I have trouble with my right and left, too. “The other left!!” is a common direction-giving instruction around here.
Someone told me, the right one is the hand you write with. Nice diddy. So when I need to tell right from left, I wiggle my fingers to figure out which I write with.
I tell ya, if I was (still) a lefty, I’d be screeeeewed.
Until I was 30, I thought the word “misled” was pronounced “my-zuld”.
I blame Charlie Dog in old Warner Brothers cartoons: “Don’t be my-zuld, bub.”
The lightbulb for the punning name below didn’t turn on until I was 40 years old. I always thought the name “Dew Drop Inn” used by numerous honkeytonks and county dive bars was just a quaint little name.
“Dew Drop Inn” = “Do drop in”
I have to sing the alphabet song as I flip through the phone book. Kinda embarrassing when I’m constantly looking up phone numbers while I have customers on the phone. :rolleyes:
And when using a screwdriver, I have to say Righty Tighty Lefty Loosey in order to make it work.
And I just learned last week that we could change our “time” on this Board to match our timezone. I’ve been having to do a lot of subtracting!
I have to recite the alphabet all the way through when I’m looking through the phone book; otherwise I don’t remember which letters come next.
I have major gaps in my knowledge of world geography, to the point that I never talk about it with anyone. I studied it in college and then forgot all of it, and now I’m far too ashamed to do anything but change the subject. Especially the Asian countries; they all run together in my head. This is horrible.
When I was a kid I thought that “a quarter of an hour” meant 25 minutes. Hey, it makes a sick kind of sense!
I am embarrassingly bad at math. I don’t grasp the concept like other people do. I can’t even picture simple things in my head like “13 oranges, minus 5 oranges leaves how many oranges?” I’ve even tried saying, ok, 13 is three away from ten, but then somehow I end up getting totally confused.
[sub]So here I admit, I sometimes have to use my fingers to count out small number arithmetic.[/sub]
But ask me to diagram a sentence or write an impromptu paper on some literary topic, and I’m golden, baby.
It wasn’t until a few years ago when I found out that chicken eggs weren’t little dead baby chickens. I had thought the chalaze (the little white bits by the yolk) were chicken embryos.
I always pronounce mascarpone (as in the cheese) as mars-capone.
I can’t drive a stick to save my life.
My father tried to teach me, two ex boyfriends…I just can’t coordinate the “step on clutch and shift” motion. I end up grinding the gears.
I can manage to skate backwards and slap shot, why is manual transmission my kryptonite?
geography, i’m also screwed in it…some major cities i wouldn’t have a clue where they are…
Math…erk i really hate it.
I’m almost 22 and i still haven’t a clue about leasing a car or whatever they say in the commercials…
Another left/right problem person checking in. I have to stop and, in my head, pretend I’m about to recite the pledge of allegience. The hand that wants to go cover my heart is the right hand.
It’s not like I recite the PoA all that often, or ever, these days. I just got that stuck in my head back in grade school.
You have no idea how happy it makes me that other people have the right/left problem. I thought I was alone.
As for really embarrasing stories…
[sub]I had crabs once…[/sub]
Until I was 30-something, I thought it was pronounced “missled”, and misled was a totally different word, which was hyphenated mis-led.
I have the left-right problem too. It’s somewhat common. Common enough to have a name: “Left Right Confusion.” It’s kinda sorta like dyslexia. I also have a terrible sense of direction which I think is related.
Haj
I was 17 years old before I actually sat down and watched an entire episode of Star Trek. I was with my then boyfriend, later husband. About 5 minutes into it, I actually said (I blush to report), “Huh. I always thought Spock was in charge.” I actually had to get a divorce in order to be able to stop trying to live this down.
::I’ve finally gotten the left-right thing straightened out, but I can remember for a long time having to picture my kindergarten classroom in order to figure it out. (The hand that was closest to the flag that hung in the front corner of the room was my right hand and therefore the correct one to use for the Pledge.)::
You were right. They can. And, they do.
Note: neither link shows them flying, but the first link has a photo of them roosting in a tree, and they didn’t climb up there. 
Until I was a teenager I thought the breaker box in my parents closet turned on the street lights.
I, as a preteen, thought that whenever a song came on the radio the band was actually in the radio station playing it!
the shame, the shame
Me too!!
I prepared my first turkey dinner as a newlywed when I was 21. I was on the phone with my mom constantly, making sure I got it right. Before I put the bird in the oven, she asked me if I had taken out the innards.
I pulled out the neck and other organs, then went back to the phone and said:
“Wow! That’s pretty cool that everything is in a bag! Are chickens born with their organs in bags, too?”
I STILL haven’t lived that one down.
ME TOO!
I had a hell of a time with this. My 7th grade teacher, trying to explain fractions to me, would show the clock example and then give the four quarters to make a dollar example.
I was like, “Duh, four quarters do make a dollar, but a quarter past an hour is 25 minutes.” It still didn’t click. I don’t remember when it did, but it wasn’t then.
I did not understand the concept of 1/3 until last year. It wasn’t until Mr. Ujest - in the midst of explaining something to me that I have no idea what it was - looked at me when I was like, " Ahhhh, how much is a third?" He took out paper and pencil and drew it. Now, I get it.
Math and I are ships sinking in the night.
And then there is the mispronouciation of * omnipotent* as
I still have trouble with my seven times tables.
To drag somebody else in to share my shame, I’m squeeling on one of my friends. Until a few years ago, she thought women peed with their clitoris.