Hear me out for a second.

I’ll never be convinced milk, or any perishable product for that matter, can be used past its expiration date. They put that date right on there for a reason, I always tell myself. My parents think I’m nuts for this irrational thinking, and it’s one of those beliefs I have carried over from my youth to adulthood.

I know full well milk is perfectly fine days past that arbitrary date stamped on there. In fact, I’ve never asked anyone who’s served a meal whether or not the food used to make it is within the window of freshness. It’s that age-old adage: Ignorance is bliss.

But this isn’t about milk, though something tells me I could easily pump out 20 inches of copy on how great skim milk is over its competitors. This is about irrational thinking, or perhaps more fittingly the irrational fears we have.

Beyond expiration dates, my biggest and unfounded fear is flying. At least it was up until recently.

I know fear of flying is a pretty common one; you’re in this tiny compartment full of strangers propelled by science too difficult to understand into the sky. How do airplanes really work? Someone explain it to me in simple terms because it just doesn’t make sense.

I think my fear is due to limited experience. Up until this year I had flown twice in my life. It’s hard to believe anyone reaching three-decades-old can manage to stay relatively in one place for so long.

While deciding to move back to New York I was left with no choice but to fly here in order to find a place to live and get my affairs in order. I couldn’t drive the distance, no matter how enticing that sounded. But, no, common sense says you fly when you need to get somewhere quick.

The problem is, I know I’m a bad flyer. Of all the things there are to fear in life – like death, debt, aliens or Tom Brady’s under-inflated footballs – flying shouldn’t be one of them.

It’s all about the odds, “experts” always tell you. You’re far more likely to die in a crash on the way to the airport than you are in the airplane, “they” say. Please. These statements don’t work. An irrational fear is just that: Irrational.

Anyway, I took that flight and of course nothing happened. And odds are nothing ever will happen. As for the flight, I didn’t like the fast takeoff, but after that I couldn’t really remember what it was that I should have been fearing. I think what it came down to was the length of time between flights (about a decade) that made the fear into something it really wasn’t.

My return flight went just as smoothly. The takeoff was tenuous but the flight itself was routine, at least as routine for someone who flies once every 10 years could be considered.

I thought about asking around the newsroom for other irrational fears but thought better of it. We all have something we fear, for one reason or another, and we chose to deal with them in our own way. No one should be ridiculed for dreading objects that go boom in the night or mice that crawl out of sight.

If no one feared anything, we’d literally have nothing to fear but… what? How boring would life be? We need these feelings of unease in order to keep us grounded. Or in my case, pointing skyward.

Beacause in the end, really, death seems ever lurking; debt is rarely fleeting; aliens are simply waiting; and Tom Brady is always shady.

So embrace your fears, I say. Conquer them if you choose. Or do what I did: Fly a couple of times and proclaim yourself cured.