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by Paul Taylor on September 29, 2011 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
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Discussion (94) ¬

  1. ShadOBabe
    September 29, 2011, 1:12 am | # | Reply

    LOL!! Well that IS something not normally in conversation. XD

    • Dave
      September 29, 2011, 1:19 am | # | Reply

      True enough! “Arieraphobia” isn’t a word one hears every day… in fact I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used at all!

      • ShadOBabe
        September 29, 2011, 1:22 am | #

        I don’t think I have either. I didn’t even know it existed. XD

        Oh, and Monica’s reaction is priceless, btw.

      • DJ
        September 29, 2011, 1:22 am | #

        He’s ‘bent’ on nobody finding out about his phobia… *clink*

      • Paula
        September 29, 2011, 1:43 am | #

        http://www.healthdiaries.com/eatthis/fear-of-bananas-bananaphobia.html

        they call it bananaphobia there and else where. what does that “Arieraphobia” mean?
        only one google link for it and thats this strip and your comment?

      • The Old Wolf
        September 29, 2011, 5:38 am | #

        ariera is the classical Latin word for banana. What you see above is a neologism, but it doesn’t count as a googlewhack because it’s only one word.

      • Paula
        September 29, 2011, 9:09 am | #

        ah
        i prefer the “Arieraphobia” to be honest
        sounds a lot better than bananaphobia.
        that sounds like something i would make up not a medical professional 🙂

      • Dave
        September 29, 2011, 11:48 am | #

        Quite correct!

        I was actually thinking in homage of a classic Peanuts sketch from “Merry Christmas, Chariie Brown!” in which Lucy recites a whole series of Latinate medical terms for fears which might be causing Charlie Brown’s depression. He finally realizes he has Pantophobia… the fear of everything.

        Doctors of that era seem to have been “splitters” with long unique terms for every little variation on phobias. The current trend seems simpler and more straightforwards, recognizing the common elements in phobic disorders… e.g the simple categories in the DSM section I mentioned below.

        I do miss the beauty of some of the older terminology, though. “Phobiaphobiaphobia” for example… the unreasoning fear of being afraid of fear itself. Usually triggered by traumatic childhood exposure to the speeches of Winston Churchill 🙂

    • Yamara
      September 29, 2011, 2:11 am | # | Reply

      Something to do with him taking self-defense classes in England, but the instructor just made him paranoid.

      • Yamara
        September 29, 2011, 2:19 am | #

        …I think I meant that to attach to Dave’s diagnosis thread below.

      • dstryfe
        September 29, 2011, 9:35 am | #

        On the other hand, he now knows how to defend himself against maniacs armed with all sorts of fresh fruit…

      • bmonk
        September 29, 2011, 4:00 pm | #

        …but not with maniacs with pointy sticks.

        Or instructors with caged tigers, 16 ton weights, or loaded pistols, for that matter.

        Just don’t come near me with a box of loaded raspberries.

      • Dave
        September 29, 2011, 4:53 pm | #

        Not to worry. People seem to saving those for use as responses to some of my puns. 😉

    • Maark30
      September 29, 2011, 11:13 pm | # | Reply

      His phobia could also have been caused by some event that occurred when he was a teacher. The little ones can get quite creative in using harmless objects in horrifying ways.
      (This should have the “Do not try this tag” attached)
      I know a teacher when I was in high school that developed a fear of coffee after some little pain decided to try some eye drops in her coffee. If you Google the effects I just have to say its dangerous and embarrassing at the same time.

      • dstryfe
        September 30, 2011, 7:54 am | #

        …I don’t actually see the embarassing bit. It only restricts blood vessels; diarrhea isn’t on the list of symptoms.

  2. Stigmartyr762
    September 29, 2011, 1:17 am | # | Reply

    Hmmm, Darren seems to be hiding something.

    • Paula
      September 29, 2011, 1:37 am | # | Reply

      Grapes also scare him 😛

      • StJason
        September 29, 2011, 1:49 am | #

        I’m going to ignore that blatently obvious setup. It would leave me jammed up and wine-ing.

        …okay, I’ll take the easy one too. He fears their Wrath.

      • Stigmartyr762
        September 29, 2011, 10:04 am | #

        *rimshot* LOL

      • Dave
        September 29, 2011, 1:29 pm | #

        I assume you are referring to these folks and their products?

    • Casey
      September 29, 2011, 2:09 am | # | Reply

      He only brought up the banana thing so that Monica wouldn’t find out about his favorite movie.

      • NOTDilbert
        September 30, 2011, 1:24 am | #

        And ther’s Simone, who just had this two-panel walk-on, IIRC….

  3. Casey
    September 29, 2011, 1:21 am | # | Reply

    Hopefully I didn’t wake anyone up with my uncontrollable laughter.

  4. Yamara
    September 29, 2011, 1:26 am | # | Reply

    Guess he never checks BoingBoing anymore, either.

  5. Dave
    September 29, 2011, 1:36 am | # | Reply

    Hmmm. DSM 4, diagnosis category E 03, Specific phobia, probably Natural Object type. Says this type generally has a childhood onset.

    I wonder what childhood experience might have triggered it? There’s probably a story there…

    • Paula
      September 29, 2011, 1:37 am | # | Reply

      possibly a spider in the banana bunch?
      would normally make people afraid of spiders i would have suspected 🙂

      • Copyright Theft
        September 29, 2011, 1:40 am | #

        Maybe something inside an individual banana?

      • Casey
        September 29, 2011, 1:40 am | #

        I imagine that such a phobia could be caused by mistaking a fermented banana for a tube of toothpaste, but that couldn’t possibly happen to two characters in the same comic.

      • NOTDilbert
        September 30, 2011, 1:26 am | #

        It was actually during his childhood – he was scared by Snorkey on the Banana Splits Show.

      • StJason
        September 29, 2011, 1:51 am | #

        Overexposure to Harry Belafone??

      • FatUncle
        September 29, 2011, 6:23 am | #

        What, he was exposed to more than one song? That would do it!

    • Bucc-i
      September 29, 2011, 3:20 am | # | Reply

      I suspect it had something to do with LL Cool J.
      Anybody seen the movie In Too Deep? That movie had me afraid of bananas for a while!

    • Fairportfan
      September 29, 2011, 6:32 am | # | Reply

      Ona a slightly serious note – after many many years, i finally realised that my SERIOUS needle phobia very likely traces back to an episode when my mother took me to the doctor for the final Salk booster…

      • Julie
        September 29, 2011, 9:14 am | #

        I understand completely. I recently learned that there were situations in my childhood that I needed a shot or blood drawn, and my mother had to bodily hold me down while the doctor or nurse did their thing. It’s no wonder I don’t handle needles or blood work well.

        Now if only I could figure out why hand wounds (or having needles put in my hands) bother me as much as they do…that kind of thing results in vomiting or hyperventilation…

      • txmystic
        September 29, 2011, 10:29 am | #

        Boosters do not bother me. Having blood drawn always makes me think of my life force being forcibly wrested from my immortal soul, and to this day I fear it.

        Has nothing to do with needles, really…

      • Dave
        September 29, 2011, 11:57 am | #

        Interesting! I actually turn that image on its head… when I donate blood I think of lending some of my life energy to the person who will receive the transfusion, to aid their healing. It’s an idea I lifted from and old story by Zenna Henderson… it makes the donation process seem less impersonal. Doubt that it actually changes anything but it feels good to do it anyway.

      • bmonk
        September 29, 2011, 4:25 pm | #

        Hmmmm. When I donate blood, I just tend to get faint.

        Oddly, when there’s a crisis involving blood and such, I don’t get faint–as long as I have something to focus on to help resolve the problem. When things settle down, it’s time to get woozy.

      • Fairportfan
        September 30, 2011, 12:05 am | #

        Those flippin’ things HURT – your arm would swell and hurt like the dickens.

        But it wasn’t the pain that triggered the phobia – as such – it was when i said i didn’t want a shot and pulled away and they tried to give it to me anyway and i got loose and ducked under the examining table into the far corner and got hysterical as they tried to drag me out…

        (I must have been about six or seven.)

        Now, in Navy boot camp, i came very close to decking a corpsman in the injections line when i got faint from one injection and dropped out of line and sat down by the wall and pput my head down, like they told us to.

        And i felt something tugging at my arm and i looked up and here was this jerk with the compressed-air injection gun that would split your skin if it (or your arm) moved during the injection. He was at the end of the air line, trying to lift my arm and drag me near enough to shoot me.

        I popped up pretty fast and shoved him away (he nearly fell). He got mad and was going to swing at me when one of the doctors, who’d seen the whole thing stopped him and put a different corpsman on the gun.

        I was later congratulated by several other boots, including a couple with ripped-up spots on their arms where this guy had messed up with them satanding right there…

    • eee
      September 29, 2011, 8:55 am | # | Reply

      His lackwit martial artist father, seeking to teach his son the secrets of the dreaded Monkey-Fu, covered Darren with bananas and threw him into a cage of chimps. For some reason, instead of becoming terrified of the monkeys, he focused on the bananas and now can’t be in the same room as one.

      Naw, that’s ridiculous. Who could ever come up with a plot point like that? 🙂

      • Buggi
        September 29, 2011, 12:06 pm | #

        It certainly would be a Stoppable situation.

    • Yamara
      September 29, 2011, 10:16 am | # | Reply

      It’s a perfectly reasonable terror of 16th Century Portuguese sailors.

    • Wyvern
      September 29, 2011, 5:07 pm | # | Reply

      “Hey, look, bananas!”

      “You need to try these bananas!”

  6. nerf-dweller
    September 29, 2011, 1:42 am | # | Reply

    Heh. I love how Monica’s is knelling on the stool for the extra height. Gad, she is such a tiny thing…in most respects.

    • Paula
      September 29, 2011, 1:46 am | # | Reply

      darren must have very comfy stools 🙂

      then again could be from when monica was a regular. i suspect she got darren to get the comfy ones so she could do that without her knees ending up hurting.
      (yes i am talking about experience from kneeling on a bar stool and they hurt after a time! even the cushioned ones!)

      • Julie
        September 29, 2011, 9:17 am | #

        Huh…I never had that problem before. I would now, but I don’t handle sitting on my knees as well as I used to, period (no matter the surface).

      • illiad
        September 29, 2011, 3:28 pm | #

        there are benefits being such a small girl! 😀
        – you can fit on barstools comfortably..
        – they look huge, in proportion to your size.. 🙂

        Just check out Dolly Parton and Barbara Windsor..

    • illiad
      September 29, 2011, 3:11 pm | # | Reply

      nerf-dweller: well they seem to have moved to a much smaller table, about half the width of yesterdays….??

  7. Paula
    September 29, 2011, 1:50 am | # | Reply

    aww
    i was kinda hoping ‘fermented banana’ was still going in some small way but from how darren uses the past tense i suspect not.
    maybe the yoga studio takes too much time for jacqui.

    love the bar wench picture in the back 🙂
    love that costume in general – not sure why 🙂 looks sexy without showing a lot i think 🙂

    • Sonicthunder
      September 29, 2011, 1:53 am | # | Reply

      I’m sure the absence of both other members (Shelly and Owen) had nothing to do with its dissolving.

      • Paula
        September 29, 2011, 1:59 am | #

        oh yea prolly did 🙂
        just jacqui seemed to be the ‘driving’ force behind the band 🙂
        owen and shelly kinda just went where she told them to go.

      • Yamara
        September 29, 2011, 2:32 am | #

        Wonder if we’re now going to find out about how Monica managed to leave a banana in her bathroom long enough for it to ferment, and not notice it on her sink.

        Always struck me as having appeared there through one of the subtler rips in the fabric of reality. As opposed to the neutrino signatures of the plasma balls hanging in the background, still unnoticed by our heroes.

      • Maark30
        September 29, 2011, 11:19 pm | #

        Seems easy enough. When she was working at that time she was horribly overworked and that week she started to eat a banana, went to the restroom and left it on the sink and forgot it. She spent the rest of the day coasting on fumes and didn’t notice the banana on the sink and went to bed. She could have had a week like this and didn’t notice it sitting there thee whole time and when she finally grabbed it it was rotten. A banana that has been peeled will rot at an accelerated rate in the right conditions. it could even ferment like that in the span of a day if the heat was up in the house.

    • Paula
      September 29, 2011, 1:53 am | # | Reply

      oh and i totally have Scoleciphobia.
      not to the same extent as darren.
      i can hear the name but i have flung a innocent photo of maggots across the room before 😛

      • Jay-Em
        September 29, 2011, 4:59 am | #

        oH….
        Then You are going to looove the way farmers get rid of carcasses in the community I grew up in.

        We had a s.c. “kadaverbak” (cadavre-bin) in the neighbourhood. Us kids used that bin to get to humongous maggots for fishing.

        Strangely enough, my mom ALWAYS knew we had been maggot-hunting…. 😛

        Yeah, we must have smelled something fierce. Stench of cadavres seems to seep into ones’skin somehow.

      • Paula
        September 29, 2011, 1:45 pm | #

        i can trace my phobia back to when my mum opened a bin and screamed her head off when she saw a lot of them.
        chances are if i had lived in your town i wouldn’t have the phobia 🙂

      • bmonk
        September 29, 2011, 4:27 pm | #

        Reminds me of a nearby rendering plant–now shut down and more than half dismantled. It was about 2-3 miles outside the nearest town, but you could sure smell it from quite a distance.

      • Fairportfan
        September 29, 2011, 11:56 pm | #

        Once upon a time there were six paper mills in Canton NC.

        You could smell the town from several miles away.

        The average new car finish there lasted something like three years, max.

        Acetic acid in the air.

    • NOTDilbert
      September 30, 2011, 1:33 am | # | Reply

      It’s probably a Saint Pauley Girl advert poster.

  8. Sonicthunder
    September 29, 2011, 1:54 am | # | Reply

    *Monica Mental Note*

    Keep Bud’s stomach hatch & Tepoz away from Daren.

    • Buggi
      September 29, 2011, 12:16 pm | # | Reply

      That phobia is bananas
      b a n a n a s.

  9. AvengerReloaded
    September 29, 2011, 1:58 am | # | Reply

    So was the drink strong enough to knock off that necklace?

    • Yamara
      September 29, 2011, 2:17 am | # | Reply

      It was expensive enough for her to have to use it as payment.

    • Bucc-i
      September 29, 2011, 3:33 am | # | Reply

      Don’t worry, its probably stuck in her clevage.
      I believe Monica’s clevage is like a Bag of Holding that contains its own Infinite Hammerspace to store various this. And, as you can see, sometimes things get lost in it!

    • Julie
      September 29, 2011, 9:19 am | # | Reply

      Good catch! I didn’t even notice. 🙂 Yamara has a point though…assuming the necklace was expensive enough.

    • eschmenk
      September 29, 2011, 10:21 am | # | Reply

      She had earrings two pages ago, but not yesterday nor today.

  10. Francisco
    September 29, 2011, 2:50 am | # | Reply

    I can’t shake the feeling that he’s messing with her.

    • jwhouk
      September 29, 2011, 4:13 am | # | Reply

      He is. I’m not 100% certain, but I think we knew about Darren being afraid of bananas way back before even the GGG’s came around.

      • Fairportfan
        September 29, 2011, 6:34 am | #

        Yeah – it was somewhere in the character sheets, at one time, at least.

    • Francisco
      September 29, 2011, 7:06 am | # | Reply

      I know why I didn’t think he was being honest:

      Compare the last panel above with the conversation in the first panel here. Add that to the “Uhh…um” and I’m suspicious.

      • Julie
        September 29, 2011, 9:22 am | #

        The “Uh…um” could easily be attributed to being put on the spot. I do that a lot when I’m searching my files for a piece of “interesting” and previously unshared information. 🙂 Besides…he just looks uncomfortable to me.

        Reminds me a bit of when Monica first tried to get to know Tina and she started spewing out a lot of stuff to avoid giving too much information (until Monica clarified that she just wanted a last name). Interesting that Monica has had this kind of moment with both her barista and her bartender. 🙂

      • eschmenk
        September 29, 2011, 10:28 am | #

        Well, she’s ignoring what Daren told her earlier.

        I think that Daren is feeling guilty or embarrassed because he’s telling the truth and the truth is embarrassing for him. That’s different from Francisco’s example, where the guy was feeling guilty for lying or promising too much.

      • The Aphro Chick
        September 29, 2011, 6:21 pm | #

        I miss the eight ball shirt

  11. ponyhome
    September 29, 2011, 5:31 am | # | Reply

    That’s one bar where you CANNOT get every kind of daiquiri.

    • Dave
      September 29, 2011, 3:50 pm | # | Reply

      One hopes that he has not introduced durian daiquiris as a substitute.

    • scantron
      September 30, 2011, 1:18 am | # | Reply

      maybe not… the flavoring “stuff” comes in a bottle, right? so you MIGHT get it there… but then again if he won’t let the band Fermented Banana play because of the NAME… then you might be right after all, oh well, just a few drinks need bananas, so no real big loss i guess.

  12. Bracha
    September 29, 2011, 6:01 am | # | Reply

    She’s no visible means of support!

  13. E_T
    September 29, 2011, 6:47 am | # | Reply

    I suspect her reaction is to the light show from the golf balls going “BOOOOM”. Not the Banana Revelation.

  14. JosephRoadie
    September 29, 2011, 7:08 am | # | Reply

    Why are they both averting their eyes in the second panel?

  15. quarktime
    September 29, 2011, 7:15 am | # | Reply

    Thank goodness he doesn’t have a fear of melons, or he’d be running away screaming in terror right about now. *badump bump*

    • Opus the Poet
      September 29, 2011, 9:29 pm | # | Reply

      Rattles Pun Jar menacingly…

  16. Aleister Crow
    September 29, 2011, 7:58 am | # | Reply

    Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
    Bananaphobe!

    • kingklash
      September 29, 2011, 11:20 am | # | Reply

      *snnnrkk*
      Good thing I swallowed my tea right before.

  17. eee
    September 29, 2011, 8:46 am | # | Reply

    THAT’S a well drawn hand!!!

  18. Ravenish
    September 29, 2011, 8:50 am | # | Reply

    While his fear of bananas is interesting I must say that Monica compared to how she started out in the comic is absolutely extravagant and glorious

  19. Crystal
    September 29, 2011, 9:21 am | # | Reply

    Did anyone else notice that Monica’s necklace is missing? There’s a thief in the house.

    • Julie
      September 29, 2011, 9:23 am | # | Reply

      AvengerReloaded did. 🙂 I didn’t until he pointed it out.

  20. Ursus
    September 29, 2011, 10:20 am | # | Reply

    She hugs herself any tighter and it won’t just be fan service…

  21. TheDoctor
    September 29, 2011, 10:55 am | # | Reply

    Monica best be VERY careful lest she also have a ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’ Like women have had of late (re: Dancing w/ the Stars) and one of the….”girls steps out for some air”.
    Actually that top Monica is wearing does look ‘Bar Whenchy’ ( if there is such a word).

  22. Opus the Poet
    September 29, 2011, 1:39 pm | # | Reply

    OK I gave up too soon and went to bed @0100, the comic posted a few minutes later. Drat this frail and fallible body! 😉

  23. bmonk
    September 29, 2011, 4:30 pm | # | Reply

    Hey–he could serve Bandana Bread!

    • Dave
      September 29, 2011, 4:56 pm | # | Reply

      The crowd awarded the matador a wince…

  24. RSinAustin
    September 29, 2011, 11:13 pm | # | Reply

    It would have to be an intense fear to have his eyes looking away from Monica when she’s in that pose!

  25. scantron
    September 30, 2011, 1:21 am | # | Reply

    Paul… did you modify the html code for the drop-down menu bar at the top of the page recently? or is is something on my end? i can no longer see the drop downs, and the text equivalents are mostly hidden behind the comic strip image…

    • scantron
      September 30, 2011, 1:26 am | # | Reply

      oh yeah, and everything is on the left hand side of the page, and no longer centered into columns anymore. the topwebcomic vote button and all the links to other comics are displaying below the last post in the comments section, and the text box i’m typing this into is no longer a fixed size, but mouse draggable now.

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