call me chicken. My editor Geno McGahee would call me a used up hole, but that is beside the point. What I’m trying to say is that I am constantly worried that bad things are going to happen.
I could never fight in the military. I know that that statement probably made RSR CEO “Bad” Brad, a career military guy, turn his head in disgust. But seriously, I wouldn’t do anyone any good in the army. If they put me on the front lines I would hide behind a rock and cry. That is how big of a wuss I am.
Luckily there are enough young men out there who are not cowardly like me and are gung ho about fighting. I know, freedom isn’t free, I’ve heard enough cheesy country songs to figure that out. I support our troops because they are out there doing the dirty work so I don’t have to. Also, these colors don’t run.
Even though I fear that you all will think of me as a big pansy after you read my column (might be too late already), here is the top ten things I am petrified of:
10 – Identity Theft
Your personal information is out there ladies and gents. If a slime ball wanted to steal your identity they probably could. What information of yours that they couldn’t get from a Google search, they could probably get from a piece of junk mail, by hacking your email account, from a scam you unwittingly entered into, or any number of other ways which I can’t even think of. The scariest part about identity theft? The authorities don’t give two poops about it. I had a friend who had his identity stolen. He found out because he was being taxed on income from a job that he did not have. He hunted down the guy at his place of employment and called the police. What happened? Nothing. The company blew him off and protected their employee. The police said that they had better things to do, like give out speeding tickets and bust people in possession of 5$ worth of marijuana. And all the IRS wants is their money, they don’t care if you were a victim of identity theft.
Should you check your credit report regularly to make sure that you aren’t a victim? No, because if you check your credit score too often your credit rating plummets. All you can do is hope for the best. Even in the rare case that you are able to find out who is stealing your identity, there isn’t much you can do about it except bend over and get railed. Unless the legislators and police start taking identity theft more seriously and start punishing the perpetrators, this will remain one of my biggest fears because you are powerless to resist.
9 – A Car Crash
About 40,000 people die from car crashes in the United States every year. Auto accidents are so common that I am sure that every reader has either known someone or a friend knew someone who has died in a car accident. What is most scary about this one is that the death is completely unexpected. A perfectly healthy person can get in a car for a stroll to the bank and they are one bad driver, drunk driver, break malfunction, or road rage incident away from leaving this world. At least if you were dying of cancer you could see it coming and prepare. You could say your goodbyes, eat your favorite meal, and watch Kevin Costner’s Waterworld one last time before you kicked the bucket.
I would estimate that 40 million people read my column ever week (at least). Just statically speaking based on that number, 10 of you will die in a car accident today. How frightening is that? Drive defensively readers, I care about each and every one of you. Don’t be a statistic!
8 – Bed Bugs
I am taking a vacation to New York this week. I bought my tickets and then shortly thereafter I heard on the radio that New York is completely infested with bed bugs, and not just the run down motels where you would expect them either. We are talking about 5 star hotels, movie theaters, and posh shopping centers. Just my luck. Almost 10 percent of residents claim that they have had to call an exterminator to help them fight the little suckers. The other 90% are probably too embarrassed, in denial, or are oblivious to the unwanted guests.
For those who don’t know, bed bugs are little insects, about the size of an apple seed when full grown, who hide under your bed and furniture. At night when you are asleep they come out and feed off of your blood. By the time you wake up they are long gone back in their hiding places. They are hard to spot and nearly impossible to get rid of even if you poison or starve them. Bed bugs are the Chuck Noriss’s of the insect world. Even when you think they are finally gone, a new batch of eggs hatches and you start back at square one. I don’t know what I would do if I had bed bugs, but I would seriously considered burning my house down. Whoever said that there is nothing to fear but fear itself had never been attacked by blood-thirsty bed bugs.
7 – Processed Food
Did you know that 80% of the food you buy in the grocery store contains some kind of chemical derivative of corn? Cereal, tomato sauce, fruit juice, yogurt, potato chips, chocolate, soda pop, bread, lunch meat, just about everything that comes in a box or a bag is full of preservatives and either soy or corn products. Studies suggest that high fructose corn syrup is more addicting than natural sugar and has contributed significantly to the obesity epidemic in America. Vitamin deficiencies in children are rampant as are other health problems such as type 2 diabetes.
The scariest thing about processed food is that I know how bad it is for me and I still eat it. Maybe I am addicted to the food itself, or maybe I am addicted to the convenience, but every time I go to the store I come home with chemicals flavored with salt and fat instead of something nutritious. Big corporations are using advertisements to make these foods irresistible, and as a result we are paying them to give us health problems. Human beings could slowly be going the way of the buffalo because of our atrocious eating habits and predatory advertisements. I mean if Grant Hill drinks Sprite, I’ve got to drink it too, no matter what the cost. Am I right?
6 – MRSA
Antibiotics are a miracle of modern medicine. Got the clap? Stuff oozing out of your junk? Have an infection of any kind? In the past, infections were often a death sentence. Today, you go to the doctors to get a shot or take a bottle of pills, then voila, you are cured.
So why is that scary? Because the party is not going to last forever. Bacteria is becoming resistant to antibiotics. MRSA, also known as the flesh eating disease, is a staph infection of the skin that is resistant to multiple strains of antibiotics. In short, we are killing off all of the mild strains of bacteria, leaving us with aggressive super bugs that doctors are almost powerless to stop. MRSA will aggressively eat your flesh leaving you a rotten corpse covered in maggots. Pumping you full of antibiotics will only piss the bacteria off. I’m so scared of MRSA that sometimes I run around my neighborhood naked going “Oh no! I hope I don’t get the MRSA!”
5 – Politics
Going on in my home state of California there is a very heated campaign race for the position of Governor of California. Both candidates, Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown, are terrible. You should see the attack ads that they are running, flinging mud on each other, hurling insults that may or may not be true. Various fact checking organizations say that their advertisements are either misleading or false.
Brown and Whitman are saying whatever they have to to get elected in November. I hate that about politics. One candidate could be a thief and a pedophile, but if he comes up with a catchy slur for his opponent he is a lock to win. “You can’t vote for Mr. Jacobs because he is a flip-flopper slobber bopper!” The masses eat it up and Jacobs, the much better and more qualified candidate loses in a landslide. Once in office, most politicians only look out for themselves, meaning they vote to give themselves raises, and take money from special interest groups to pass bills that only benefit the special interests.
I love democracy, but it is obviously not free of corruption. I have trouble sleeping at night knowing that hooligans and crooks are running the country, tricking and exploiting the common man for their own selfish gain. But hey, at least our political corruption isn’t as bad as it is in other countries like the Philippines.
4 – Gangstas
The Godfather has romanticized organized crime to the point where gangsters are almost loveable and classy. I’m not scared of them, although I probably should be since reality is always far different than what is portrayed in movies. (Like I would know how the mod really is. I’m the dorkiest goofy white guy you’ll ever meet). What I am scared of are “gangstas”. You know, the thugs from low level street gangs who have nothing to lose.
A man with nothing to lose is frightening on its own. But in the ghetto you run into neighborhoods filled with large groups of kids who band together, have no respect for the law, and have violent tendencies. Take Richmond California for example, where a girl was gang raped last year during a high school homecoming dance. The reaction from the kids at the high school? They were proud that their school had a reputation as being crazy and hardcore. My advice to readers, stay as far away from Richmond (and other similar cities) as you can.
At least Vito Corleone had some morals. What are you going to do if some gangsta decides to randomly target your house tonight to see if he can earn another tear drop tattoo? Crap my pants, that’s probably what I would do.
3 – Nuclear War
World peace is that generic ideal that all of the beauty queens always wish for. Well, peace is still a long ways away. Most of the Middle East is pissed off at the entire Western world. Mexican cartels are trying to start a revolution to overthrow the government. North Korea thinks the entire world is against them. In previous centuries, war wasn’t exactly peachy, but at least you didn’t have to worry about nuclear bombs. Nukes were invented almost 80 years ago now, and the older the technology is out there the more nations will catch up and become nuclear; even third world countries or terrorist groups.
North Korea is already a nuclear power, and their leader Kim Jong Il is completely insane. You never know what he is going to do. I don’t think anyone would be surprised if he dropped a nuke on South Korea just because he was having a bad day. Equally as crazy is Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The guy has gone on record saying that his goal is to wipe Israel off the map. Shortly after that quote we find out that he is trying to develop a nuclear program. If Israel gets nuked, they are allies of the United States so before you know if we are in World War III. Holy nuclear fallout Batman!
2 – Possums
I don’t know, they just look weird.
1 – The End of the World
I don’t believe in prophecies, and you would know that if you read last week’s column and my take on Nostradamus. Armageddon scenarios like 2012 don’t make me flinch at all. 2012 is when the Mayan calendar ran out, just like December 31st is the last day of our calendar. No big deal. I do fret about the end of the world though, or should I say the end of humanity. You ever see that Nicholas Cage movie Knowing? Terrible movie, but the concept of something cosmic, like a star dying and taking out the Earth, is certainly plausible.
Stars don’t last forever, therefore our Sun will eventually burn up and kill us all. Such a scenario is not estimated to occur for another 5 billion years. By that time every living person, except me and Bernard Hopkins, will be long gone. But let’s say that the sun exploded early, or a meteor came down to wipe us out just like the dinosaurs. There wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do to prevent it. Tuck your head in between your legs and kiss your butt good bye. We are all potential victims in a universal game of roulette. Spooky!
Now that you are sufficiently freaked out after reading my top ten list, I will give you some reasonable advice. Hoard canned foods and fresh water! Barricade your house! Never go into the outside world! The end is near!!!