Childhood fears

I haven't worn cuffed pants since I was a kid. Dirt would collect in the cuffs and I didn't like that. When I'm shopping for pants I simply cannot try on pants with cuffs because I know that they will fill themselves with sand.

I quit eating my pancakes with syrup when I was young. I would always get syrup on the fork's handle and my hands would get sticky. I hated sticky hands. For many years I would use just butter on pancakes and waffles. I use syrup again. My fork and fingers occasionally get sticky but I just get up and rinse them off now. (Jerry makes the best pancakes!)

I was always sure that aliens were outside the house at night, hovering above the ground, looking into the house though the windows that didn't have curtains. One night I woke up and there there was a strange hum filling the room. It could only be an alien spacecraft hovering outside the room! But it turned out that I had fallen asleep with an old shortwave radio turned on and the turner had drifted off into a staticky spot. I still have weird feelings when I make a (still infrequent) nighttime trip to the bathroom. It takes a lot of effort to look out the window. I still have the feeling that a Martian will be there watching me. (Martians are perverts.)