Popcorn or cockleburr?

     I ate sticky popcorn before I went into the mountains to gather leaves. Beneath the leaves were cockleburrs, so when I felt something hard stuck in my hair, I didn't know if it was a cockleburr or sticky popcorn until I pulled it out. (Sometimes I'm a messy eater.) (In case you're wondering, it was a cockleburr.)
     Perhaps this is an early Halloween post, because the incident brought to mind my horrific teenage experience of peeling what I thought was a cockleburr off a stuffed dog. When I pulled it free and focused on the stiff, dried corpse of a mouse grimacing at me from my fingers, I screamed and flung it across the room.
     Looking back, I have to ask myself... what's so creepy about a dead mouse? They're far less startling and destructive than a live one.
     What old belief comes at you from a different perspective now that you look back on it?