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.