I'm worried that I worry too much

Does anybody know of a good doctor who will let you pay for medical procedures in advance? Because I'm going to need treatment for an ulcer in about, oh, five years.

Why, because I possess this innate suspicion that something will go wrong at any moment " and I worry about it.

I fully believe that if everything is OK, then Mother Nature, Father Time, Brother Irony, Sister Vengeance and the rest of the Utterlyhatesme family are conspiring a way to destroy me.

What is worse, when something slightly bad happens, I automatically begin figuring out the worst-case scenario.

Stub my toe " gangrene.

Phone rings " somebody's dead.

Coughing fit " AIDS.

Unhappy guy in front of me in line " suicide bomber.

Car makes whirring sound " sabotaged by a crazy, jealous ex-girlfriend who drove cross-country to sit outside my apartment, plotting her evil revenge by inserting tiny objects into my gas tank over the course of months, thereby causing it to slowly decay eventually leading to the complete seizure of my engine just days after the warranty expired.

Or something like that.

Now normally, this wouldn't be a problem because I have adapted to it and have learned not to share this little "idiosyncrasy" with girlfriends. My hope was eventually life would see fit to prove me wrong enough times that my worrying would subside.

But, you see, life hates me. Why? Because I make my little jokey-jokes and seem to constantly be in somebody's dog house.

Rover and I " we're like nuts in a sack. You know, like peanuts or pistachios (Sicko). Fido will be the best man at my wedding " even if the bachelor party is a little weird.

The other reason my worrying hasn't subsided over time is that I am occasionally proven right.

That whirring noise in my car " power steering pump broke. That's right, I walked out of work to a little red waterfall underneath my car.

And you know, it's Murphy's Law " praise a child a 1,000 times and they won't remember, but call them an idiot once when they "accidentally" stick a toaster pastry in the VCR and they remember it forever.

It was strawberry. I love the strawberry ones.

Anyway, it is also true that no matter how many times I worried and nothing went wrong " I will remember the one time it does.

Call it Jarid's Law.

You see, I've never gotten gangrene, only once has the phone call been about someone dying, not a single positive AIDS test and tackling that guy at the bank screaming "Allah can't save you now, bitch," may have been unnecessary, but there WAS something wrong with my car.

So there.

But because of all this worrying, I am sure I am getting an ulcer and I just want to be prepared and begin saving for what I see as an eventuality.

That is unless I can't afford it and it gets infected and becomes gangrene, which causes my untimely death.

Think about all the people who are unprepared for that phone call.

What do you worry about? Tell me about it.

- Jarid Shipley is the Features Editor for the Nevada Appeal. Contact him a jshipley@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.