Jason English
What’s the Strangest Thing That Scares Your Dog?
by Jason English - July 16, 2010 - 9:41 AM

Every Friday, I post a series of unrelated questions meant to spark conversation in the comments. I’m traveling today, so I’ve lazily reposted some of the year’s most popular questions (based on the number of comments they received). Answer one, answer all, respond to someone else’s reply, whatever you want. Very casual. On to this week’s topics of discussion…

bailey-hiding1. Our dog Bailey’s fears seem fairly rational: thunder, lightning, the vacuum cleaner. But we discovered a new one last weekend. The process of putting batteries in the Wii remote just terrifies her. I can’t figure out why, exactly—I put batteries in other devices without incident, and the Wiimote itself does not interest or concern her. Our Ohio office dog Leo is completely freaked out by cameras. (A few minutes ago, I tried to sneak a shot of him playing in the snow; I nearly paid dearly for it. I’ll find a new hiding spot and try again later.) What’s the most inexplicable thing your dog (or cat or pygmy hippopotamus) is afraid of?

2. By all indications—her general grasp of most issues, standardized test scores, the sheer number of books she’s read, the valedictorian plaque in our storage closet—my wife is a brilliant woman. But the other day, she had to ask me how to spell “occasion.”

“That’s the one common word I can never spell,” she said.

For me, it’s humongous. (It just took me three tries.) What’s that one word you can’t spell?

danza3. Of all the paragraphs in all the emails I’ve received so far this year, this one’s my favorite:

“Did I tell you that Tony Danza is our neighbor? He’s filming a reality show at a local high school and moved into the apartment complex across the street. We occasionally see him at the local bowling alley and he once high-fived me while jogging along the Delaware River.”

That came from occasional contributor Erica Palan, and it inspired today’s first question. What’s your weirdest celebrity sighting story? You can let “weird” describe the celebrity (“I played pick-up basketball with Screech & The Situation”) or how you met them (“My robot dog bit Katie Couric.”)

4. I can’t remember ever walking out of a movie theater before the closing credits. Maybe I’ve blocked those bad movies out of my mind. Maybe I’m just cheap. What movies have you marched out of?

Have a great weekend!

[See all the previous Friday Happy Hour transcripts.]

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Comments (185)

  1. 1.) I have a long hair chihuahua…she HATES when I put clothes on her. She literally just stands there and won’t move at all. I’m guessing this is because she’s scared?

    2.) I’m a pretty good speller, but I remember losing in a spelling bee on the word “bureau” because I was so nervous.

    3.) I saw Markie Post when I was like 5 years old in Washington DC.

    4.) I marched out of “Fire in the Sky”. That movie was SO DUMB!!

    posted by Amanda on 7-16-2010 at 9:47 am

  2. Our female Chihuahua Honey is afraid of normal Chihuahua things, like loud noises. Our male Chihuahua Hampton isn’t.
    I can’t spell a LOT of different words.

    posted by Sara in Al on 7-16-2010 at 9:49 am

  3. Sadly, my manly 50lb Standard Schnauzer is absolutey terrified of cats. He has never been swatted by one or even threatened, but let a cat in to the room and he runs for the corner and just squeaks. If the cat lays in a door way, he is trapped until the cat decideds to move. When we would visit the inlaws their cat seemed to enjoy following him around the house and trapping him in rooms and corners by “relaxing” across the exit.

    posted by Nicole on 7-16-2010 at 9:50 am

  4. Oh, but he is not afraid of fireworks and will sit at the edge of the lawn and wag his tail whuile the neighbors shoot off roman candles and bottle rockets. He is a starnge boy.

    posted by Nicole on 7-16-2010 at 9:51 am

  5. just moments ago, my little dacshund/something els dog Misty was barking and raising hell at a pillow that was in ‘her’ chair. Now she won’t get up in it.

    The ONLY movie I ever got up and walked out of was ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’. My children were in complete agreement with me and got up and left with me without any hesitation.

    posted by old hippy chick on 7-16-2010 at 9:53 am

  6. We recently adopted a 1 year old dog from the Humane Society, and learning all of his little quirks has been fun. So far, the list of things he’s afraid of:

    1. Ceiling fans, usually when they are on, but he’s been known to bark at them when they are not in use.
    2. The vacuum, naturally
    3. A mop that my husband put in our back yard to dry out before putting it away
    4. A windsock hanging from a tree
    5. The wagon my kids left in the back yard, until I sat on it to show him it was safe
    6. My daughter, IF she has a towel on her wet hair after a shower.

    I went to Paris back in 1995 and swear that I passed Naomi Campbell as I walked across a bridge in the middle of the city. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

    posted by Colleen on 7-16-2010 at 9:56 am

  7. 1. My German Shepard Rowlf is absolutely TERRIFIED of small children. He runs away and whines. They have to be 7 or 8 before he is comfortable around them.

    2. Brain. I’ll type it Brian 10 times before my fingers will get it right. I usually have to look at the keyboard to make it happen.

    4. Shoot ‘em Up. I was on my period (I know, TMI, but it makes sense), and seeing that poor baby suck on a ‘lady of the night”s nipple and get spun around on the merry-go-round being propelled by gunfire was just too much for me. I love Tarantino-type films with blood and guts and gore, but when a baby is involved my menstrous mind just can’t handle it.

    posted by Kate in Italy on 7-16-2010 at 9:57 am

  8. My girlfriend’s dog, Maggie, was afraid of farts. Of course everyone would laugh rioutously at a loud fart but to have the whole affair punctuated by a frantic shih tzu bolting for the safety of the bathtub always left people in tears. It was doubly entertaining when she’d her sleep would be interupted by one of her own and she’d spring to life.

    Sadly, we had to put Maggie down earlier this summer but we like to think she’s in a fantastic place where farts are her friend and not her enemy. :)

    posted by Chris A on 7-16-2010 at 9:58 am

  9. My dog Roxy is not afraid of thunder or any of the normal stuff. She is, however, afraid of my piggy bank, and of umbrellas

    posted by Steph on 7-16-2010 at 9:58 am

  10. I have never walked out on a single movie. No matter how bad I thought it was. I paid seven, eight, sometimes twelve dollars of my money, and I’m not going to waste it by not getting my full product. Plus, if a movie is really bad, you have something to laugh about later!

    posted by Abbeynormal on 7-16-2010 at 9:59 am

  11. 1. Our female Westie Lucy is terrified of any plastic and the sounds it makes…..i.e. cellophane packaging, saran wrap or grocery bags.

    2. I don’t have issues with spelling, I have auto-correct on my phone and spell check on the PC….thank god for technology!

    3. Was at a hotel in downtown Toledo for work training and had Jerry Springer walk up behind me. If I were a bigger hillbilly then I may have reacted, but I said hi and walked on by. Obviously he is the weirdest celebrity I have been face to face with.

    4. I am too cheap to walk out of a movie. If I sat through Weekend at Bernie’s then I am sure I could endure almost anything. Talk about a cinematic turd!

    posted by JW on 7-16-2010 at 9:59 am

  12. My dog (an English Pointer) is terrified of water! When we walk her on the beach, she pulls us up into the dunes cause she won’t even get her feet wet. She won’t go into the bathroom of her own free will because that’s where the TUB is!

    posted by Lynnie on 7-16-2010 at 10:00 am

  13. When I was about sixteen, I was on a choir tour in Vancouver, B.C. — and saw Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson. (We later heard they were filming Bird on a Wire) I walked right past their production trailers, and Goldie Hawn and I were within a foot of each other, smiled, nodded, and moved on.

    Mind you, I was sixteen. And somewhat dense. I thought I knew Mel Gibson — he was smiling and waving from this convertible at my choirmates and me, and I kept thinking, “Where do I know him from?”

    Now, I can’t imagine speaking to him. :shudder:

    posted by tea on 7-16-2010 at 10:01 am

  14. If I put on a hat, my dog goes berserk and starts barking energetically at the “stranger” suddenly standing in her house. Take off the hat and she’s like, “Oh, THERE you are! You should have SEEN this strange woman who was here just a second ago.” I’ve learned to put on my gardening hat outside just to spare her the trauma.

    My grandmother’s dog was afraid of the furniture being moved. Any time a chair or table was moved to another side of the room, he would stand and bark at the offending piece until some human took pity and moved it back to its proper place. It seemed to really upset him, like his whole world had suddenly gone topsy-turvy and he wanted to be comforted afterward. My grandmother finally gave up on the idea of ever being able to rearrange things while the dog was still living.

    posted by Lissa on 7-16-2010 at 10:03 am

  15. 1) My dog is terrified of the training clicker, which is weird because I’ve done the “loading” which is supposed to associate the clicker with good treats.

    2)I still have a hard time with religion, even though I had to spell it almost every day when I was in Catholic school (it didn’t take)

    3)I’ve only met a few celebrities, but my weirdest story has to be a sort-of second hand story. My brother-in-law owned a dry cleaners when I was in high school, and some days after school, I would walk down there and help out while I would wait for my mom to get home from work. One day, Lawrence Taylor’s assistant came in with a bunch of his clothes, and of course, I couldn’t resist the temptation to try on my favorite football player’s suit jacket. Creepy, right?

    4) I have never, and have resolved never to walk out of a movie after having sat through all of a screening of “Malevolence.” If I didn’t walk out of that, there can’t be anything I can’t sit through.

    posted by Jack on 7-16-2010 at 10:03 am

  16. It took me a long time to figure out how to correctly spell restaurant. I still have say it phonetically in my head while spelling it.

    I ran into Leonardo DiCaprio coming out of the mens room at the 1998 World Series. Ok…so I followed him over there (I was 13, what do you expect!?). I reached out to touch him (obviously) and his manager grabbed my arm and pushed it back at me. Also, he did not look as good in person. After that day I no longer had a crush on him.

    posted by Lindsey on 7-16-2010 at 10:05 am

  17. 1) My cat is afraid of the ironing board. If he is in the room when I set it up…he runs & hides. But he loves watching the vacuum cleaner.

    2) Results. I know how to spell it, but I always type Resluts. Thank goodness for spell check at work!

    3) I was in Toronto waiting in line for the musical Rent. Shannon Doherty pulled up & shot a scene for a movie at the front of the theater & we were all extras in the scene. She posed for pics afterward. (I got one & I don’t even like her!) I think that movie went straight to Lifetime.

    posted by JJ on 7-16-2010 at 10:07 am

  18. #4: The Watchmen. I didn’t actually leave the movie (in retrospect I should have) but I left several times to go have a cigarette. Haven’t done that at a theater for any other movie. A couple of my friends actually fell asleep about 20 minutes into it & I remember being really jealous…

    posted by sammylee on 7-16-2010 at 10:14 am

  19. 1) My dog Maisy (she’s been features on mental floss!) is a rescue from a fighting ring and therefore has a laundry list of things that terrify her:

    People wearing hats
    People who look Mexican/Latina (I dated a really Italian looking dude once…she was terrified of him)
    Small spaces
    The dark
    Wind
    Doors
    Baby Gates or other things blocking her way
    Harnesses (I have a seatbelt harness for her in the car because she doesn’t understand that 70 lbs of pit bull doesn’t belong on your lap while you drive, but she hates it)
    Big piles of things…I’ve moved twice since I’ve had her and she jsut whines and cowers if there’s too many boxes.

    2) Necessary. I had to look it up.

    3) I saw Ian Ziering filming a travel documentary in Cabe San Lucas when I was 14. He had to jet ski up onto the beach, hop off, and say his line. It took him like 15 takes.

    4) I’ve never walked out of a theatre, but I did have to turn off Idiocracy about half and hour into it because I hated it so much. People keep talking about how great it is, though, so maybe I owe it another chance.

    posted by Caitlin on 7-16-2010 at 10:15 am

  20. I live in AL so it’s a little understandable that my dog was afraid of falling snow this past Feb. Snow on the ground was OK & a curiousity but falling? It gave him the shakes (no pun!). He was also afraid of my brother. I have 5 brothers & sisters, a gaggle of nieces & nephews but 1 brother would keep my dog from entering the room out of fear. Unfortunately we lost my quirky little boy in March. I once had a dog that would raise hell if a towel was on the floor.

    I have problems with double letters prior to -ing words like hopping vs. hoping.

    posted by Tricia on 7-16-2010 at 10:20 am

  21. The only movie I’ve ever walked out of was Spinal Tap – which is funny because now I LOVE it. But I was sixteen, and really didn’t get it at the time :)

    posted by Julie on 7-16-2010 at 10:21 am

  22. We have 2 golden retrievers, Holly is almost 12 and Cooper is 3. Holly is and always has been petrified of the rain (her record of not going outside to pee is slightly over 24 hours during a rainy stretch – with no messes in the house, either) and horseflies. Cooper is scared of the cat. I have pictures of him in the back of his crate because the cat draped herself across the door and wouldn’t move. He refused to jump over her and sat for 30 minutes whining about it. The cat finally got bored and moved on. For the record, the cat is terrified of plastic grocery bags.

    posted by Christine on 7-16-2010 at 10:26 am

  23. 1. I second JW’s comment about plastic – but for us, it’s our 18-pound cat that’s afraid of plastic bags.

    2. It’s “separate”, not “seperate”, but neither one ever looks right to me.

    3. A few years ago, I was in Charleston, SC on vacation with my family. I was passed on the sidewalk by a neatly dressed Southern gentleman wearing a fedora and a navy blazer. When I caught up with my dad at the street corner, he said “Did you say hello to Ted Turner when he walked past you?” I didn’t even notice at the time.

    4. Never walked out on a movie in the theater – not even Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.

    posted by Kevin on 7-16-2010 at 10:38 am

  24. We have two black labs who LOVE all water-related things, and a yellow lab mix who is terrified of the H2O. Whenever I pull out the water hose to fill their water trough or swimming pool, or clean out their enclosure, he cowers in the dog house. The other two? Play in the stream from the hose and drink directly from it. He was a rescue dog from a shelter, so I don’t know what could have happened in his life to make him hate water so much.

    posted by Melissa on 7-16-2010 at 10:39 am

  25. My chocolate Lab is completely terrified of balloons. Whenever he sees them he just freaks out and barks. He is NOT afraid of any of the ususal stuff like thunder or fireworks.

    posted by Nate on 7-16-2010 at 10:39 am

  26. 1. My dog, Simba, was afraid of anyone in black pants. Couldn’t figure it out, but she’d nip anyone in black.

    3.Parts of Fred Claus were filmed outside of my office in Downtown Chicago. Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti were filming a scene and the few people that were working that day were taking pictures out of the windows. Vince looked up, waved and mimed to us to stop taking pictures. He was really nice when I ran into him in the lobby but would not sign anything.

    posted by Dayna on 7-16-2010 at 10:44 am

  27. 1. My Springer, Jasper, was afraid of greyhounds, or dogs that looked weird to him.
    2. Weird, and field–I ususally reverse the letters.
    3. Aimee Mann and her band at the time (Til Tuesday?)were bowling (candlepin!) in the lane next to us in Cambridge in the mind-1990s. Took us a while to figure it out and we didn’t do anything about it.
    4. Field of Dreams. Boring and dumb and possibly the only movie I have ever walked out of.

    posted by Cathy J on 7-16-2010 at 10:46 am

  28. the strangest thing my cat was afraid of was herself. i used to hold her up to a mirror and she’s absolutely freak out.

    i used to spell favorite “favoriate.” “because” gives me trouble when typing, but i think that’s more of a typo thing.

    while living/studying in baltimore two years ago, i was walking to class when i saw the man who played prop joe on the wire (robert f. chew) sitting at my favorite cafe, chowing down on a sandwitch.

    the only movie i ever walked out on was “white noise.” the movie was so bad it compelled me to ditch my date. there are two other movies i should have walked out on: “dude, where’s my car?” and “the killer inside me.” “dude” lulled me into a mindless passivity that i didn’t snap out of until credits, and with “killer” i was waiting, hoping this movie would pay off because of casey affleck and michael winterbottom. i was severely disappointed.

    posted by greg on 7-16-2010 at 10:46 am

  29. 1. I don’t have a pet aside from a stray cat that feels my grill is the best place for her nap. She jumps everytime she sees me.

    2. What’s that one word you can’t spell?
    I have several: answer is the big one though. Even if it’s correct, I’m always second guessing if I did spell it right or not.

    3. What’s your weirdest celebrity sighting story? I was in the airport in Hartford, CT and ran into Charro.
    I was once mistaken in an airport in Chicago. I was coming home from Christmas, wearing a black leather biker jacket, wallet chains and hair Vampire red and Jet black. I was leaning against the moving walk way and two kids, about 8-10 ran up to me. They were very polite and said, “Excuse us, but are you famous?”

    4. The Ring II

    posted by MetalRose on 7-16-2010 at 10:50 am

  30. 1)My freakishly fat cat, Jane, is scared of aluminum foil. I think the sound it makes when you tear it off freaks her out but now when I take it out she takes off running.

    2)”correspondence” I always want to spell it “correspondance”.

    3)My family ran into Mohammed Ali at a hotel in NY when he came out of the elevator and tripped over my father’s briefcase. My dad is a huge fan and he couldn’t even speak other than to say, “Oh, sorry”.

    4)Top Gun. My date and I thought it was boring once Goose died.

    posted by Donna on 7-16-2010 at 10:50 am

  31. 1. My Yorkie is afraid of shoes on the floor. We rarely leave shoes out, so I guess he’s not used to seeing them, but he will not go near any pair of shoes just sitting on the floor.

    2. Judgment. Or is it judgement?

    3. No celebrity sightings, unfortunately!

    4. Gosh, quite a few! My parents took me out of “The Witches” when I was about 7 because I was terrified and crying hysterically. I couldn’t finish “Final Destination.” I got to the part when the guy was strangling on twine in the shower and was trying to cut the twine with a giant pair of scissors; that was my limit. I recently made my husband turn off “District 9.” Yes I know, this is not meant to be a scary movie, but when they started cutting off the bandange on the main character’s arm…I don’t know, it was terrifying. I may be the world’s biggest weenie. You’d think I would learn not to watch those kinds of movies, haha!

    posted by Erin on 7-16-2010 at 10:50 am

  32. My cat had an unreasonable fear of ballons. Years ago, I received a giant mylar balloon for my birthday. It was yellow with a smiley face and purple “petals” around the outside; it was the happiest balloon you ever saw. As soon as it came in the house, the cat dove behind the stove and sat there shaking for hours before getting the nerve to hide under the bed. When I finally fished him out (still shaking) and carried him into the same room as the balloon, he clawed my shoulder, drawing blood and ripping my shirt before finding solace in the bathtub. I almost felt bad laughing at him.

    posted by Annyongg on 7-16-2010 at 10:55 am

  33. 1. I have a massive 110 pound Weimeraner that had great potential when he was a pup. Natural pointing instinct, good discipline. Took him for a walk in Julia Davis Park in Boise and he chased a Canadian Goose that turned on him. Bit him a few times as it chased him. He is terrified of anything with wings now.

    2. I have the hardest time spelling intensity… For some reason when I type, my brain tries to put the ‘n’ in front of the ‘e’.

    3. I saw Kyle Gass the other half of Tenacious D in downtown Boise trying to pick up on one of my friends girlfriends at a bar. Got a picture with him!

    4. Ugh. Battlefield Earth. ‘Nuf said.

    posted by TFerguson74 on 7-16-2010 at 10:55 am

  34. 1) The grate in front our our fireplace. Once, we threw her toy and it hit the metal grate and made a clanging noise. Now, she stays away from the fireplace, and won’t go near a toy if it’s by the metal grate.

    2) I always spell accidentally wrong, accidently, the way people tend to say it.

    posted by Mark G. on 7-16-2010 at 11:06 am

  35. 1. My old dog Zoe was freaked out by people chewing gum. You didn’t even have to blow bubbles, just the chewing would send her upstairs to hide. My current dog is scared of nothing.
    2. Convenience- Thank goodness for spell check.
    3. A few years ago I saw Ashley Judd at a local restaurant getting carry out. She was in town for the Indy 500.
    4. Hanging Up

    posted by Andi on 7-16-2010 at 11:07 am

  36. 1. My Australian Shepherd, Jill is deathly afraid of bubble wrap. The site of it alone has her running for cover, but if one (or 50) of the bubbles happens to pop she shakes with fear. Poor puppy.

    3. The most awkward celebrity siting was when I saw Gwenneth Paltrow in a hotel one weekend. She was leaving the fitness area of the hotel and had her hands full with a magazine, ipod, cell phone and a bottle of water. She ended up dropping the bottle which spewed water all over the floor in front of me.

    posted by k on 7-16-2010 at 11:12 am

  37. My pit bull mix is absolutely terrified of horsefly’s. She hides under the bed and shakes from head to to if there is one in the house.

    posted by Jess on 7-16-2010 at 11:13 am

  38. 1. My dog is afraid of overpasses. In the car, he ducks and shuts his eyes. He’s a Jack Russell, which makes it really funny.

    2. Personnel. I always add 1 N and 2 L’s. Anything with an ie in it like Believe, or Achieve gets me too. Silly fat fingers! Also, just realized ocurrence.. err occurrence.

    3. Waiting to check-in to the hotel our company was having its Christmas party at. All dolled up in sparkly dress and heels. Entire Toronto Maple Leafs team walks in behind me (I had no idea that was who they were). I am 5’1″, suddenly felt like a midget. Wondered why so many men with missing teeth were smiling at me. One such man hit on me and I said “No thanks.” Wondered why they were all wearing suits. Also wondered why they had so much luggage. Told co-worker about weird ocurrence at dinner. Turns out he is a really big Leafs fan. Barely escaped with my life.

    4. I have never walked out of a movie theatre before. I pay too much not to sit through it! I have stopped watching movies at home after renting them all the time if they are terrifyingly bad. But usually, if they are ok, but just bad acting, I can stonach through for the story’s sake.

    posted by Caroline on 7-16-2010 at 11:15 am

  39. 1. My pug freaks out at peoples’ reflections. She is okay with her own but any human reflection sets her off. Its kind of funny, though, because her bark sounds like Donald Duck in the old Disney cartoons.

    2. I have three big ones: tomorrow, accommodation, and recommendation. I don’t know what it is about double consonants that gives me trouble.

    3. I was on a ghost tour in Rome when we saw Tom Hanks. They were filming Angels and Demons near the Castel San Angelo.

    4. Happy Feet- How the hell somebody thought it was okay to bill that as a kid’s movie is beyond me.

    posted by Maureen on 7-16-2010 at 11:15 am

  40. Our German Shepher/Husky mix is afraid of balloons and floor vents. She is also fearful of ceiling dog (her relection in the sky lights). There are too many other quirks of hers to list here. We affectionaly call her Monk.

    posted by Vinec L on 7-16-2010 at 11:25 am

  41. I was at La Guardia Airport leaving New York at about 4 AM once. As I walked up to the gate the man in front of me turned around and it was Wallace Shawn who is better know as Vizzini from the Princess Bride.
    My friend kept telling me to get a picture, but I didn’t want to bother him at 4 in the morning.

    posted by Reid on 7-16-2010 at 11:26 am

  42. 1. Our dog gets scared when we open certain cabinets because she knows which cabinets contain her ear drops or nail clipper and if we open them she sprints away and hides under a table.
    2. Calendar or calender?
    3. I was shopping at Gurnee Mills, the outlet mall between Milwaukee and Chicago and ran into Missy Elliott at the Nike Outlet store. I was so excited because I was a huge fan of hers. I even got a personalized autograph!
    4. Beloved starring Oprah

    posted by Emma on 7-16-2010 at 11:28 am

  43. 1. My 4 month old puggle, Chance, is terrified of his reflection in the sliding glass door. We think he thinks it is another dog trying to get it.
    2. The word I can never spell is sentence, I always spell it sentance. I even spelled it wrong in my 5th grade spelling bee, costing me the title.
    3. My parents and I once saw Richard Simmons in an airport. He came up behind my mom, tucked her tag back into her shirt, patted her on the back, and said “your tag was out sweetie”. He was a very nice man. On a less nice note, I once ran into Michael Lohan at an airport, he was on the phone with someone trying to set up some sort of deal with ‘Girls Gone Wild’.
    4. The 2 movies that I have walked out of: 1) Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, and 2) Watchmen. Both terrible, terrible movies.

    posted by Diana on 7-16-2010 at 11:30 am

  44. My Westie Truman is terrified of my scanner. I turn it on to scan a document or a photo, and he goes crazy, running out of the room and hiding under my bed. It really pisses me off because he whines for hours afterward.

    posted by Jeremy on 7-16-2010 at 11:32 am

  45. 2. @ Kevin–My high school English teacher got fed up with folks spelling separate incorrectly so she drilled it into our heads as there being ‘a rat’ in the middle of the word.
    For me it’s broccoli/brocolli/broccolli. None of them look right to me.
    4. Never walked out of a movie because I’m cheap but the first movie I had to switch off at home was “I Am Legend” when the dog went…well, you know if you saw the movie!

    posted by red on 7-16-2010 at 11:33 am

  46. 1). Raspberries and lip bubbles. Nella is either angered or terrified (possibly both) by any weird lip sounds. We tease her endlessly with it.
    2). Apparently; but apparently, I finally figured it out now that I’m 30. It took me years and despite the fact that spell check gives me suggestions, the word plagued me for years.
    3). I’ve never really met a celebrity, unless you count Rick Bayless. I’ve always met him in the context of things Frontera Grill-related, so no weird stories there.
    4). Paranormal Activity, Super Size Me, and the Blair Witch Project. Hand-held photography makes me nauseas. Oooo…can I add nauseas to my list for 2?

    posted by Elizabeth Van Orden on 7-16-2010 at 11:36 am

  47. 1. My brother has two cats, Precious and Baby, who are terrified of the ice cream truck. Should they be unfortunate enough to be outside while the singing truck comes down the road, they race to the door to cower in fear.

    2. My common misspelling isn’t a common word, but rather a common name. While typing up board minutes and such, I’ve discovered that I ALWAYS type Scott as Scoot the first time. I’ve let it slip a few times here and there, enough that the rest of board calls him Scoot to lighten up the mood.

    3. The only celebrities I’ve met were through somewhat standard channels- meet ‘n greet passes with bands usually. Nothing unusual…

    4. I rarely go to the theatres, but there have been several videos I couldn’t sit through! Too many to list though…

    posted by Lynne on 7-16-2010 at 11:41 am

  48. 1-i have cats but my dads nieghbor has a dog that does not like to get wet. when it rains he will run from tree to tree and keep changing out paws so they do not get too wet.

    2-i cant spell for s$%t so I am very thankful for spell check. But even spell check cannot help with my keying. For some reason i have trouble typing “have” it always comes out ahva, oh well.

    3-i do not really have any odd celebrity stories. the ones i have meet have either been pretty laid back or jerks(tyrese gibson). My fav though was recently getting to meet one of my fav writters-Laurell K Hamilton-she and her hubby were really personable and laid back.

    4-i agree with the majority here that if i pd my hard earned money to see it then i am not gonna walk out of it. There have been several that i regret-watchmen being one of them as well as cloverfield and ultra violet.

    @nicole-that sounds like something my cat would do-hahaha

    @kate-that was actually a pretty good movie, try it again without aunt flow.

    posted by Jennifer on 7-16-2010 at 11:42 am

  49. 1. My 80 pound mutt will run from a two inch high wind up frog. Just the frog, anything else he tries to eat or barks at.
    2. for some reason, I always have to spell check “restaurant.”
    3. Meet Gene Roddenberry once. He couldn’t have been nicer to a bunch of very nervous teenagers.
    4. I’ve never walked out of a movie, because if it’s bad me and son make fun of it. Don’t sit near us in the theater, we are the ones everyone is shushing.

    posted by waawaawaa on 7-16-2010 at 11:46 am

  50. I have two greyhounds both from rescue centers.
    One is 10 and has seen everything so it takes an awful LOT to scare her or even get a reaction. Unless she sees a cat or a fox she’s very calm.
    With the other one, the 3 year old it would be easier to list what she’s not afraid of. She’s famous with the family friends for her neurosis. It doesn’t take much to send her running behind the couch. It took her two weeks when we first got her to even let the family go near her but now she’s very playful with us.

    posted by GH on 7-16-2010 at 11:47 am

  51. 1. One day my fiance and I were watching Family Feud on the game show network. Everything was fine and dandy until the ding from the answer board sounded. Our westie, Alfred, freaked out. It was so unusual. Everytime there was a ding he would start freaking out. Once we put the TV on mute he was fine.

    posted by Chelsea on 7-16-2010 at 11:50 am

  52. 1. I don’t have a dog.

    2. Conscience. (Is that right?)

    3. We don’t run in to many celebrities here in Michigan, but once I got to watch the presidential (George W) motorcade pass by my office building.

    4. “Career Opportunities”. Jennifer Connelly was in it, and it had something to do with her and some guy being trapped overnight in a Target.

    posted by Biblio on 7-16-2010 at 11:53 am

  53. 1. Our dogs are relatively fearless. They don’t like it when my parents yell at each other though.

    2. Surprise. I always forget the first r.

    3. When I worked at a record store, I sold some cds to Michael J Fox. (He has pretty good taste.)

    4. Last summer we went to a drive in showing of Inglorious Basterds (which was great) and Halloween 2 (the Rob Zombie one). My boyfriend is a huge horror fan and will watch every crappy remake but this was just too much for us. No words can describe how awful that movie was.

    posted by suzie on 7-16-2010 at 11:54 am

  54. 1. My little female beagle is afraid of linoleum. I think it’s because she hates sliding on it and being out of control. There are two paths to the back door, where the dogs egress to potty, and she always takes the more carpeted fork in the road.

    2. Terrific. I had to let Firefox spell check that one for me. I used to be a spelling bee champ – well, I was about 17 years ago. I was tripped up in the county bee by amendment. I’ll never forget it.

    3. During a quiz bowl meet in Louisville, the rest of my teammates tromped noisily through a hallway of the upscale hotel the Galt House at some ungodly hour, laughing and talking. A friend of mine and I were somewhat behind them. We were much quieter, but the noise of multiple teenagers brought a man with long, dark hair out of his room. “Some people are trying to sleep!” he yelled, then slammed the door. My friend and I went into the room, and she recognized him as one of the band members of AC/DC (I regret not remembering all these years later which one she said it was), which was playing in Louisville that weekend.

    4. I have never left in the middle of a movie, but I was sorely tempted at Miami Vice.

    posted by Eve on 7-16-2010 at 12:02 pm

  55. My miniature schnauzer has a favorite plush toy which has a squeaker that is rather difficult for her to squeak. But on the rare occasion that she does make it squeak it scares her. She jumps back away from it and barks at it.

    I can’t spell misspelled.

    I was sitting in a crowded Starbucks shop late one morning waiting out a popup thunderstorm when a local TV weatherman asked if he could share my table. He was soaking wet and admitted that he’d ignored his own forecast by failing to grab an umbrella.

    I’ve only walked out of two movies and in neither case was it because the movie was bad. Once the sound was awful and we couldn’t understand the dialog. That was The Prestige. Saw it on DVD and loved it. The second was due to all the rude people talking during the movie and the kid right behind me talking on her cellphone.

    posted by david on 7-16-2010 at 12:02 pm

  56. I swam with Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin back in the good ol’ days (when they were still married). Her dad lived in my neighborhood.

    posted by Erin on 7-16-2010 at 12:06 pm

  57. 1. My 90-lb Labrador is afraid of the cardboard tube around which paper towels are wrapped. The tubes from toilet paper rolls and wrapping paper rolls are fine, it’s only the paper towel rolls.

    2. Every time I begin to write or type George, I have to pause and make myself finish the last three letters slowly, in order to not write my own name.

    4. “Wrong Turn.” And when my former roommate asked me jokingly what the worst possible thing to happen to movies would be, I answered quickly “Wrong Turn 2″? It turns out he had just seen it listed on IMDB and never expected me to guess it.

    posted by Geoff on 7-16-2010 at 12:07 pm

  58. 1. My cat hates it when I exercise. I could understand it if I was bouncing around, but even situps have her hiding under the bed. So, because I love my cat, I am out of shape. :-p
    2. Weird. Or is it wierd?
    3. I met Leni Riefenstahl at a reception at the German embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. Didn’t speak to her (what on earth would I have said?), just saw her across the room. She was something like 98 at the time and later that same trip she was in a helicopter crash….and survived!
    4. Fletch. My mother wanted to see it because she liked Chevy Chase. About half an hour in we realized it was so dreadful we couldn’t bear to stay.

    posted by blitzen on 7-16-2010 at 12:07 pm

  59. Re: #3
    Living in Santa Barbara, California as I did for four-plus years, siting a celebrity is not uncommon. Since it’s where they live, they just want to be left alone, so I always did. However, my sister-in-law visited us from Indiana once, and when she deplaned from her L.A. connection so did Kathy Ireland, a local. No big deal to me, but my SIL got all excited.

    “Isn’t that… Isn’t that Cindy Crawford?”
    “No; that’s Kathy Ireland.”
    “I should go say, ‘Hi’.”
    “No. No, you shouldn’t.”

    posted by B-Doc on 7-16-2010 at 12:13 pm

  60. 1. My dog is afraid of fireworks and thunder, but also of the smoke alarm. If it goes off, she’ll whine to be let outside, at which point she’ll do something mysterious to get through the fence and disappear completely. So we know not to let her out when she’s scared. Unfortunately this fear of the smoke alarm also extends to beeping pagers. Mine went off last night and she hid under the table at the end of the couch, almost knocking the lamp over. She shivered for a long time after that.

    She’s also kind of afraid of whenever I pick up a broom or a flyswatter or anything like that; we figure that her former owners, who abandoned her at a shelter, used to hit her.

    2. There aren’t any words I can’t spell, assuming I know them at all. Although I do often get tripped up on choosing which correct spelling to use.

    posted by Matthew E on 7-16-2010 at 12:16 pm

  61. Our 12 year old Cattle Dog is very threatened when I swing (like at the playground). She barks and nips and generally freaks out if I am on a swing.

    posted by Illustr8 on 7-16-2010 at 12:22 pm

  62. My late beloved dog was terrified with the clickers that are used in “clicker” dog training. Anytime someone in the class would “click”, he would flinch and hunker down. We had an 8 week class of this. The trainer even tried to get him comfortable with it with no luck. I miss him so.

    posted by oreotookie on 7-16-2010 at 12:24 pm

  63. 1 – My shepherd/husky mix was fearless except for the street. On walks she would sprint full bore out the front door and come to a dead stop at the curb. She wouldn’t cross without the leash. Made training easier at least.

    2 – Bureaucracy. Which really stinks for a political science major

    4 – Ali. How you make Muhammad Ali boring still baffles me.

    posted by Adam on 7-16-2010 at 12:34 pm

  64. My Dog Oliver (A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel / Poodle Mix) is afraid of/hates my fake Chanel purse. Every time he sees it, he barks like crazy at it until I eventually throw it in my closet. Then he barks at the closet for awhile. I joke that its b/c he knows its fake, but whatever the reason he SERIOUSLY hates that thing, and it is the only bag he has a problem with.

    posted by Jessica on 7-16-2010 at 12:34 pm

  65. My cat is at least concerned by the ceiling fan, though she’s not terribly afraid of it any more.

    But the first time I switched it from one direction to the other, she stared up in horror as the blades slowly came to a stop, then started to turn in the other direction–then slunk off as fast as her cowering paws could carry her.

    These days, she does give it the occasional suspicious look, especially when I’m turning it on or off. But she seems to have mastered her fear.

    posted by LawMonkey on 7-16-2010 at 12:41 pm

  66. 1. My labrador mix is afraid of hats. Not baseball hats, but anything else. Especially bike helmets. He’s also afraid of anything that changes shape. Our stroller is fine when we’re pushing it around, but becomes terrifying if I fold it down. The toilet brush holder is also incredibly frightening when I remove the brush and the clamshell opens.

    2. I have to stop and think about “Calendar” every time.

    3. In college, Spike Lee was just hanging out at my nieghbor’s apartment for a cookout after a football game. (The neighbors were on the team.) I looked out the front window and he was just standing there having a burger.

    4. Never walked out of a movie, but only because I thought “The Thin Red Line” had to start making sense at some point.

    posted by Jon on 7-16-2010 at 12:42 pm

  67. 2.Unavailable

    3.I got to cook food for Kirby Puckett and saw Lenny “Nails” Dykstra at a bar.

    posted by Franko on 7-16-2010 at 12:45 pm

  68. I was in the Baltimore airport walking to my gate when I spotted former Surgeon General C Everett Coop walking in the other direction. He kind of surprised me so I said out loud without thinking “C Everett Coop!” Without missing a beat he made a “gun” with his finger, pointed it at me, “pulled the trigger,” winked, and kept walking.

    posted by Dominic on 7-16-2010 at 12:49 pm

  69. 1. My chihuahua is afraid of grasshoppers and remotes. One cat is afraid of EVERTHING. Another is afraid of only my husband.

    2. Independence. I think I got it right.

    3. Kid from Kid n Play. Saw him do standup and he totally pulled my hubby up on stage and made him dance. It was really funny because my husband is totally white and geeky.

    4. Never walked out of a movie. I should have walked out of Kung Pow.

    posted by Tinkerschnitzel on 7-16-2010 at 12:50 pm

  70. 1) My half lab/retriever is terrified of the hose. He loves the water that comes out of it, but the plastic green is too much.

    2) Restaurant. I suck at that game.

    3) For a month last year, former NFL QB Doug Williams seemed to be stalking me. I go to the gym, he was there. I go to Outback Steakhouse, he was there. I go to work at the library, Doug would come in and check out books. I even went out of state for a wedding, and on the drive back, I stopped at a gas station at a nowheresville exit. Guess who I saw waiting in line at the register?

    4. I got dragged into seeing the new “Twilight” movie, even though I haven’t read the books nor seen the previous films. That’s ten buck and two hours I wish I had back.

    posted by Stu on 7-16-2010 at 12:50 pm

  71. My dog, who is dead now but lived 15 long happy years, was afraid of balloons. He would bark at them. He was also scared of rain and thunder, but that’s typical.

    I once made ice cream for Derek Jeter. I don’t follow baseball at all, but I’d seen him in tabloids because he hooks up with lots of celebrity women. He was with Minka Kelly. He was even wearing a NY shirt. I recognized him but didn’t know why, and said, “You look really familiar.” Minka grabbed his face in his hands and said, “He just has one of those faces.”

    And I SHOULD HAVE walked out of Ocean’s 13. Awful movie. I also feel that this question was asked here before.

    posted by Elissa on 7-16-2010 at 12:59 pm

  72. 1. Our little dachshund does not like the rain. Thunderstorms, fireworks, any big noise she can handle but a little water from the sky is just enough to freak her out.

    2. I can’t spell the name Michael. I always have to think about it carefully before I spell it.

    3. I used to work at a Starbucks and we had a huge stack of cups that celebrities would sign if they came in. When I was working there, Andy Dick acutally came in with a film crew and acted just as weird as I thought he would. I never did find out what he was filming though. We also saw Johnny Knoxville come through the drive-thru.

    4. The only movie I ever walked out on was Queen of the Damned but that was only because I forgot that I had to go pick up my little brother from school so my date and I had to leave.

    posted by Colene on 7-16-2010 at 1:02 pm

  73. celebrity sighting: I work for the telephone company. In 1985 (86?) the building I worked in on the SF bay area peninsula, had a payment office on the first floor. I was returning to work from lunch. walked in from very bright sunshine into a dim corridor. a man and woman were stopped in the middle, blocking the corridor as they adjusted their baby. Annoyed, I moved to squeeze past them and as I did so, I looked up into Joe & Jennifer Montana’s faces. A mumbled hello and excuse me. We often had players (49ers, Giants) downstairs paying their bills. The tellers would call us if someone big came in. Don’t they have “people” to take of those mundane things for them?

    posted by mary ann on 7-16-2010 at 1:04 pm

  74. The one word I really can’t spell is “maintainence”. You know, the repair guy.

    posted by MetalRose on 7-16-2010 at 1:05 pm

  75. 1- I have a Jack Russell/Beagle mix who’s terrified of loud noises, water (especially if there are fish in it), and to some extent, the dark. However, it’s my other dog (a normally fearless Beagle) who has the stranger fear– she doesn’t like statues. Especially if they’re statues of animals. She’ll growl at them and back away.

    2- Recipe. I always try to stick an extra “i” in there.

    3- I’ve met probably a higher amount of celebrities than many due to working in TV & film production. My favorite, however, was not job related. I met Mink Stole in the ladies room at The Chicago Underground film festival. She was super nice, and even signed a poster for me right on the bathroom wall. I met John Waters that day too, but was too excited to remember it quite as clearly.

    4- No, but I did fall asleep during “Battlefield Earth”. On purpose.

    posted by Kate on 7-16-2010 at 1:06 pm

  76. Back in the 90s, my mom was driving through the Fort Worth Stockyards and almost hit Chuck Norris with our van. He was running across the street to avoid fans between takes of Walker Texas Ranger. Fortunately, we didn’t hit him, our van would have been totaled. Naturally he would have been fine.

    posted by Derek on 7-16-2010 at 1:07 pm

  77. 1. My dog is afraid of moving water. Rivers-fine. Lakes-fine. The hose-might as well be the apocalypse.

    2. Well apocalypse just took me a couple tries. Usually my problem word is CONSCIOUSNESS.

    3. No celebrities. I live in a small town in southern Illinois.

    4. I walked out of League of Extraordinary Gentleman. I thought Sean Connery=awesome. It sucked.

    posted by Nick on 7-16-2010 at 1:12 pm

  78. I have never walked out on a movie but there is one that I thought about. Cannibal Holocaust. The only reason I didn’t was because I didn’t want to sit in the lobby while the people I was with watched the rest. After the movie they said they would have walked out as well. Awful, awful movie.
    (btw I had to look up how to spell cannibal and holocaust)

    posted by Kent on 7-16-2010 at 1:12 pm

  79. I obviously don’t remember these incidents but I since I was involved I guess it counts… When I was a baby Muhammad Ali had an appearance near our town and my dad went to see him and carried me along. When he got to the front of the line Ali said, “Oh what a pretty baby, can I hold him?” Naturally my dad agreed and Ali held me in one arm and signed autographs for almost an hour with my dad standing next to him.

    Another weird meeting of sorts was at a Republican party foundraiser my attended, carrying me once again. This time Bob Dole said practically the same thing as Ali and held me in his arm while speaking to supporters for twenty minutes. The local paper even got a picture of this and ran it in the following day.

    posted by Lead on 7-16-2010 at 1:15 pm

  80. 1. Our dog is afraid of coughing/sneezing
    2. I mistype “usually” just about every time I type it.
    3. I physically ran into Craig T Nelson in a doorway to a coffee shop in NYC. Also – encountered Don King and his entourage after a concert in Vegas on a random path at the Mandalay Bay – he told my friend “nice shirt”…
    4. Starship Troopers. Awful, just awful.

    posted by Susan R on 7-16-2010 at 1:17 pm

  81. 1. My cat is terrified of my dog in his snuggie. As soon as I put it on him, she takes off running and he interprets it as a game of chase.

    2. Restaurant and tomorrow.

    3. Also Tony Danza – he filmed a TV movie at the house across the street from my grandma when I was a kid. We watched as they filmed a scene of him cutting the front lawn with scissors.

    4. I’ve never walked out of a movie, probably from sheer stubbornness.

    posted by Melissa on 7-16-2010 at 1:18 pm

  82. I can’t spell “convenience” right on the first try. Sometimes not even on the second try. I usually just give up and let spellcheck fix it for me.

    posted by Erin on 7-16-2010 at 1:25 pm

  83. I think it interesting that some animals listed here are scared of balloons. In our house, I’M the one that’s scared of balloons…. : (

    1. My husband and I found a kitten in his mother’s back yard a few years ago. It had a terrible infection in its eyes and couldn’t see. We couldn’t bear to leave it, so we adopted it. He’s perfectly healthy now and the best pet I’ve ever had. It must have been pretty traumatic, though, because he is scared of everything.

    The cable guy came over to hook up our internet. Tig (said cat) had seen people come over before, but never had he seen a stranger go UPSTAIRS. He hid under the bed for about 6 hours. A few weeks later, an insurance adjuster came by to look at a leak in our bedroom ceiling. Tig went to hide under the bed again, but when the adjuster went into the bedroom, Tig panicked. He ran downstairs and got himself stuck behind the dryer. Now, he runs and hides every time the doorbell rings.

    He also puffs up if I change clothes in the middle of the day. It’s like there’s suddenly a stranger in the house.

    He hates the new Sun Chip bags.

    He gets angry if we look at so much as a picture of another cat.

    And then there was the time I had the hiccups. I was ascending the staircase. Tig was at the top, puffed, arched like a Halloween cat and jumped with every hiccup. As I came closer, he ran sideways and slammed into the wall.

    2. I like to credit myself as a decent speller, however, when typing, my fingers always spell the word “account” as “acocunt”. I work in a bank, so my spell check corrects that one A LOT.

    3. I met the guy who played Jesse in the Fast and the Furious. My husband took our picture. I said, “Thank you,” and he looked down the front of my shirt and said, “Thank YOU.” You would think my husband would have gotten upset, but no… He said “Atta girl.”

    4. We go to the movies so rarely that we only see things that we have confidence in. When I was a teenager, though, I walked out of Mr. Bean. I’m all about British comedy, but he’s just not funny.

    posted by Pearl on 7-16-2010 at 1:29 pm

  84. 1 – My little shih tzu is scared of jangling keys and being in elevators, he just stiffens up and trembles in them.

    2 – The word hygienic always looks wrong to me. I think it’s that first i.

    3 – In university, I studied for six months in Paris and one day Kristen Scott Thomas and I both made the same mistake in the metro. We had gotten on a train going in one direction when we meant to go the other way. It was just random because we both made the same mistake and were in the same car. She was pretty cool though.

    4 – All About The Benjamins, to this day I still don’t know what it’s about.

    I don’t know if it still applies but when I was younger I used to work at a movie theatre and if you walked out of a movie within its first hour, you could get your money back. It’s the best of both worlds, you keep your money and you don’t need to subject yourself to an awful movie!

    posted by Loulou on 7-16-2010 at 1:35 pm

  85. My dogs don’t like voices coming through wrapping paper tubes.

    Saw Wil Wheaton at a Renaissance Fair in Southern California. He was yelling loudly trying to draw people to one of the fair games but not having much luck :(

    posted by Deb on 7-16-2010 at 1:36 pm

  86. 1) My dog is terrified of the sprinkler when we water the grass. He won’t even go outside to pee if he sees it on.

    2) Necessary. I always, always have to spell-check this one word.

    3) I got my jean jacket autographed by Jonathan Brandis in ’94 or ’95.

    4) Moulin Rouge. I stood up and walked out after the cabaret-style Smells like Teen Spirit cover.

    posted by xlushx on 7-16-2010 at 1:37 pm

  87. My old shepherd was terrified of orange traffic pylons. I never figured out why, but we had to cross the street if there were any ahead of us.

    I walked out of Jerry McGuire and would have walked out of 300 if I’d seen it in the theater.

    posted by Boofus on 7-16-2010 at 1:37 pm

  88. 1. My almost 2 year old Austrailian Cattle dog is oddly afraid of bar stools and purses.

    2. The common word I find hard to spell is convenience (I always throw an extra e and/or i in the mix)

    3. Not sure if you would consider him a “celebrity” but while checking our luggage at the Las Vegas airport one of the hosts from Mythbusters almost walked right into my fiance.

    4. Had to walk out of Mars Attacks, could have been the crappy movie or the drunk guy in front of us who tossed his cookies.

    posted by Stephanie on 7-16-2010 at 1:38 pm

  89. 1. I had a cat named Wolfie who was afraid of Koosh balls. For those who can;t remember what they looked like.. they were like a bunch of broken rubber bands all wound together. Whenever I throw one down on the floor, he’d freaked out, get puffier than he normally was and spend HOURS batting at it and running away.

    2. My biggie is from.. not that I can’t spell it, but when I normally type it, I end up typing form (I just typed it as form at the beginning of this sentence and had to fix again).

    3. Oddest celebrity meeting.. I got tons, but I was working in a toy store in NYC and was redoing a shelf when it fell on my head.. hurt like hell and when I turned around, Rick Moranis was behind me, asking if I was okay. I almost fell on him (I got hit really really hard) and he went across the street to a bodega to get me ice for the growing bump on my forehead.

    4. I never left a movie.. but I remember going to see Nightbreed, and shortly after David Cronenberg’s character showed up and killed the family at the beginning.. a group of people got up and left. thought it was odd, mainly because slasher films were all the rage and they MUST have known there would be a bit of gruesomeness in the film. It was a Clive Barker film!

    3.

    posted by Mindy on 7-16-2010 at 1:38 pm

  90. 1. The dog I gave my parents is a afraid of little boys. I don’t think her previous home was a good one (they had a little boy). Oreo, the long haired chihuahua, is afraid of her walking leash. She’s find with her tie out chain, but her walking leash is up on her head when we walk and she can see it out of the corner of her eye. Hates it. The other chihuahua is afraid of his toy basket. It’s a wicker basket. He won’t take toys out of it. He’s also been afraid of his water and food bowls. No reason for this. No one has ever taken his food or water from him.

    2. Ocassion, Occassion, Occasion, that word gets me everytime.

    3. None. I will do something else in the theater like goof around, talk, etc, but will not leave.

    posted by Amber on 7-16-2010 at 1:40 pm

  91. My Sheltie is afraid of the salad spinner. When I pull it out of the cabinet, he has to go find the cat and attack him– which is a weird reaction, I think. He also tries to ‘catch’ planes or helicopters that fly over our airspace in the yard. Once we saw 2 hot air balloons and he almost had an aneurysm barking and shaking at them.

    I can’t spell accommodations. When I was an editor, I even misspelled it on the cover of my own magazine. Finally, I taught myself the trick of “there’s always room for one more m.” I also can’t spell compatible. I always want to type “capatible.”

    I saw Matt Dillon at a Beck concert in NYC sometime in 1996. I thought I knew him from school. My date said, no, that’s Matt Dillon, actually. My reaction: Huh. Well, OK.

    I fell asleep during “Like Father Like Son” and couldn’t finish “The New World” — the accents in that movie are impossible to understand.

    posted by Lisa A on 7-16-2010 at 1:41 pm

  92. I had a yellow lab who was deathly afraid of the empty dog kibble bag.

    My current pet, a 2-year old, 150-lb. English mastiff, dislikes bumblebees. There is a garden on a corner in our neighborhood, and whenever we walk past it and sees bees in the flowers, he starts flapping his head and backing away. I think he may have gotten too up close and personal with one recently.

    posted by Teri on 7-16-2010 at 1:42 pm

  93. Oh, and the storm sewer grates. My mastiff hates those too.

    posted by Teri on 7-16-2010 at 1:42 pm

  94. 1. our one dog is afraid of women wearing saris. we can’t figure it out…we have neighbors who are from india and they are the nicest people. they don’t like dogs so it’s not like they interact with her but for some reason, if a woman walks by in a sari, she’s goes crazy.
    our other two dogs are afraid of rollerbladers. we can’t even begin to understand this…

    2. i think my word is “occasion” too. and “achievement”. i always have to pause to put the letters together in my brain.

    4. i rarely walk of movies but i definitely walked out of “vanilla sky”. and it was a free showing.

    posted by sarah on 7-16-2010 at 1:43 pm

  95. My dog is scared of the raspberry noise you can make. If you make that sound she will run!

    She also doesn’t like squirt quns or water hoses, but that’s a little more normal.

    posted by Cattye on 7-16-2010 at 1:49 pm

  96. 1. my dog soma is afraid of blue plastic plates. he runs every time. he’s also afraid of the ironing board and my guitar. might be more of an indictment of my playing than the actual guitar.

    2. i have the hardest time spelling conscience. i have to remember it as “con science” to get it right.

    3. i once saw andrew shue by the colesium in rome. it was decemeber ’93, right at the height of melrose place.

    4. never bailed on a movie. i stick it out.

    posted by jason on 7-16-2010 at 1:58 pm

  97. just fyi, if you want to walk out of a movie: i believe if you leave before it is half way over, you can get a refund. (= i’m cheap like that.

    posted by mia on 7-16-2010 at 2:07 pm

  98. 1. My dog is completely terrified of ANYBODY walking on the sidewalk outside. She is especially cautious of the elderly or anyone with a stroller. She barks and whines and it’s completely adorable, if not a little annoying, since we live in an active neighborhood in which a lot of people utilize the sidewalks.

    2. “necessary” I’ve gotten better at it, but that was one word that I could never spell on standardized test essay questions. It killed me, because I’m normally a really good speller. Also, “conscious” is the devil.

    3. I touched Conan O’Brien at Bonnaroo. I don’t think that counts as a “sighting” but it’s the closest I’ve gotten to a celebrity. My friend saw Britney Spears at a gas station. My other friend saw Justin Long and Drew Barrymore filming a movie at the Pratt Institute in New York.

    4. The Rookie, because it was insanely boring. Babies, for the same reason.

    posted by Kallie on 7-16-2010 at 2:12 pm

  99. 3. This isn’t really a celebrity encounter but… Air Force 1 flew over our school when the president came to California (we were in PE so we got to watch it pass over us), and we heard it take off when the president left a few days later (sadly we were in Chorus and could not see our president leave).
    Having a school right near the airport definitely pays off :)

    posted by Cassy on 7-16-2010 at 2:23 pm

  100. 1. My dog would crawl under the bed on the fourth of July, all those fireworks really unnerved her. The rest of the year though she was pretty okay with the nightly fireworks from Disneyland, which is a very short way away, I guess she was used to them.
    And my Aunt’s dog, a little dachshund freaks out over Wii remotes. While at my grandparents playing Wii sports bowling, every time someone tried to “bowl” she freaked out.

    posted by Melissa on 7-16-2010 at 2:25 pm

  101. @Stephanie
    I am so jealous of you right now. Wait was it Adam (guy with glasses) or Jamie (walrus-mustache and beret)?

    posted by Cassy on 7-16-2010 at 2:28 pm

  102. 1. My dog, Hunter, isn’t afraid of much. Thunder is no big deal, vacuuming… But he’s afraid of HIS FOOD BOWL. He eats a few bites, backs ups, growls and barks at it. I have never seen anything like it. If I hold the bowl, he’s fine. But he tries to attack it otherwise.

    2. The word that gives me the most trouble is “occurrence.” I tried and was auto-corrected by the built-in spell check. D’OH!

    3. Dennis Quaid was filming “The Rookie” near my house one day. The shoot ran into the evening and I thought it would be big fun to tell my mom and sisters so they could come see what I was seeing. We walk across the street to the park and, sure as shootin’, he’s there. Another guy in the neighborhood comes over and decides he’s going to get Dennis to notice him. He starts yelling “DENNIS! DENNIS!” to the point that the poor man had to interrupt his work and wave at us (because when he turned around we were all grinning and waving wildly). His security guard guy came over shortly after and told us to move back.

    4. Beloved. Period.

    posted by Aisha on 7-16-2010 at 2:28 pm

  103. @Kallie –

    Funny you should mention “The Rookie”… It was pretty boring though.

    posted by Aisha on 7-16-2010 at 2:29 pm

  104. I once sat next to Charlie Monger, who is Warren Buffett’s business partner, on an airplane. It wasn’t even business class, just coach on Northwest. I didn’t say hello because I figured he got that enough.

    I also walked right past Janice Dickenson (a supermodel and judge on America’s Next Top Model) and her bodyguard driving her black Hummer almost ran me over while I was crossing the street.

    posted by Carm on 7-16-2010 at 2:32 pm

  105. 1. my cats vocally express distress when I cough or clear my throat.

    2. Even as an English teacher, I still hesitate when I spell “background.”

    3. I typically seek out celebrities at charity events, etc., so my random encounters have been minimal. Saw Bob Costas Christmas shopping at a local mall with his 2 sons a few years ago. I also met Janet Leigh a few years back. I rambled stupidly about something to her.*

    *maybe a future question: “What’s the stupidest thing you said/did in the presence of a celebrity/VIP, etc.?”

    4. “Young Einstein” was tortuously bad; and even as a sophisticated 18 year old, I knew I couldnt sit through one more minute of that movie.

    posted by Marty on 7-16-2010 at 2:32 pm

  106. 1. Our Dog is afraid of everything, specially people is fedoras

    2. Caribbean, I can never spell that right…

    3. I met Vinnie Fiorello, drummer for Less than Jake – it was at a concert, but the guy in front of me wouldn’t stop talking so I was standing behind him kinda mocking him so vinnie’s cracking up, so when I got up he drew a picture on shirt I got for them to sign.
    and the Singer was thumb wrestling people for free CD’s

    4. Never walk out of movies – plus most of the movies people walk out of here are movies I love like Watchmen or Nightmare before Christmas!

    posted by hockeyzombie on 7-16-2010 at 2:32 pm

  107. Oohh… And I met man whore Ray J. (the singer, Brandy’s, brother) during Texas Relays. In the photo we took, he was as drunk as he seemed. LOL!

    posted by Aisha on 7-16-2010 at 2:33 pm

  108. 1. My dog gets angry at people who wear hats.
    2. I can’t spell consious. Concious? What?
    3. My wife and I have friends that have recently moved to Vegas. We flew out there to visit them last year and they told us we were all going to go over to this casino to watch some “friends” perform in a band. The front counter had tickets waiting for us and we went and saw the show. Turns out it was KC and the Sunshine band. Our friends had met them bowling a few months before. They were all having a great time and our friends had no idea who they were. Then they sent them tickets to their show. So we hung out and had beers with them backstage afterward. Just strangers in a bowling alley. Only in Vegas, I guess. Man, that was a strange night.
    4. I don’t think I’ve ever walked out of a theater, but my in-laws brought over Wild Hogs a few months back and I had to leave the room. I think the combo of in-laws and a truly crappy movie blended together really put me in an unhappy spot.

    posted by Eric on 7-16-2010 at 2:37 pm

  109. I walked out of Public Enemies… worst movie ever. i’m a huge jonny depp fan but this was horrible

    posted by lisa on 7-16-2010 at 2:40 pm

  110. 1) when I was a kid I had a terrier who was afraid of only one thing, the living room. In his 16 years, Rags never, and I mean never, set a paw in that room. He would sit outside barking, growling or whining. To this day I’m convinced he could see or sense something no one else could.

    My present dog, a Jack Russell, who is named Jack Russell (I have no imagination) is afraid of sudden noises or movements, loud noises, wind, rain, strangers, knocking sounds and water and the cat when she’s in a bad mood.

    2) the animal with the long neck and the proper names of the animals who we call a hippo and a rhino.

    3)Although its not wierd, The actors I’ve ran into are not commonly known outside Canada. I met Gordon Pinsent years ago when he was a special guest at some event that I can’t even remember(very, very, very nice man) and some of the stars from the new series, “The Rublic of Doyle” who were filming. My brother got to meet Prince Charles and Lady Diana. He said they were two of the most down-to-earth people he had ever meet. They took time to have a chat with him (he was their waiter during a royal visit).

    4)There are many movies I wanted to walk out on, but the only movie I actually did leave before it ended was “Surfs Up”. I was in actual physical pain wathching it. It soon became apparent that the kids were also bored with it. When I asked them if they wanted to leave, I got a “Yes, please” from all 3.

    posted by Carol on 7-16-2010 at 2:42 pm

  111. 1. Our cat freaks out if you talk to him through a paper towel tube.

    3. Part of “A League of Their Own” was filmed in my home town. Madonna used to jog by our house everyday with her bodyguards (you didn’t dare ask for an autograph). I also met Tom Hanks at the Golf Course – very nice Guy.

    4. “Any Given Sunday”.

    posted by Ryan on 7-16-2010 at 2:46 pm

  112. #1 just shows how many ideas you have for this weekly column, unless it is Christmas in July in Ohio I really doubt you tried to take that picture of Leo “a few minutes ago” :p

    I have to wonder if the Wii remotes emit a sound we can’t hear, but the dog can.

    posted by Wayne on 7-16-2010 at 2:47 pm

  113. 1. My roommate’s cat Margot is terrified of my workout videos and Tenacious D. She runs out of the room when I put on the videos, and she hides when I play Tenacious D. She also hates the sound of packing tape being pulled off the roll. She’s a weirdo, but we love her.

    2. I’ll agree with Caribbean. I grew up in the south, so people always said it “Carrahbe-in’.” It really messed with my ability to sound it out and spell it correctly.

    3. I was punched by Bill Clinton when I was 5-years-old. We (my parents and I) were waiting to shake his hand at a rally and he playfully knocked at my shoulder. However, I was and still am very thin and frail, so he might as well have socked me.

    4. I’ve never walked out of a movie, but I’ve wanted to walk out of a few. I obliged my friend and saw Notorious with her. It was awful.

    posted by Caitlin on 7-16-2010 at 2:47 pm

  114. 1. My shi-tzu-poodle mix was terrified of fire hydrants as a puppy. FIRE HYDRANTS. He’s not too fond of balloons either.

    2. Recently I’ve been having trouble with the word “address”. I keep forgetting the second “d”.

    3. My grandpa ran into Tom Hanks while walking his dog (Coco) one day. My grandpa said “You’re Tom Hanks!” and Tom Hanks replied, “You must be Mr. Coco!”

    4. I actually walked out of the theater two minutes into Zombieland. I had an upset stomach that day, and the gory opening sequence didn’t help. I’ll give it another chance someday…

    posted by Emma on 7-16-2010 at 2:52 pm

  115. My grade 4 teacher taught me a few tricks to spell difficult words, and to this day everytime I spell ‘beautiful’ I have to say, ‘big elephants are ugly’ to get the first 4 letter right.

    posted by Homer89 on 7-16-2010 at 2:54 pm

  116. Was at a Chicago White Sox/Chicago Cubs game at US Cellular Park 2 summers ago. I walked right past Jeremy Piven on my way to the ATM. I wasn’t sure it was him so when I looked back to be certain, sure enough there was a group of about 5 girls following him with cameras. Later they showed him on the JumboTron so I knew I wasn’t crazy.

    posted by Katie Rose on 7-16-2010 at 3:06 pm

  117. 1) My dog, Caddo, is TERRIFIED by the shower. I have to make sure she is in a different room before I turn it on, or she will cower and pee.

    3) My high school graduation present was a trip to NYC with my awesome aunt. She snuck me into a club that was PACKED. While manuevering my way through the club, I walked right under Jimmy Fallon’s armpit!! (He had to raise his arm for me to squeeze by) I was totally in love with him at the time and it made. my. trip.

    posted by Nykkya on 7-16-2010 at 3:07 pm

  118. 1) I used to have a Gizmo doll (from Gremlins)who would do the squeaky singing that he did in the movie when you pushed a button. The dogs were terrified of him. So was my boyfriend, but that’s a whole other story!
    2)Prefer is the hardest word for me. I always want it to be perfer because I’m Southern and that’s how we pronounce it. I work at a job where I often have to check other people’s spelling and you would be amazed at how many people misspell gorgeous (georgeous) and huge (hugh-I think it’s because when you type your fingers automatically go for the ugh because it’s in so many other words).
    3) I used to wait tables at Waffle House and Chili from TLC would come in from time to time. While I was waiting another waitress tripped and spilled a drink all over me and her table. It would have been embarrassing no matter who it was!
    4)We walked out of Ghost Rider. That movie was terrible!

    posted by Sarah on 7-16-2010 at 3:42 pm

  119. 1. my dachshund, Ollie, is terrified of beer pong. I’m not sure if it’s the sound of the balls hitting the table or what but anytime we play, he hides in this corner behind a recliner in the living room. And vacuums, people he has both met and not met, bicycles and dogs smaller than himself. He’s pretty much a whiny baby.

    and about the spelling, bureaucracy. It usually takes me about 3 or 4 tries before I just give up and hit up the spell check. but sometimes my effort is so bad that even the computer cant figure out what I’m trying to type.

    posted by Celeste on 7-16-2010 at 3:46 pm

  120. 1) Nothing outrageous – I think my cat is the only cat in the world who’s afraid of laser pointers. I’ve tried to get him to play with it and he just looks at it and runs in the other direction. I’m not sure what the trauma is on that front…

    2) “conscious” and there’s one that I use fairly frequently that I always have to spell check, but my spelling is SO off that spell check never recognizes it. Damn. I wish I remembered what it was…

    3) No weird celebrity sightings, but I love the idea of Tony Danza high fiving a jogger, lol.

    4) Didn’t we just have this question a month ago or so? I know I answered “Alex & Emma”, although I just walked out halfway through the movie to talk to my mom on the phone, but came back to see the ending. Waste of time.

    posted by OkieMelissa on 7-16-2010 at 3:52 pm

  121. I apparently lead a somewhat boring life as half of my answers are about friends.

    1. My friend’s dog will cower and growl it any adult male not his owner approaches. Women, fine, boys, fine, but not men. He was not previously owned.

    2. Different friend–met Eminem while she was a missionary.

    3. I always have trouble with recommend. I always want to put in an extra ‘c’

    4. I’ve never walked out of a movie.

    posted by Kate on 7-16-2010 at 3:54 pm

  122. 1) We have a Newfoundland that’s afraid of bubbles and cameras. He’s afraid of our cell phones only when we try to use them to take his picture. We had a yellow lab that was afraid of snowmen, creches (which he stalked), piles of coats (such as on a bed), and strollers covered in blankets.

    2) Accommodate–I had to look it up now to make sure I spelled it correctly.

    3) None that I recall.

    4) I once saw Garrison Keillor at the bookstore in St. Paul that he owns, which is probably a bigger deal to those of us who live in Minnesota.

    posted by MitchvV on 7-16-2010 at 3:55 pm

  123. I worked a winter at a calendar store in Washington DC a few years ago. We were always having strange people in our shops (ie; street people coming in out of the cold, and just your general creeps trying to hit on the women who worked there) so we were always having to call security to come and clear them out. One night about 10 minutes before closing, this really weird looking guy came in and asked if we had any Ken Burns calendars. I politely told him we didn’t, then waited for him to leave, as it was really obvious it was closing time. The guy stood there and talked for 20 minutes all about Ken Burns, and what did we think of him, and wasn’t he amazing, to the point where I slipped out and called security. Do I need to tell you who the guy was? Yep, I had called security on the amazing Ken Burns. BTW, the guy is a total ass.

    posted by Erin on 7-16-2010 at 3:59 pm

  124. 1. My dog is part German Shepherd, part Collie, and part Chicken. She is rather timid about most things, but she HATES HATES HATES people who have kids sitting on their shoulders. She’ll cower, pee, and then shake and whine as though she’s going to die.

    I suppose, to her, the creature in front of her looks like an 8-foot-tall person with two heads!

    2. I cannot spell privilege or embarrass without assistance.

    posted by Elly Vortex on 7-16-2010 at 3:59 pm

  125. Oh! And my friends’ Great Dane used to HATE the Sinclair dinosaur. We would have to take a detour if we saw one down the road while riding in the car. The last thing you want is a Great Dane freaking out in a small moving vehicle.

    posted by Elly Vortex on 7-16-2010 at 4:01 pm

  126. Our dog is OK with the vacuum. But the broom scares him half to death.

    posted by Kevin on 7-16-2010 at 4:03 pm

  127. For some reason I am “Submit Comment” happy this week.

    3. I made a latte for Billie Joe Armstrong when working at a Caribou Coffee. He drove up to the curb in front of the store in a Lexus SUV, illegally parked, ordered his drink (I made it) and left. No tip. Dude was about 4’11″ and kind of twitchy.

    posted by Elly Vortex on 7-16-2010 at 4:05 pm

  128. Thanks @Caitlin – “Necessary” is the one spell check never recognizes. I don’t know why I have a mental block on it.

    posted by OkieMelissa on 7-16-2010 at 4:23 pm

  129. 1. Don’t have a pet, but I’m afraid of Country music.
    2. Spelling not a problem, but there’s one word I always mispronounce: both. I pronounce it as “bolth.”
    3. Strangest time I met a celebrity is when I went to New York on vacation in 1998. I planned to visit the set of “Homocide:Life on the Street,” but before I even took a day trip to Baltimore I ran into Peter Gerety at the place I was staying in New York. I had checked in and was going up to my room in the elevator. The door opens up, Gerety walks in and asks, “does anybody know what floor the gym is on?” I was so flabbergasted that I couldn’t say a word.
    4. I don’t remember marching out of a movie EVER but I do remember seeing a man take his whole family to See “Saving Private Ryan.” His whole family included a seven-year-old and a five-year-old, who leaned into me in horror during the first 30 minutes of the movie. What a moron!

    posted by Tim S. on 7-16-2010 at 4:29 pm

  130. My 3 year old Springer, Wrigley, is afraid of lots of things – the regular stuff (vacuums, fireworks, loud noises) but also some weird ones:

    - air-filled balloons, not only filled but also being filled up. He runs and hides in the bathtub behind the curtain.

    - Rice Crispies cereal.. in the bowl with milk so that it makes the trademark “snap, crackle & pop” noises. I haven’t checked if he has the same reaction to generic brands or if he’s only affected by Kellogg’s.

    - the water dispenser on the fridge door.

    He’s a special one.

    posted by Meredith on 7-16-2010 at 4:31 pm

  131. 3) Back in my college days, I was in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) in south Texas. At one camping event probably in late ’88 or early ’89, there was this new guy there that I thought looked real familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He was about 19 or 20, and dressed in a very nice Renaissance costume. He also had a big dog, like an Irish Wolfhound. He was clearly new to the group, didn’t know anyone, so we started talking to him. He gave his “Society” name as Thomas. He had a cool lute that he could play a little, and seemed like a nice, if shy, kid. He left after awhile, and one of my friends said, “you recognize him, right?” I said I thought he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him, and they said, “That’s Henry Thomas, you know, Elliott from E.T.?” Well it was 6 or 7 years since the movie, so I guess it’s not surprising I didn’t peg him right off. But it turns out he was from San Antonio.

    posted by Scott on 7-16-2010 at 4:31 pm

  132. My dog Roxy doesn’t really have any strange or irrational fears (sometimes it’s thunder or fireworks) but she did lead to my odd celebrity meeting. When I first moved to NYC in 2004, I was walking her on the day of the marathon and as we got toward Central Park, Al Franken bent down and petted her and talked to her for about two minutes, then said “hello” to me before he walked away. I would have geeked out a bit more, but he and Roxy were deep in conversation and I didn’t want to interrupt.

    posted by Nicki on 7-16-2010 at 4:35 pm

  133. 1. The ice cube maker. Our dog Fosse RUNS upstairs every time a cube drops. She also won’t lick food out of a bowl that is too deep or has a handle that might move.

    2. available, separate, their

    3. Wallace Shawn. My friend and I had just had a little herbal refreshment when we passed him just off 14th street. We were both like “Mr. Hall?”.

    4. Down Periscope, Lost in Translation (I know but y’all…it’s boring)

    posted by Britt on 7-16-2010 at 4:37 pm

  134. 1. My cat’s afraid of motorcycles and fireworks.

    2. I had to look up “exercise” the other day. I kept wanting to put a C after the X, and a Z instead of the S.

    @Elly Vortex – I used to always forget how to spell “harass” and “embarrass”; I would spell harass with two R’s and embarrass with one R. My trick to remembering there are two R’s in “embarrass” is: when you get embarrassed, your face turns Really Red.

    3. My parents once ran into Max Cleland, the senator (who they actually knew from church), twice in an airport, first when they were leaving for a trip and then when they came back.

    4. I’ve never walked out of a movie, but I once went to a really boring play with my parents, and at intermission, we all revealed that we were thinking about leaving, so we did.

    posted by Jenn on 7-16-2010 at 4:54 pm

  135. Our dog is freaked out by the noise if the ice maker. If no one is home and the machine is on, she scratches at the door to get out. If we are home, she barks and goes to the other end of the house.

    posted by Andrea on 7-16-2010 at 5:03 pm

  136. While on a Med. cruise on the USS FDR CVA42 in 1961. I was going to mess and to get there, crossing through officers country was the shorter route. I was tearing around a corner and bumped into a man. Looking up I was astonished to see Eliot Ness and I blurted out his name. In reply to me he said ” No son it’s Robert Stack.” I appologized, we shook hands and I went to chow.

    posted by Gene D. on 7-16-2010 at 5:10 pm

  137. 2. Even when I spell it right, the word is wrong. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
    3. I met John Corbet years ago when I took my family to Rosalynn, Washington where the show Northern Exposure was filmed. It was off season for filming, however Mr. Corbett had gone there to buy show souvineers (yeah, I know it’s misspelled) as he said that was where the best selection prices were. The guy is a tall dude, I’d guess 6’5″ and extemely friendly. He got his friend to take a picture of my family with him. Total gentleman and still one of my favorite stars.
    4.Walked out the movie “High Anexity” with Mel Brooks long time ago. Not because it was bad, but because the theather sound system was acting up and we couldn’t hear the dialogue most of the first 20 minutes. Returned the next day and enjoyed the movie.

    posted by Prism on 7-16-2010 at 5:12 pm

  138. 1. No dog unfortunately, but I do have a cat. He is absolutely fearless and doesn’t balk at anything unless I open the freezer door (I have an upright fridge/freezer, freezer on top). If he sees that thing open he will stare at it wide-eyed and slowly back away into a corner until it’s shut again. He loves trying to get into the refrigerator when I have it open, but open that freezer door and you’ve found his weakness.

    Nothing else fazes that cat, I swear.

    2. For the longest time my word was “definitely.” To this day I still have to fight back “definately.” I also lost a second grade spelling bee on the word “experience” but I’ve thoroughly cleansed those demons by now.

    3. I haven’t hobnobbed with major celebrities before, the closest I’ve been was when I ran into local TV personality (and occasional radio star) Jeff Passolt at a grocery store. He’s a class act, love the guy.

    4. I don’t walk out of movies, mainly because I’ve paid my money to see it so I’ll sit through to the end hoping it’ll pay off. I’ve wanted to, though. The closest I ever came was either Pulse or The Collector.

    posted by J.D. on 7-16-2010 at 5:16 pm

  139. Your Wiimote might be making noise when you change the batteries. My English Shepherd panics during a blackout. I thought he was just being weird until I put my ear up to our smoke detector. It’s hooked up to house current but when it doesn’t have power it makes a high-pitched squeal.
    When I was about 8, I went to a wedding reception. Big Brother with Janis Joplin was the entertainment. The grownups did NOT approve, bit I thought they were the greatest thing that I had ever seen in my short life. Janis took a liking to me and I fetched champagne for her. Yeah, I contributed to her downfall.

    posted by House elf on 7-16-2010 at 6:00 pm

  140. 1. All of my dearly departed dogs were apparently afraid of massagers. One of my dogs, Monty, even ran away from one, backwards. I’ve never seen that happen elsewhere.
    2. I’ve actually won three elementary school spelling bees in a row, setting a record that can’t be broken unless they change the rules to allow earlier grades in. Even so, I have trouble spelling “separately” (I always seem to spell it “seperately”), “odyssey” (I always think it has two d’s and one s–my text processor automatically changed the spelling for me here), and I used to have trouble spelling “satellite.”
    4. The only times I’ve ever walked out of a movie are the times when there are technical difficulties or I come in too late. Other than that, I’ll sit through whatever I’ve paid to see.

    posted by Sillstaw on 7-16-2010 at 6:16 pm

  141. 1. I brought home a bunch of old life-sized cardboard cutouts of Elvis from work a few years ago, and our schnoodle was absolutely terrified of them. It was awesome.

    posted by clint on 7-16-2010 at 6:54 pm

  142. 1. We have a rather large menagerie of pets, each neurotic in their own way. The 15 year old rescue mutt has an intense hatred of tall thin men with deep voices that drive pick-ups. We figure it’s from her past. One of the cats is afraid of strangers, the other used to be afraid of plastic bags. We knew she got over that the day we saw a plastic bag go running across the kitchen. The corgi is the craziest one. She is terrified of most men, even though she is daddy’s little girl. My husband is tall and looks very intimidating if you don’t know him. She hates his belt, the usual dog things: fireworks, thunder, vacuum, etc. The roofers next door, the branch that fell in the neighbor’s lawn. Other dogs except our old mutt, even the 15 lb rat terrier next door who is half her size. She acts brave but is the biggest baby.
    2. I used to have issues with tomorrow. I would try to spell it tommorrow.
    3. Once played frisbee golf with Jimmy Eat World when they played a concert at my college.
    4. Never walked out of a movie but absolutely could not finish the dvd of Alexander starring Colin Farrel. Painful beyond belief!

    posted by SaraP on 7-16-2010 at 6:56 pm

  143. I can’t spell the word for the things you bring home from a trip to show to people or give to them or help you remember your trip or the things you saw and/or did. You know the word: soo-ven-ear. Yeah, that one. Can’t spell it for the LIFE of me. And I’m a really really good speller. Just that one word.

    posted by Kelley O on 7-16-2010 at 6:58 pm

  144. @hockeyzombie-

    a couple friends and i went to see less than jake once at a college that was about 3 hours away. we were super early, and when we got to the parking lot, we parked next to what was apparently less than jakes tour bus. we decided to do some pre-show yoga, and roger and buddy came out of the bus and joined us. we hung out, took some ‘final destionation-esque’ pictures with the RV, and chased a swan. after the show, they invited us back to the bus for some bananas…. it was definitely the strangest, yet best time ive ever had at a show.

    posted by Crystal on 7-16-2010 at 8:03 pm

  145. 1) Our rescued Catahoula/greyhound is a quirky girl. She will eat just about anything she can get her teeth into – but avoids cables and wires. Watching her try to retrieve a ball that’s run into one of the many tangles of computer cables behind a desk is hilarious. She’ll run up to it & pull a dead stop about 6″ from the perimeter of the wire. She also recently encountered a horse – it was walking by our car & she made the weirdest noise. I turned around to look & she was stiff-legged & all her fur was sticking straight out & she was so freaked she couldn’t even bark. She looked at me like, “wtf was that?!” She also doesn’t do well on the freeway and was terrified of cars when we first got her & wouldn’t get in ours if the windows were down. I’m harboring a slight suspicion someone may have thrown her from a moving car when she was a puppy.

    posted by Jane on 7-16-2010 at 8:15 pm

  146. I knew a cat afraid of ceiling fans, and why. He grew up mostly outdoors with a hawk in the neighborhood. After he went to a friend with a ceiling fan he saw it moving its large blades overhead and was terrified. BTW, at the same time I owned an elderly, spayed, declawed cat with cataracts and slowly dying of FIV. She was lethal to birds, and no telling how many she would have killed with original feet and eyes. One time when the hawk landed on the fire escape rail in pursuit of a kitten (not hers), she was on the stairs and went for the big, tempting bird. The bird left.

    Hard word for me to remember? Ceiling is not cieling. Knowing shorthand that uses the same mark for Z and S inclines me to replace Zs with Ss in my normal writing. Try that one on for sise.

    Next ask about weird things animals like. More than one cat likes Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”. My sister had a cat that licked soft pear cores, not any other fruit, except for drinking from a glass of orange juice ONCE. There is a cat in town now that chases bicycles. The tree frog living outside my back door for the bugs that come to the light gets in the water bucket for the plants and sings along with jazz horns and some ringing percussion, cymbals, xylophones, etc.

    posted by Calumny on 7-16-2010 at 8:37 pm

  147. 1. I have two dogs, Isabel and Daisy, and a cat, Kitty. (Oh so original, I know.)Daisy isn’t afraid of anything really, just that she hates certain things. Isabel is afraid of people yelling. She’ll squeeze her fat German Shepherd/Beagle mix under the bed to get away from it. Kitty is scared of loud noises and the dogs barking.
    2. Restaurant. I had to look it up just now.
    3. No weird celeb encounters
    4. Never walked out of a movie… yet.

    posted by devontastic on 7-16-2010 at 8:45 pm

  148. I’m a good speller, but I can’t for the life of me type “aluminum” or “Alaska” correctly on the first try. And I live in Alaska! I worked at Disneyland for many years when I was in college, so the stories I could tell about weird celebrity sightings are more numerous than I can list here, but more recently, my husband and children ran into Sarah Palin (while she was still governor) at a local shoe store in Juneau. My daughter played with her baby and my husband chatted with her about how great it was that he was buying me a shoe-store gift card for my birthday!

    posted by JennieO on 7-16-2010 at 9:03 pm

  149. My miniature schnauzer Cody was deathly afraid of the toaster oven. When you turned it on it would tick till the food was done and the ticking would make him shake so bad we thought he was having a seizure. We took him to the vet before we figured out what was going on.

    posted by Jared on 7-16-2010 at 9:06 pm

  150. 1. my english bulldog, Thor, is afraid of plugs and the cords they are attached to.

    2. i am a high school English teacher. i cannot spell the following EVER:
    jewerly
    resturant
    vaccuum

    when i admit this to my students (which i do), they just think that is the funniest thing ever!

    3. strangest celeb encounter: running into Nicolas Cage in the middle of Times Square (he was very gracious and let me take a photo) and being Tracy Morgan’s waitress at a resturant in the Bronx. he was a HORRIBLE tipper!!
    4. Great Expectations. that movie STUNK!! the book was so good and the movie was SO AWFUL!

    posted by kelli on 7-16-2010 at 9:16 pm

  151. I had a doberman that was terrified of balloons. the worst were the ones you just blew up with (not helium) they would spread across the room and she would just back herself into the corner of the room.

    The same dog jumped a child gate got onto the table and ate an entire cake including the candles and candle holders. Then jumped back over the gate to act like nothing happened. Needless to say we had all the evidence needed a day later when we spotted the plastic candle holders.

    posted by Steve Robillard on 7-16-2010 at 9:40 pm

  152. 1. Our dog, Indy is afraid of spray cans of Febreze – not Pledge or Windex…just Febreze.
    3. Saw Skunk Baxter at a defense contractors’ convention.
    4. “The Cell” with Jennifer Lopez…nothing more to say.

    posted by carrie M. on 7-16-2010 at 9:41 pm

  153. My dog, Lucy, is terrified when the washing machine is on.

    posted by Renee on 7-16-2010 at 9:53 pm

  154. I once ran into John Wayne. Literally. I was around six years old and being a brat by running away from my older sister. I wasn’t watching where I was going and ran full tilt into John Wayne, bounced off of him, and hit the ground, hard. I don’t actually remember this incident, but my sis likes to re-tell this story a lot.

    posted by soo on 7-16-2010 at 10:00 pm

  155. This is funny. As I was reading the comments, getting ready to post about our dog, my wife comes in with a bed rail for our son. Our 100 lb great dane/shepherd mix ran under the train table and would not move until my wife took the rail upstairs. Absolutely no idea why that freaked him out. He also does not like our large exercise ball.

    posted by David on 7-16-2010 at 10:55 pm

  156. 1) I’m still trying to figure out my kitten’s quirks. She has some scarring on one of her eyes from a wicked infection when she was 2 weeks old (no mommy around and she was half dead, she’s better now thanks to 3 months and counting of antibiotics) so she gets spooked easily when it’s dark.

    2) I’m a decent speller it’s the commas and apostrophies I have trouble with.

    3) I was at the Chicago Children’s Museum and saw Lauren Holly (from Dumb and Dumber and Picket Fences). I didn’t mean to stare but I was really trying to figure out if it was her. I think I made her nervous so I took my kiddo to another part of the museum to give her space.

    4)I have a short attention span and leave movies all the time. Most theaters give refunds if you leave within the first half hour.

    posted by sarah on 7-16-2010 at 11:25 pm

  157. 1) I just remembered the time I found out my old dog Brandy was afraid of ambulance sirens. She was riding shotgun in my truck when all of a sudden she dove under my feet and wedged herself under the seat. I never knew a 55lb dog could fit in such a small space.

    posted by sarah on 7-16-2010 at 11:28 pm

  158. 1. Well, I don’t have a dog, but I did have a cat once that was mortally afraid of an inflatable deer head I had hanging on the wall. I discovered this quite by accident when I took it down to dust it and unintentionally touched her with it. She screeched real loud and ran off. Later on I got the idea to use it to keep her from climbing over my TV to get behind the entertainment center. It worked beautifully.

    2. “Definitely” gave me fits until I came up with a little mnemonic trick for remembering how to spell it.

    3. I once sat 5 feet away from Paul Simon and didn’t even know it. My ex-husband was on dialysis and one time when I took him in for his treatment was right after a horrible road trip the highlight of which was blowing the engine in a friend’s van. While I sat in the dialysis clinic waiting room I noticed there were a lot more people than usual in there and they were all crowding around a short guy who kept giving me funny looks. I was so pissed off about what happened on the way there I never really thought anything of it because I was too busy sulking and fuming over what it would cost to fix the van. I went to get my ex when the treatment was done and he asked me if I’d seen Paul Simon in the waiting room. I said, “No…hahaha. Funny. I did see Bigfoot, though!” Turns out that really was Paul Simon, his father was on dialysis too so that’s why he was there. I thought, oh great! I’ll bet he was looking at me funny because he was sitting there wondering, “What the hell is HER problem?!”

    4. I walked out of “The Lost Boys”. That movie sucked.

    posted by dooflotchie on 7-17-2010 at 12:14 am

  159. 1. When I was growing up, our black Lab hated fireworks and thunder. Cowered under the bed, poor guy. My brother’s pit bull, a rescue, is terrified of men – he only likes my brother and my dad. Give him space and he will go upstairs to his crate. My cat is sure the vacuum cleaner is her nemesis – she’ll even attack the attachments just sitting on the floor.

    2. For trouble spelling generally, the usual suspects: occaison, convenience, etc. Must spell them under my breath. The one word I cannot type correctly the first (second, third, etc.) time: the.

    3. Celebrity siting: One summer I worked at a small plane service company at O’Hare Field, in the office. While covering dispatch, I met several of the Chicago Bears who were on a small plane for some reason. Also Bobby Hull.

    4. Have never walked out of a movie in a theater. Have turned them off at home, notably Brazil, which has put me to sleep three times. I like Terry Gilliam’s work, so I see another try in the near future.

    posted by J on 7-17-2010 at 12:47 am

  160. @Caitlin- I was at a rally a couple years ago and got knocked over by Bill Clinton too. Huh. I was in the front row and he was trying to shake hands with everyone behind me… yeah, I ended up sitting on the floor next to a six-year old until he moved on. I was 17 (not quite voting age) but looked much younger- Clinton, the House Rep. and one of the Senators there both took the time to shake my hand, but the guy running for office (Sheldon Whitehouse, RI), looked me over and moved on!

    Other questions:

    1) I’ve never owned dogs or cats, but my birds have strange phobias. One of my parakeets used to love those stuffed birds that if you squeezed them, made the bird call. She would get so excited when you came over with one, until one day my brother was playing with one and dropped it. My parakeet wouldn’t even come close to one ever again, and would start freaking out the second she saw one. My conure has even weirder fears. 1st, she’s petrified of the parakeets, even though she’s three times their size. She also can tolerate all the normal fears-lightening, vacuums, etc, but we have to take her out of the room if we want to use a broom. She also was very good at keeping an eye on the turtles/tortoises we owned. If we put them anywhere near her, she would stand perfectly still and watch them intently until we took them back out of the room.

    2) Surprise. I don’t pronounce the first “r”, so I never put it in there.

    3) I really haven’t met any bona fide “celebrities”. I ended up sitting behind Barack Obama at a rally in NH very early on in his campaign. I showed my friends a CNN screencap of the rally recently and the conversation went like this “See, that’s me right behind him.” “Haha, that lady next to you is picking her nose on national TV” “Oh, that’s my mother.” I got to shake his hand after, and that was about it.

    I’ve met a couple of more famous linguists at campus events, but I might be the only one who got starstruck at that!

    4. I’ve never marched out of a movie, because I only see about 1 a year, and its usually the Disney/Pixar release of the year.

    I did turn off Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life” about two minutes into the actual movie. I love their work usually, but “Meaning of Life” was a little too graphic/crass for me. I’ll stick to Flying Circus.

    posted by Julia on 7-17-2010 at 12:52 am

  161. 1. My brother had a rabbit. The first time the bunny saw a car, it jumped higher than I thought possible and went running straight back to my brother’s legs. It worked out well, because then we didn’t need a leash for bunny anymore; he refused to go near pavement and stayed in our yard.

    2. soldier. I want to spell it ‘solider’. I also have a problem with Brian – I usually always type ‘Brain’ first.

    3. I have never encountered a celebrity except to watch some in concert.

    4. I walked out of Watchmen and Superbad. The people who were with me completely agreed, and we found something else to do. The movies were boring. I’ve also walked out of a live play before. I can’t remember the title or what it was about because I didn’t care. The actors were horrible.

    posted by Cat on 7-17-2010 at 3:19 am

  162. 1. My parents’ dog is terrified of the refrigerator, so, of course, they keep her food next to it. The poor thing won’t eat unless someone else is in the room with her.
    2. No word in particular, but as I get older, I’m finding I just mistype words without catching it more and more.
    3. I was on an elevator in a hotel in Schaumburg, IL, after a game in a soccer tournament (I was in high school) when Huey Lewis was suddenly ushered in. He was tall and HAMMERED. We asked him how he was, and he said, “Great, where am I?” A little while later he dropped the bottle of Bud he was holding and is spilled onto my shoe.
    4. I walked out of Pet Sematary — scared the holy living hell out of me.

    posted by Andrew on 7-17-2010 at 3:21 am

  163. My cocker spaniel is absolutely terrified of my printer. It’s just a regular inkjet, but every time I use it he runs away whining as if he’s being tortured!

    posted by Rebecca on 7-17-2010 at 11:50 am

  164. 1. My boxer Emmie (who I have long been suspicious of actually being a retarded deer is afraid of pickles (sight and smell) and coffee filters we turn them upside down and make little parachutes and she freaks out!

    2. Restaurant and the name Michael

    3. I walked in on Ben Lyons (E!) in a port-a-potty…and we actually had a good laugh about it later.

    4. Epic Movie…epic piece of crap!!

    posted by ~Geek Girl~ on 7-17-2010 at 1:07 pm

  165. 1. My dog Baylie who is a pit bull is terrified of water bottles. She cowers and pins her ears back if one even comes near her empty or full.

    2. i’m a good speller. it bothers me when people can’t spell, weird, niece, or tomorrow. i before e except after c is obviously NOT a rule.

    3. i met mohammad ali twice. once at best buy, he was in with his daughter while i was working. and once at dick’s sporting goods, i was ringing out his wife (he was behind at the customer service desk). She was very sweet and told me not to be nervous, and he signed a piece of paper for me.

    4. i walked out of The Fifth Element when it was in theaters. I was like 8 or 9 and the movie was longer then i thought. my friend and i walked out so we wouldn’t get in trouble for being late for curfew. ( no cell phones back then). I did not actually see the end of that movie until like 10 years later.

    posted by andrea on 7-17-2010 at 1:08 pm

  166. #3 – I live in St Louis and last year they were filming ‘Up in the Air’ here. They were filming a scene across the street from our office. The ground was covered in fake snow, which was funny. But dreamy George Clooney drew all the ladies out of the office to take pics with our cell phones. I looked all through the movie for that scene, it must have wound up on the cutting room floor.

    4. My best friend and I walked out of ‘Rumble Fish’ when we were teenagers. I don’t know why, Matt Dillon and Micky Rourke (when he was cute) were in it.

    posted by STL Gal on 7-17-2010 at 1:15 pm

  167. 1. My papillion is afraid of fast movements, if I drop something on the floor by accident she scatters into hiding. Actually she’s sketchy about most things.

    2. Appreciate (I spell it appiciate every time!) experience (expierence every time!) So annoying!

    3. I was working at a gas station a few years back and John Dunsworth who plays Mr. Lahey on Trailer Park Boys came in to fuel up his rental car before heading to the airport. I was so star struck all I could do was laugh and say “Mr. Lahey?!”. I felt like such a rube.

    4. I don’t think I have ever walked out of a movie because I always read reviews online first. Helps avoid seeing a real stinker!

    posted by El Lay on 7-17-2010 at 1:28 pm

  168. Our little yorkie/westie mix is afraid of seams in the floor. Its to the point where she can get stuck in a room unless we keep her claws real short. She also has to eat out of a plate not a bowl and won’t drink water from a stainless bowl.

    posted by tsuder on 7-17-2010 at 3:52 pm

  169. 1. When I actually owned a dog, she was afraid of the screen door. Possibly because I tricked her into running into it so many times (I was 12, give me a break!).
    2. I spell a lot of words wrong, but the main ones are words with ‘ie’ or ‘ei’ or any other e’s or i’s.
    3. I had Thanksgiving dinner with Linda Blair, the woman who played that creepy girl in the Exorcist. She grew up with my aunt and were best friends. She brought her astrologist with her. It was a strange dinner.
    4. I walk out on lots of movies, and frequently demand my money back. Avatar, Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch, and so many others it’s hard to count. I’m not really into movies I guess.

    posted by Gonz on 7-17-2010 at 3:55 pm

  170. Oh, I also hung out with Gogol Bordello after their concert in Omaha. Everyone was super gracious except for Eugene Hutz (the lead singer). The violin player was handing out shots of vodka and oranges for chasers. He also gave us a bunch of beers. Eugene was kind of an ass, but I suppose that comes with the territory. Almost everyone in the band was hitting or making out with girls who were obviously underage. Either way, their dancers let me do zombie make-up on them (I do professional costume make-up) and they posed around the car that we drove (an art car). Pretty fun guys. They sang lots of old gypsy songs and taught us an Ethiopian dance.

    posted by Gonz on 7-17-2010 at 4:03 pm

  171. 1. My dog doesn’t have any fears that we know of. She isn’t fond of water, but that’s not that unusual. We found out that my stepmom’s dog is terrifed of the sound of a taser going off, though. My friend Chris was checking out my dad’s taser and flicked it on and the dog was terrified!

    2. I’m terrible with convenient.

    3. My husband and I stayed at a hotel near Nationwide Arena the night that we were married. There just so happened to be a huge blizzard, and it was so bad that we could not drive home. We decided to stay another night at the hotel, so they switched us to another room for the second night. While my husband and I were, erm, being intimate, we hear someone insert a key card into the door, and it opens the door. Thankfully, my husband had shut the second lock on the inside, so whoever it was couldn’t get in. My husband quickly gets dressed, takes our key and goes to get on the elevator to go to the lobby. As he gets to the elevators, he sees who had just tried to get into our room – Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis – the two biggest names on the Tampa Bay Lightning (NHL), who were playing against the Blue Jackets the next day. My husband and I are both pretty big hockey fans, so the whole thing is pretty entertaining.

    4. My friends and I went to go see Moulin Rouge after our last day of freshman year in high school. After 15 minutes or so, we were all very confused and bored, so we left. It’s kind of funny because all of us now love (and own) the movie.

    posted by Kayleigh on 7-17-2010 at 4:33 pm

  172. 1) My dog is afraid of backpacks, but only if they’re sitting on a chair or couch in the living room.

    2)I can never spell beginning. Sometimes I wonder if it has one “n” or two or how many “g”s there are.

    3)Hmm… I actually haven’t met any celebrities in a weird way, just the, you know, say hi, take a quick picture and congratulate them on being one of the best basketball players (Yao Ming)

    4) Ive actually never marched out of a movie….

    posted by Ilse on 7-17-2010 at 8:51 pm

  173. I have the most difficult time spelling “license”…I want to reverse the c and s and add some extras as well. The funny thing is that when I told my mom about this a couple of years ago, she told me with some amazement that my grandmother, who died years before I was born, had trouble with the same word.

    On another note, I high-fived Arsenio Hall once as he was headed in to give a college graduation speech…

    posted by sarra on 7-17-2010 at 9:27 pm

  174. 1. My cat was TERRIFIED every time I brought out a folding stepladder. The strange part was that she had a totally understandable Pavlovian reason to freak out.
    A. The apartment I lived in was very small. The single smoke alarm was directly in front of the bathroom door.
    B. The bathroom had no fan. If I forgot to open the window when I took a shower (and even when I did, sometimes) the tiny bathroom would fill with steam.
    C. When I opened the bathroom door, the hall filled with steam.
    D. The steam set off the smoke alarm (excruciating to sensitive feline ears).
    E. I had to bring out the stepladder to turn of the alarm.

    Therefore, in the cat’s mind, stepladder = loud, hellish noise. Presto! One kitty phobia. I wonder if all these “irrational” animal fears are actually created in a similar way.

    posted by Mama Bear on 7-17-2010 at 9:43 pm

  175. My very shy cat Smokey is afraid of new people–he hides in another room until they leave. Unless they are Korean boys (I work with exchange students). He will come over to them and rub their legs and purr. He loves the Korean boys.

    Conscience councious

    My entire family saw Harrison Ford (filming scenes from Mosquito Coast about about 100 yards from our house). Except me, who was away at grad school.

    Platoon and Risky Business.

    posted by Anne on 7-17-2010 at 9:51 pm

  176. We got our Walker Hound doggie awhile ago (maybe 8 years ago) and she had been traumatized. She was found wandering the road with her collar and had bite marks and cuts from branches around her face.

    When we got her home, we noticed that she was petrified of the black ceiling fan on our porch. It was really frustrating because she had to cross the patio to get to the backyard. We think it’s because she was attacked by some sort of bird, perhaps a vulture.

    She also is afraid of skywriters or planes. It’s weird, but that’s our Roxy!

    posted by Meghan on 7-17-2010 at 10:08 pm

  177. 1. I once had a corgie and the only time she freaked out was when I blew a raspberry.

    2. Niece, beginning, embarrass.

    3. I was once drinking and flirting with Goose Gossage (SD Padres, at the time) and didn’t know who he was.

    4. All the Presidents Men (I was 16) and, against my will, Tommy. It was funny watching people walk out of the Aristocrats.
    (yes, this question was asked a few months ago)

    posted by HailyDawn on 7-18-2010 at 4:40 am

  178. My dog Roscoe, a 4-year-old Yorkie, is afraid of the arms of eyeglasses. If you pretend to have one of the arms go after his food, he furiously tries to bite and push them away from the bowl.

    posted by Christie on 7-18-2010 at 8:08 pm

  179. 1. My 3 yr old bassett hound Oakley randomly stares and barks at the wall. Either she is crazy or can see dead people.
    2. When I was younger I would ask my parents how to spell something and dad would always say if you have to look it up on your own you will never forget it. ‘Encyclopedia’ will forever be ingrained in my head because I was sure he was wrong.
    3. My soon to be ex-husband has had several celebrity encounters. Growing up in Texas he went out with George Straights daughter before she died. He played a pick-up game with Shaq many many moons ago. He was in a band and was an opening act for Panteria ONCE. And then about 4 years ago he was working up at Sundance for the film festival and got to sit and talk with Britney Murphy. All I ever got was to sit in the same resturaunt with Wilford Brimley:(
    4. The Client and The Cable Guy.

    posted by MissMoss on 7-18-2010 at 11:08 pm

  180. 1) When my dad sings, he runs away VERY QUICKLY.

    2) I can’t spell tomorrow.

    3) I own an old pair of Nicole Kidmans uggs from when she shared a vacation home with Tom Cruise in Telluride CO.

    4) Duplicity!

    posted by Caroline on 7-19-2010 at 12:09 am

  181. 1. Brutus, a Pomeranian (yes, irony lives at my house) is afraid to jump up onto something unless he can see the landing zone when his front legs leave the ground. He will jump up on the couch to get a treat that we set to get him up there, but he just slides back onto the floor when he could stand up. He can jump at least 3 feet straight up.
    2. Parallelogram gets me. I always put the double letters in the wrong place.
    3. Was at a urinal when Tom Selleck stepped up to the one between me and another dude. The other guy freaked and started talking to him and asking for an autograph. I said to the other guy,” DUDE he is peeing! Leave him alone.”
    4. Forty Year Old Virgin. My wife was offended by the language.

    posted by Ralph Beatty on 7-19-2010 at 10:38 am

  182. My dog Chimera does not like the sound of the Nokia radio chirps. Every time a commercial comes on with people using the radio/walkie talkie bit, she just starts barking like someone poked her. It’s hilarious. And thanks to DVR, I can make her miserable whenever I want.

    posted by xadrian on 7-19-2010 at 1:42 pm

  183. 1) My cat is deathly afraid of people speaking Serbian, although I think that might be because my mum reverts to Serbian around her when she is yelling. Oddly, the cat doesn’t react to yelling in any other language.

    2)I can never spell business. It always comes out buisness every time!

    3)I have seen a few celebrities but not in any strange situations.

    4) A number of them! I don’t know how people think they are saving anything by staying to watch a terrible movie! You’ve already wasted your money, why waste your time!!

    posted by Evelyn on 7-20-2010 at 12:47 am

  184. 1. My late Cindy was fearless, she even kicked the ass of the neighborhood alpha dog. She vibrated like a cell phone though at the faintest sound of a thunder. And she climbed the table, desk and the cupboard during one New Year’s Eve firework.

    2. There was a period of time when I kept typing TOUNGE for tongue. To this day, I still slow down whenever I type the word.

    3. Not my story but a friend was once asked to take a photograph of a woman and did so. She thanked my friend and asked if he wanted to have their picture taken together. My friend was slightly bewildered at the offer and politely said No. His group of friends caught up with him just as she disappeared down the road, to roundly yell at him for missing out on a chance to be photographed with Catherine Zeta Jones.

    4. I’ve never walked out on a movie because I am usually very picky :) But when I was younger, I would go to the cinema almost everyday and I would really love it if I could get back all the money and hours wasted on I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.

    posted by Shirley on 7-21-2010 at 10:54 am

  185. I was walking to one of my final critiques (i go to art school) freshmen year with my roommate and a friend and there were all these trailers parked along the street. we didn’t find out until later that they were filming a part of Marley and Me in philly. we walked right by Eric Dane not knowing who he was. i never watched greys anatomy so i didn’t recognize him. My friend was carrying a hand she sculpted to give a peace sign. Eric looked as us and said “Peace Dudes” and gave the peace sign. we just laughed because it was semi-amusing and he was cute. once we got to the end of the block my friend realized who he was and flipped out screaming “OH MY GOD THAT WAS ERIC DANE!” the only thing i’ve seen him in was Marley and Me but it was cool knowing that I saw him before he filmed the scene in the movie. we saw owen wilson later but there was tons of people around because he was filming so he didn’t talk to us.

    posted by Phoebe on 7-21-2010 at 10:02 pm

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