Phobic

The National Institute of Mental Health did us all a favor and surveyed our deepest fears. They asked Americans what they were afraid of, and they came up with a top-ten list of phobias. What are we afraid of? According to the poll put out on the Interwebs by Ranker, we are most scared of heights: acrophobia. I will pause for a moment to let you be amused by the fact that this one sits at the top of the list.
Then comes arachnophobia, which means we get creeped out by spiders. Of all God's creatures, they get singled out for number two. Third on the list is a fear of enclosed spaces, claustrophobia. It makes sense that if you trapped in a box full of spiders at the top of a flagpole, you would be scared out of your mind. Come to think of it, that's the sort of thing David Blaine would probably do. This list will probably serve him well moving forward, finding ways to tap into our heebie jeebies.
Ophidiophobia keeps us away from snakes, which is probably just as well, since they don't really care for us either, unless you happen to be Britney Spears. Thalassophobia keeps us out of the deep end of the pool. Necrophobia and glossophobia help keep us safe from death and public speaking, both equally terrifying. Then comes coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. We have apparently slipped down the list far enough for people to start goofing with us. If the clown in question happens to be taking his marching orders from Stephen King, then sure, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Needles and insects finish off the list: tryphanophobia and entomophobia. Little things. Like the spiders up at the top, we seem most concerned with things we can barely see. This seems odd to me because when I was a kid, the scariest things in the world were the things that were impossibly large. A fear of gorillas? Sounds reasonable enough, but a fear of forty foot tall gorillas seems much more reasonable. Somewhere in the 1950's, Hollywood figured out that being afraid of creepy crawly things made sense, but if those creepy crawlies were bigger than a house, then it would be truly terrifying. A Tarantula, or a Deadly Mantis? Scary if you could step on them, but horrifying if you need an atom bomb to blow them up.
Or maybe that was how we kept ourselves sane. Let's be afraid of giant bugs and not the atomic weapons that could destroy them. And us. Which makes me wonder why kerblooeyphobia didn't make the list. How about a forty-foot tall clown with needles for fingers?