Mike Pearl:

Okay. Here we go. Number one. Pooping in my pants. I had this thing, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and stuff, and so I would get this tremendous urge to go to the bathroom and not be able to contain myself, especially when I was in bookstores. I loved to go to bookstores. Anyway, I've done it three or four times since I've moved down here, riding with Karen in the car, and I've never done it with company, you know, or in a restaurant or anything. You know, that’s never happened.

Number two. Heights.

Number three. Not being able to breathe. I'm afraid I’ll be in a situation where I won’t be able to breathe. I mean, being in the water is one of them. Although when I was in the Marines we had to swim with all our clothes and holding our rifle.

Number four. Vomiting.

Number five. Falling. A little more than two weeks ago, I was walking to the mailbox and I had just stepped off the curb right in front of our house, and I went down and broke my shoulder. I was lying there unable to get up, nobody was around. I yelled for Karen and she couldn’t hear me, and I didn't know what was going to happen, but it was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me, you know.

Number six. Physical pain. My right hand is in a sling and even to move it, it hurts. Yeah it's amazing. Have you ever had any broken arm or broken leg or anything like that? Well, before this fall, I've never had anything like that. I’m eighty-nine. I’ll be ninety this coming May.

Number seven. Losing all my money. Everyday I look to see how much money I have in the bank, and how much I have in my mutual funds, and I make sure it’s all there, and I’m always worried something's going to happen and it's all going to be gone. Either someone is going to sneak into all my accounts and take all my stuff, or the market will go kablewie.

Number eight. Crazy people. Or, originally I put down clowns, you know, but I changed it to crazy people because that's what clowns just remind me of, you know? People are out of their minds, and I'm afraid of them. You know, I'm afraid I'll get attacked. I'm not afraid of robbers or getting mugged or anything like that, because I'm not one of these people that looks prosperous or tries to look prosperous or anything. The only thing that happened to me once in the street, I was on a deserted street. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, but there was no one on the street and this guy came over to me and I really thought, this is it, you know? He's going to do something. And I reached in my pocket, and I took out a five dollar bill or something and I said, “You need this?” And he said, “Oh, uh, yeah.” And then I just walked away from him. But maybe he was just coming over to ask me for directions.

Number nine. Arriving late. I get really uptight and tense when we’re supposed to go somewhere and Karen says we got lots of time. I don't know why I should be afraid, you know, no one's going to yell at me, it doesn’t matter if you’re ten or fifteen minutes late to something. It must've been, part of it at least, from the job. You know, getting there late and missing the press conference or missing whatever. This year is like twenty years since I worked for a newspaper. I’ve been retired now for twenty years. I still have dreams about I’m working, and I have dreams about the criminal court and covering stories and being anxious about am I gonna miss something, will I get fired?

Number ten. Wearing wool. Can’t stand wool. You know, I was in the Marines for three years, and I was thinking of reenlisting, and my cousin Julie talked me out of it. He said, you know you should wait a while and everything. But I think the real reason I didn't reenlist was because they had wool uniforms. I mean to this day, I don't own anything that's wool.

My name is Mike Pearl and here are 10 things that scare me.