My Fear of Flying

Let me begin by stating my thesis right out in the open for all of you so that nobody gets lost in the incredibly complex logic that will follow shortly. I, Douglas Joseph Alfred Vitus Dame, am terrified of insects. Now I know how hard it is to believe that this manly man has any fears at all, but I'm only human, just like most of you, and insects are my kryptonite, so to speak. For years and years I've cowered in fear of any approaching house flies, avoid the area of the kitchen with the fruit fly Hotel Banana, and ran, yes literally ran from anything that even remotely resembles a yellow jacket. For years I have done the invisible crazy dance trying to kill with my bare hands the very bane of my existence. For years I have struggled with this crippling phobia, not sure why it happens but knowing that if that bug that I can't see buzzes just close enough to my head for me to hear it one more time I swear to Chuck Norris I will napalm my room and everything in it.
But a striking revelation occurred to me the other day that hasn't alleviated my fear, but has at least made sense of it. After almost 19 years of searching for an answer-needle in the fear-haystack of flies, I discovered the source of my fear. Allow me to present this startling conclusion to you with a brilliantly drafted contradiction argument.
Imagine if you will that I'm hiking through, let's say, the Adirondack mountains, and I encounter a cougar. And I'm not talking the purse wearing bar hopper here, I mean the giant, man eating, and very often hungry cougar. Let's say this fella is about 8'10" nose-to-tail, probably near 196 lbs. So here I am, and here's this giant, man eating, and very clearly hungry cougar. Am I scared? No sir. Because I know the mind of a cougar. I know what they want from me and I know how to communicate with them. This cougar is thinking one of three things.

A) Oh look a woodland creature I haven't recently devoured whole and used the leg bone of to pick my teeth, what a wonderful opportunity to savor a rare delicacy in this part of the mountains. I think I'll start with the jugular just to soften him up a bit, and then maybe move on the the lower thigh...

B) Oh look a human being. Despite my obvious physical prowess in the fields of maiming and dismemberment, something about me is terrified of him for some reason. I feel the best course of action here may be to slowly back away to avoid a swift punch in the nose.

or C) Oh look a new forest pal to play with! I will love him and squeeze him and call him Doug.

Given these options and using my brilliant human power of deduction and reasoning, I can rationalize that the odds of option C are slim to none. That being said, I still have two very clear cut mind sets for this here cougar. Now if he were to begin his stalk towards me, I would know that he was going with option A, at which point I would spread out my overcoat (thank god I planned on going streaking after my hike!) and confuse the predator into thinking that I have turned into some kind of a puffer fish-esque danger, at which point the cougar would back down and move on to his next hypothetical massacre. If of course he backed down before I had done anything, I would know he had taken option B and that I was safe until the next highly logical mountain lion attacked me.
Can you see the logic and predictability in this scenario? You like it don't you. The sense of control, the idea of knowing your opponents options, the sweet, sweet relief of seeing exactly why the enemy has targeted you and what you can do to escape. Take it all in and feel the security of a mature, predictable assailant.
Now imagine the fly. Arbitrarily choosing his target, he zooms menacingly through the space around my head, his goal unknown. He seeks not to satiate his hunger for we people are not food to him. He seeks not to fight me for he knows my power over his mortality. Why then, why does he circle my skull over and over and over again, leaving after i swat him away only to return once more? why does he fly in the most unpredictable of patterns? Why does he insist on landing on me and not the guy next to me who obviously doesn't have a problem with the buzzing anyway?
I cannot get into a fly's head. I can't figure them out and break down their next move. A giant puma might be a little more deadly, but at least I have a chance of figuring out his modus operandi before he makes his move. With a fly, I have nothing. I'm in the dark, he's broadcasting messages in German for all I know. What it boils down to is that I hate flies. I hate the sound they make, I hate their little demon faces, and I hate their incessant need to circle me, and only me. But most of all, as is on par with my fear of the government and bank tellers...

I don't trust 'em.