THIS week, Time magazine’s cover story was on phobias, and of the 296 it listed, I have 317.According to the article, many phobias are a result of childhood trauma.

I believe it, because when I was 6 years old, I visited a friend in Massapequa and his German shepherd bit me, and ever since then, I’ve been terrified of Massapequa.

Despite my pharmacophobia (fear of prescription drugs), I would love to try Paxil, which doctors claim is very effective at combating fears. Unfortunately, right now I unable to take it, because I’m nursing – a beer.

Anyway, the following is an A-to-Z of a few of the phobias I face every day – minus all the letters that really scare me, like I, O, U.

Beginning with the letter A, I’m tormented by apeirophobia, the fear of infinity. I’ve tried to contain this fear, but it keeps growing and growing.

And because I did such a good job at overcoming my fear of alcohol (potophobia), I now often have basophobia, the fear of falling down.

In addition to a common case of claustrophobia (fear of confined spaces), every December – along with lots of other Jews – I’m plagued with santaclaustrophobia. (It used to be called hohohophobia, but that’s now used to describe the fear of three prostitutes.)

I’m also tormented by decidophia (the fear of making decisions). The truth is, I’m not sure if I have it or not. I haven’t really decided.

One thing that’s definite: For the past 11 years, since I graduated from college, I’ve been afflicted with ergophobia (fear of work). My boss was kind enough, however, to say he’d rid me of my fear – forever.

Speaking of getting rid of people, my frigophobia (fear of cold things) led me to dump an ex-girlfriend named “Chillary.”

While intimacy may have been her biggest fear, I am certainly not genophobic (frightened of sex). Still, I am ornithophobic and apiphobic or, respectively – afraid of the birds and the bees.

My being straight, however, doesn’t mean I’m homophobic, although I am dikephobic (fearful of justice) and phagophobic (scared of swallowing).

I’m also neither Judeophobic (frightened of Jews) – with the exception of my two big brothers – nor spheksophobic (afraid of wasps).

A new phobia I’ve recently developed is kainophobia (fear of anything new). As bad as kainophobia is, it’s not nearly as scary as michaelkainophobia. Just the thought of him in another movie makes me shudder.

Quite frankly, everything makes me turn white from fear. For a while, I even had leukophobia (fear of the color white), but that’s since evolved into leukandlauraphobia.

Then there’s mageirocophobia, the fear of cooking. Incredibly, I don’t have mageirocophobia, but I do suffer from mamageirocophobia, the fear of my mother’s cooking.

Since there’s no healthy segue from my mom to bare nakedness, all I’ll say is that I’m troubled by both nudaphobia (fear of nudity) and, worse – menudophobia, the fear of Ricky Martin naked.

Considering the way my life is going, I’ll never have to fear wealth, plutophobia – though I once had uranusphobia.

But that’s behind me, and now I’m concentrating on conquering some of the standard phobias, like acrophobia, the fear of heights, and rhabdophobia, the fear of flogging.

Speaking of beating things, I’ve gotten over my fear of Halloween, samhainophobia, but I’ve developed a related condition – sonofsamhainophobia.

And for a long time, I didn’t go to Broadway shows because of my theatrophobia (fear of theaters), which, fortunately, never turned into – pornotheatrophobia.

On a related note, I’m currently looking for a woman who’s vestiphobic (fearful of clothes).

My only other requirement is that she not be a French-speaking Belgian – because I’m Walloonphobic.

Actually, having the fear of foreigners, or xenophobia, is quite common. My friend Scott fears Greek culture – he’s what’s known as hellophobic. (I’m what’s known as datefromhellophobic.) Part of Scott’s hellophobia has also contributed to his Zeusophobia (fear of gods).

Afraid as I am to admit it, my friends and I are polyphobic (frightened of many things). And I’m beginning to realize that with my most recent fears – like peladophobia (bald people) and pupaphobia (puppets) – I’m only getting worse.

I know it’s scary, but only yesterday I developed a new fear. Phobophobia – that’s right – the fear of phobias.