"Fear the Turtle" - University of Maryland rallying cry

"Wait... really?" - everyone else, between fits of laughter

Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Presumably, then, FDR did not believe we had to fear turtles. Unless maybe the turtle was named "Fear"? I dunno. This is a confusing hypothetical, which is just one of the many things I fear more than turtles.

Turtles, in case you know nothing about anything yet are still capable of reading this post, are slow, largely nice, mostly vegetarian reptiles. They can grow quite large (up to one ton for some sea turtles), but the vast majority of land turtles range from "cute/adorable" to "kinda slimy I guess" depending on whether one likes such things. They are capable of carrying diseases such as salmonella, but I always eat raw chocolate chip cookie dough when I make it so I can't really claim to be afraid of that either. Also, people keep them as pets, but only ones above four inches in size due to government regulation. That's right: turtles are so unscary that people keep them as pets despite not being able to own them as babies when they're hypothetically cutest (take that dogs and cats!).

So, in honor of FDR and the first round ACC Tournament, I present a non-exhaustive list of things that I fear more than turtles (provided that said turtles are not named "Fear"):

bears

bears with chainsaws

Danny Trejo

Danny Trejo with a chainsaw

saltine crackers

salads

President-elect Oprah Winfrey

Egg McMuffins

having to become an adult

having to become an adult and not getting to play with chainsaws

confusing hypotheticals

drowning

ninjas

ninjas with chainsaw nunchuks

filing my tax returns

pine cones

clowns

zombies

zombie clowns

"Introducing the new head coach of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons... JJ Redick!"

being late

showing up to an exam naked

parakeets

Nicki Minaj

incompetent superiors

(this goes double for members of Congress)

(and triple for Supreme Court justices)

Senator Craig James

cancer

velociraptors

philosoraptors

papercuts

public embarrassment

rejection

darkness (though I believe in a thing called love)

New York City

New York City residents

New York City residents with chainsaws

the aliens from Independence Day waiting until AFTER Will Smith dies to invade

guns

spilling a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms all over the floor while trying to open it

firing our largely successful football coach to hire Randy Edsall (ZING!)

crabs (the animal, not the disease)

crabs (the disease, not the animal)

heights

fire

the number 7

Viggo the Carpathian (but I ain't afraid of no ghosts)

getting drunk

alligators

crocodiles

brain aneurysms

sharks

traffic jams

Ecuador

living in College Park, Md.

And, of course...

eagles

tigers (and lions... and of course bears... oh my!)

devils of a bluish hue

members of the Seminole tribe

yellow jackets (and other types of bees)

hurricanes

getting tar on my heels

packs of wolves

people with cavalier attitudes

imaginary castrated turkeys

Step up your game, University of Maryland marketing people. Step up your game.