June 01, 2004

• Used to believe we were all living inside a huge TV show. Now I see I wasn't that off the mark.
• Used to believe that when my dad said that someone was "fired", that meant the boss would take out a gun and shoot the bad employee dead. I'm still terrified of offices.
• After one of my older relatives (uncle? grandparent?) complained about the "cotton-pickin' train," I believed that there was a kind of railroad engine that picked cotton, with a big claw-tipped iron arm off to one side that plucked the field as the train passed. And when Walter Cronkite reported guerilla fighter activity overseas, I was certain that armed great apes roamed the jungles of Viet Nam. Scary.
• When I started kindergarten, I had never met anyone who shared the same name with someone else. So when the teacher announced to the class that we had another kid named "Billy" joining I naturally assumed that he would look exactly the same as the "Billy" we already had in class. Boy, was I in for a surprise!
• I thought that computers were omniscient. I imagined that if we had a mainframe in our house, it would be able to speak, would know where any toy that I lost was, and would be able to give perfect advice. This was around 1975 or so. Well, it's 2004 now.. where's my omniscient computer?
• Ok, another one. We were taking a drive along the bay one day and the tide was out. There was a huge freighter that was shooting water out of one of the side holes (I've no clue what the 'hole' is actually called). I asked my dad why there was water coming out of the ship and he said 'It's because the tide is out and they're trying to fill the bay back up with water so they can get in further'. Yea, I totally believed him, and yea, I was very young. No, really.;)
• My grandma told me if I ever put my butt on anything with printed writing on it (newspapers, books, leaflets etc...), I'd lose my ability to read. That scared me more than being told my guts would get pulled out through my butt. Even today, if I have to sit on printed paper, I'd kneel instead.
• I rejected the existence of the British monarchy. I was convinced that the world must have become democartic and had long aboloshided those quaint, primitive traditions. I soo learned my standards were somehwhat dispoportionately idealistic. And now I am a broken, bitter little man, and it's all the Queen's fault. *cries*
• bitter little man I'm a biter.
• I remember thinking that girls grew up to be men, and boys grew up to be women. I don't know if this was wishful thinking, or a sarcastic thought on being told that boys grew up to be men and girls grew up to be women. Either scenario seems equally plausible, and there it is, the memory, oddly lacking any intonation. Also, my favorite color was pink, until my parents took me aside and told me that my favorite color was in fact red, and since red was still the color of hearts and kisses and love, I made the switch, and never knew I'd been manipulated until I was embarrassed in front of dinner guests with the story when I was fourteen.
• Dead End signs. I was convinced Something lived at the end of those streets, and demanded to know why we were driving towards It. My parents thought the whole thing funny and were somewhat less than reassuring. "Don't worry, the monster has been gone for years" style of remarks.
• I went to school in the United States and Canada, splitting (ha) each year from Grade 1 - Grade 4. Then, I stayed in Canada, and it was only in Grade 7 science that I was finally (and embarassingly) corrected: "atom" is not just quaint American-speak for "molecule". I was also responsible for a number of LA kids thinking all Canadians live in igloos (and other fun facts). Once you get asked for the 250th time, you really just can't help yourself.
• I used to believe that once a woman had sex, babies would start popping out at a rate of one every nine months, with no further need for outside assistance. How I didn't counter this with the fact that I didn't have twenty siblings, I'll never know.
• Age 4, perhaps...I knew that infants "lived" inside traffic lights...they pushed red, yellow, or green...and if you were stuck at a long red light, it meant that the little baby had fallen asleep...you would honk your horn and wake the infant, who would reflexively press another button. It *seemed* plausible at the time.
• I used to fear that everytime I saw a bag or a box on the side of a road, some heartless person had abandoned a litter of kittens in it. I also remember very clearly realizing when I was 16 that cars driving toward me on the other side of the road could actually cross the double yellow line.
• I used to think old movies were black and white because, well, things used to be black and white back then.
• I used to think, when reading about "World War II", that is was world war eleven.
• de Carabas: me too! I was also afraid to eat boysenberries for awhile, because I had misheard their name as "poisonberries."
• I third de Carabas comment. I used to believe what adults told me about hard work, fairness and getting and education. More scarily, I used to think that Battlestar Galactica was cool.
• At 6 or 7 the kids at school got together during recess and compared sex notes. Since all of us had it explained in the context of "When Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, he puts his ha-ha in her hoo-hoo and they make a baby", all of us believed that *every* time you had sex, you got a baby. "Well, my mom and dad did that three times, because there's me and my brother and my little sister." "Well, mine did it four, since there's four of us." What? You mean people go to all that work for fun? Get outta here.
• I used to think that homeless people who beg for money were really millionaires who didn't want to work and had hit upon the best scheme ever: 1)Stop bathing and put on ratty clothes. 2)Ask strangers for money. 3)Deposit in Swiss bank account. 4)Profit!!! Made me question the value of getting a job, I can tell you. Seemed like a good idea when I was five.
• My brother used to believe that shoplifters were people who lifted up shops. He once borrowed a book from the public library based upon said belief.
• I believed that mayonnaisse was made out of potatoes (ketchup being made out of tomatoes, pickle relish out of pickles, you see), and that dragonflies could sew up your lips if they landed on you while you were sleeping.
• When I was 4, my dad had me convinced that there was a small orchestra living in the tailgate of our truck. I couldn't see them of course, because they were invisible.
• I used to think that "toll bridges" were "troll bridges," and that if you didn't pay the "troll," he'd come out and get you. I was also thoroughly convinced from age 7 to age 14 that we'd experience polar shift very soon, and that we would experience a mass human extinction or large quantities of mutations as a result of not being protected from solar radiation. I was a very odd child.
• I used to believe that puppies came out through the mother's tail. Yes, I firmly believed the tip of the tail split open to allow for a puppy to exit. I also believed that when I was on the toilet, a monster would come out of it unless I started going to the bathroom. Oh, and I also firmly believed that if I got out of bed at night, fingers would come through the floor and start tickling my feet.
• Oh, when I was really little, I believed there were people in my stomach who liked little pieces of chewing gum - but ONLY if they hadn't been chewed until the flavor was gone. So I used to swallow gum almost immediately, to my parents' dismay.
• Dizzy: That is how they fire people at my office. *hears sound of gunfire, starts nervously*
• my mom told me when she was taking my temperature not to bite on the thermometer because it "wouldn't register properly." only years and years later did i figure out that was actually to keep me from biting the thing in half and digesting the mercury!
• I was firmly convinced that unless I checked, there was someone behind the shower curtain. Also, I had this idea that I was the center of the universe and that everyone played a part around me ala Truman Show, except that everyone else was an alien and I was being groomed to be some leader or something. That one lasted to my mid-teens. I was also convinced that if I watched close enough, that when I urinated, I would be able to see a movie play out in the stream.
• My older sister told me that if the vacuum cleaner accidentally rolled over its own cord, the vacuum cleaner would explode and you would die. For years I was scared to be in the same room if someone was using the vacuum.
• I believed - for a scary few days - that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, a watermelon would start growing in your tummy and then burst open, kinda like the Alien baby in Alien.
• I used to fear that everytime I saw a bag or a box on the side of a road, some heartless person had abandoned a litter of kittens in it. "Now we don't know what's in that bag, son, so we avoid it entirely. Could be a bomb, could be kittens or rocks, but we don't wanna run over it." I'll still swerve for stuff in the road. also, my mom told me that if I picked my nose and rubbed my eyes afterward, I'd go blind.
• Ooh, a couple more. I used to believe that everything that you can't see doesn't exist. Everything kinda fades out of existence into a uniform grey, the further you get away from me. Yeah, I pretty much created the theory of quantum mechanics at the age of 4. Also, I used to think that TV broadcasters were really lazy and didn't actually broadcast when you were blinking. I used to sit in front of the TV without blinking for really long periods of time to try and catch 'em out. Never did. Oh, and I used to think that everyone heard exactly the same things that I did, only they were all pretending that they didn't. So if someone was listening to headphones, all they could hear was a tiny hiss, but if I was listening to headphones, everyone else could hear it just fine. One last thing. I remember reading an article on the Village People and thinking "Wait a minute... The Village People were gay??"
• Mamasaurus, you might want to stay away from Mikazumi, then.
• Where I lived, there were a lot of "Caution: Hidden Drive" signs. I thought it was cool to have a driveway that no one could see.
• I believed that somewhere down in my throat was a box-shaped device. When you chewed up your food, it went into the box after you swallowed and then was reassembled into its original shape before being sent to my stomach. Don't ask me where I came up with that one.
• I was a very strange child, with an enormous imagination. Here is a short list: 1. Somehow I believed that if you plucked even a single water-lily from a pond, the entire pond would drain completely dry in one day. I was too scared to ever try. 2. If you said a prayer over dead roadkill, and left it a little snack, it would get up and walk away after you'd left! 3. If you killed a bug or a spider, their friends & family would know, and come after you for retribution! 4. People on TV could totally see you through the screen, but were pretending not to notice. 5. In movies, when there is a story that involves a little kid that grows up, I believed they actually stoped filming and waited for the person to grow up before finishing the movie.
• Oh, I remember another one. I thought that windshield wiper fluid was the liquified remains of insects that hit the windshield.
• ew, shawnj, that red eye! ugh. and naxosaxur, i'll never forget a Twilight Zone where scenario #3 actually came true, when a mommy spider the size of a VW bug came back to get the guy who flushed her baby spider down the kitchen sink. I still think of this episode when I kill bugs...
• When I was about 5, I was at a crawfish boil with my family, and I distinctly remember a man telling me that if you put a stethoscope up to the pot, you could hear the crawfish scream when you put them in the water. Actually, I think I still believe that.
• I was very young. (4 or 5) I grew up on a farm. We had lots of fruit trees and we (kids) were always in the orchards eating anything and everthing. Mom and Pop were forever telling us to "spite the pits out or (name your favorite) tree will grow in your tummy if you swallow the pit." I had swallowed a cherry pit and dared not tell anyone believing I would grow a cherry tree in my stomach. That night I went to bed and cried all night in my pillow very, very afraid about the cherry tree I would sprout. Pop heard me crying and, after much tear wiping I finally told him about the cherry pit I swallowed and why I would start to sprout a cherry tree. He started to laugh and I cried somemore and finally he told me the truth. Much to my relief!
• Snow - I have a similar toilet story, except the monsters/demons/bad people came out when i flushed the toilet. Every trip to the bathroom involved running in terror after flushing.
• I must have been 10 or so, walking in the woods behind my house and looking at anthills. It suddenly struck me: "The smaller you are, the slower time passes." Do I get my Nobel for Unified Theory now?
• I believed there were people who could read my thoughts, and was always trying (and failing) to control what came into my head. I believed in vampires, but also that Morbius "The Living Vampire" could save me from the bad ones. I believed without a shadow of a doubt that there would be a nuclear war and I would die right around my 23rd birthday. Not sure how I picked that particular time, but there you are.
• uhh--what is your present age, Cali? I'll be in the basement, stockpiling rice.
• oh yeah, vampires...I slept with a pillowcase wrapped around my neck in the belief that "unwrapping" me would wake me up and enable me to run away. Too many episodes of Dark Shadows I guess.
• I used to have the same dream every Halloween when I went to bed, that pursued the same theme, starting with the same opening scene: Dracula was loose in Sedalia, MO (my home town) and was coming to get me. Don't ask me what he was doing there -- maybe he wanted to see the state fair. Anyway, these got worse and worse until I was nine, when my neighbor (a Mormon and representative at the State House) had been infected. He chase me all over the house, grabbed hold of my leg, and bit through my calf. I woke up screaming. When I calmed down a bit, I realized I could still. Feel. The fang marks. I never allowed myself to be alone with that man again.
• I used to believe that bands lined up at the radio station, and each took turns playing their song, live. When I was really little, like about 3 or 4, I remember thinking that if someone touched a sore spot, they could feel the pain too. I tested this theory with my dad when I had a scab on my knee, encouraging him to poke at it. When he did, I said "See, doesn't that hurt?".
• When I was a kid I believed that if I slept with my feet uncovered, the dog would come in the house and bite off my big toe...I still have to have my feet covered to sleep.
• Dizzy, don't worry. My 23rd birthday was in 1993. Boy, was I off.
• dragonflies could sew up your lips if they landed on you while you were sleeping Fes, you must have been the Cutest Kid Evar!
• I believed that everyone in my classes at school were tremendously sophisticaed and educated - eventually I found out it was because they watched television. When I was about 8, for the first time I met some kids who spoke German. I thought they spoke with really unclear accents. German sounds so much like English when you've only ever heared people speak French and Spanish before.
• I had the exposed-foot thing too, where I was afraid to touch the floor in case something under the bed grabbed my ankle. Now I can't sleep with my feet outside the blankets because, of course, someone breaking in will attack them first. I also thought that since my Nana told me I had enough dirt in my ears to grow potatoes, that I really could grow spuds in there. I was too scared to try, though, because I imagined the roots going way down to my toes.
• tracicle, wow, I thought I was the only one on that. My grandfather told me that once when I was staying at his place over the summer, which of course prompted a nightmare in which a full-on hothouse garden sprouted from my ears.