More ordinary things that inexplicably creep me out

Brussels sprouts.  I can't eat them.  I've outgrown a lot of my childhood vegetable phobias--broccoli, cauliflower, spinach--and I've slowly become converted to asparagus as long as copious amounts of mayonnaise are involved.  But Brussels sprouts?  No-o-o-o!

My wife and some of our kids love Brussels sprouts.  I have been watching them carefully for many years now...just to make sure my real family isn't stuffed in an alien cocoon somewhere..

(the spoils of a day's battle with malevolent aliens)

It's not because Brussels sprouts make me gag (though they do), It's just that they look like...like little severed Martian heads. 

Don't believe me?

Take a look at the 1963 sci-fi B-movie classic Day of the Triffids, when evil Martians seeded Earth (via meteors, of course) with these things, which proceeded to kill every Earthling in sight with their nasty little tentacle-tongues that shot from their branches and dragged them into their fronds where they were slowly absorbed.






You can't see the resemblance?









What about this picture?

I know it's dumb, but that movie scared the pickles out of me when I was a kid!  Pickles...okay, we'll save that one for another post.





 Now how do I know when I stick a Martian head--er--Brussels sprout in my mouth that those tentacles aren't going to suddenly spring out and grab my uvula?  I'm pretty sure that's why I gag when I attempt to eat them.






In Day of the Triffids, every weapon imaginable was used on these things--guns, bombs, flame throwers, etc...but the only thing that would vanquish them was seawater.  That's probably why when I was a kid growing up in Florida my mom never bought them...we lived close enough to the ocean that we were protected.  But here in Texas, they're all over the place...and I just know they're coming for us...