Clavisaquaphobia
I have a typically Dutch fear, or maybe I should say a fear typical for Amsterdammers: I’m afraid that one day I will accidentally drop my keys in the canal.
Now you may have been to Amsterdam and think: that’s ridiculous! I mean, how often does one actually get close to a canal? And even if you get close, why would you run the risk of dropping your keys into the water?
Well, we also have bit of a parking problem here in Amsterdam. A parking problem that is not restricted to cars; it is almost as hard to find a spot to put your bike as it is to find a place to park your car. (There is even a three-floor ‘bike-parking-garage’ next to Central Station – it fits around 2500 bicycles and it is always full.) So what do we do? We lock our bikes to the bridges. The bridges over the canals.
Once you are busy locking your bike to the railing of the bridge, it’s a small step for the keys to drop into the water – you yank a bit too hard when opening the lock, you pull your gloves out of your bag and the keys somehow got stuck to one of them… there are endless scenarios possible. I mean, if around 850 bicycles a year end up in the canals, what about the keys?
As far as I know, it’s not in the list of phobias, so I propose clavisaquaphobia. Makes it sound a whole lot more acceptable to worry about my keys.
Gepost in: English, Life, Personal, The Netherlands, Typical... | 21 november 2009
I wholly sympathize with your concern. I fear dropping my keys down the elevator shaft. My mother once unwittingly dropped her keys in the dumpster with the trash. The fact that she eventually went to look if they were there speaks volumes…
I once lost keys in an Utrecht canal.. Luckily, only the keys of my bike.
@ Emily: An elevator shaft! Never thought of that. But might have to add that to the list of key-worry-places now… thanks.
@ Anna: So how did you get home?
clavisaquaphobia — very clever. Much better than sleutelwaterfobie or waterkey phobia.
Knowing the state of the water in the canals, you’re not likely to go diving after your keys, that’s for sure.
Further afield you wouldn’t want to drop your keys in some open gutters running along the streets in say Ghana, West Africa. They’re not only used for rain-water runoff. You might easily reach the keys and pick them up, but you REALLY don’t want to.
Nice to meet someone new, and thanks for visiting my blog. I have visited Amsterdam, and it never occurred to me that so many bikes and keys got lost in the canals. As long as people don’t fall in.
Door een grote schaar om fietssloten door te knippen te lenen, Nicolien. Het is zo lang geleden (bijna 30 jaar) dat ik niet meer weet waar die schaar vandaan kwam, misschien van de politie of een cafe? Maar je vergeet t nooit. Dus die Clavisaquaphobia die heb ik wel.