Cutting the String

Call me sentimental, but I have difficulty pulling loose threads from clothing. The little string appears so pathetic and fragile that I find I just don't have the heart to cut its lifeline and toss it to the cold floor, where I imagine essence of dog feces and dead skin particles remain from others' foot trackings (a cruel fate indeed). Eventually, I develop an emotional attachment to the string, which is, after all, part of the shirt. I can't just abandon it. Eventually, I view it as just part of the shirt - knowing there's a loose thread near the right pocket gives me comfort finding it's still there when I when I next wear the pants. It gives the clothing article "character" and evokes a feeling of comforting familiarity. This coupled with that I'm quite resistant to change.

Such generosity has gotten me into trouble in the past. Once as a young boy playing in a stream, I witnessed a tiny worm on me struggling not to be swept away by the current. Compassionately, I helped the little worm to my thigh, above the water.

However, that worm (and its "friends") turned out to be leeches. I was covered when I emerged from the water. That was my first - and last - episode with these parasites; I haven't gone swimming in steams since.

Back to the clothing: Admittedly, there's also a risk-adverse element to my decision not the pull the string. I imagine (and lesser variations of this have happened in the past) that I would pull the string, but the thread doesn't break, and instead just keeps unraveling, and unraveling, and unraveling, and unraveling...