Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for May 19, 2014

I wonder what is Peter Otterloop, Jr.’s #1 fear.

That ain’t no “slide”. It’s a vertical drop. And it looks pretty scary to me too!

Being locked in a closet all night with Ernesto?

Numbers 1 through 313 probably have something to do with finding spiders somewhere in the house.

I think Peter’s #1 fear is being fired from the strip.

Is anyone else out there old enough to remember when school fire escapes were shaped that way – with a slightly less precipitous drop.

What scares me is not looking first, and then find a spider on your tpwel as you reach for it.

To be fair, a spider in my clothe’s drawer is way higher up in my list of fears.And yes, it has happened to me. And I killed the spider, but still have the fear.

The biggest fright I ever got was when as an 8-yo or so I sat on the floor, started pulling on my sneakers, and a cockroach ran out and up my arm! Yow!.Spiders, on the other hand, as I constantly remind my wife, are our friends, and kill all the bugs she doesn’t like.

Some additional fears for Petey revolve around P. J. Piehole’s: the Easter-Island mask on the wall, hovering over him; a canoe, also on the wall (as I recall); and orange food (maybe a source of disgust, not fear).

@Dani Rice, all I can remember are school fire escapes that ended well above the ground, but were supposed to get lowered by your body weight. Nightmarish to contemplate.

@steverino, I got a fright when I left our main library and a little green tree frog hopped up my leg. I didn’t know what it was, and wigged out. My daughter, who saw me, had hysterics (the laughing kind).

The second panel reminds me of a dream I had. I had to go up a ladder like the one Alice is on, but I was facing outward. Underneath me was my husband, “Mortimer,” with some other people below him. I was proceeding upward very carefully, not fast enough for Mort. He kept nagging for me to go faster, finally saying, “If you’d just MOVE!” I told him I was not going to move another inch unless his kept quiet, but he just went on nagging. Later when I told Mort about this dream, he recognized his behavior and laughed.

I would think that spiders in a tube slide would be somewhere in the top 100. That even creeps me out.

i’m betting that it’s foods on his plate touching.

That’s a huge confession, Alice. It’s good to see you trust your neurotic big brother so fully!

Number 314 on my list is centipedes in my drink cup. I had that experience when I was 9 with my toothbrush cup. To this day, I use my hands as a cup.

Weird html effect #314. If you start any new line in your comment with a # followed by a number, the number is removed and all the lines get scrunched up.

like this.