"That to me is a scary possibility," he said.

Because many of our boats, including mine, were weak and old, getting stuck out in the bay all night was always a scary possibility.

One was the scary and real possibility of a total financial collapse around the world.

That was a scary possibility, and a very real one.

An even scarier possibility is that the president knew that the deck was stacked but nevertheless lied to the country.

Deflation was an unlikely but scary possibility.

Still, it remains a scary possibility for business travelers.

Yet physical extinction may not be the scariest possibility.

And there's the small but scary possibility of a Japanese-style trap, in which even cutting rates all the way to zero turns out not to be enough.

A scary possibility is that I have lived a charmed life, and so have nothing to gripe about - yet.