Styrophobia

For those of you who actually get to work on time, you don’t know what you’re missing on the morning talk show circuit. Today, for instance, I was treated to the first few minutes of “Tyra,” the talk show hosted by America’s last top model, or something like that. I don’t know why it was on. All I know is that after hearing NY1’s news for the fourth consecutive time around this morning, I needed something else.
This was definitely something else.
There was a woman who was deathly afraid of styrofoam. She even threw out her four-year-old son’s Easter art project since it was made with styrofoam egg cartons. There were actually some feasible psychological underpinnings (no, nothing involving the Duke Lacrosse team; just some uncle who’d spit tobacco in styrofoam cups which she was urged to avoid as a kid). Still, I’m amazed this fear exists. I call it styrophobia.
Apparently this isn’t a totally new phenomenon. A Google search on “fear of styrofoam” (with the quotes) turns up 47 results, such as this one – which tells of a woman who also fears (brace yourself) chalk.
I’m not the only one who was floored by this Ty-revelation.
One other fun fact: you can’t spell “styrofoam” without “Tyra.” However, you can spell “polystyrene” without her. Another great life lesson from Marketers Studio.