# Everyday, normal things that mystified you as a kid. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 23, 2018, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130 "2018-08-23T21:05:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/81 "2018-08-27T22:16:30Z")
When my mother pointed out movies at a flea market were “pirated”, I immediately got the image of classic eyepatch wearing and hook handed pirates stealing movies from a plundered cargo ship and selling them at our local flea market. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2018, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/82 "2018-08-27T22:33:52Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > When my mother pointed out movies at a flea market were “pirated”, I immediately got the image of classic eyepatch wearing and hook handed pirates stealing movies from a plundered cargo ship and selling them at our local flea market. In case you’ve never seen it: I give you, [Video Pirates!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVksuhqjlE) ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2018, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/83 "2018-08-27T22:52:57Z")
When I was four years old, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. And I knew for sure what I wanted to be when I grew up, a paleontologist, duh. Anyway, I knew my brother was a year older than me. So that meant he would die a year before I would. Then my chance would come. I’d have that one year as a very old paleontologist to track down his grave site in some desert canyon, dig up his bones, and put them in a museum. I also remember seeing a picture of a [tuatara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuatara) in a book. It was a drawing of the little guy sitting on a rock, and the caption said that the tuatara lived on a small island called “New Zealand”. I thought the rock was the island, and the guy lived on an island that was only a little bigger than he was. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/84 "2018-08-28T03:38:17Z")
I was very perplexed the first time I heard the phrase “fish ladder”. I had no idea how such a thing could work. > [@xizor](#): > > When interviewing candidates for an electronics technician position, I started asking people what was the difference between AC and DC (note that these were all people with associates degrees or better in electronics), and by far the most common answer was analog current versus digital current :smack:. Very few got the answer correct. Seriously? I’ve known the answer to that even before my college days, and until I started doing some hobby stuff a few years ago I had no particular interest in electronics. Could this be a recent thing; college electronics having to teach analog and digital and so the students just draw that wrong conclusion on their own? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/85 "2018-08-28T03:47:22Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > When interviewing candidates for an electronics technician position, I started asking people what was the difference between AC and DC (note that these were all people with associates degrees or better in electronics), and by far the most common answer was analog current versus digital current :smack:. Very few got the answer correct. > > For my contribution to this thread - There was a highway we traveled frequently that had an “Adult Toys” store on one of the exits. My pre-sexual knowledge brain always tried to imagine what awesome toys adults kept all to themselves, or if they were just the same toys as in a regular toy store but adult sized. Paragraph 1: When I went back to college in the late 1980s, I took a biology class from a professor who also taught a science class designed for LPNs who were studying to get an RN degree. She told us that none of the students in that class knew what “AIDS” stood for; they knew what the disease was, and most of them knew some of the words, but this was at a time when it was pretty much the #1 news story every day, and they didn’t know that AIDS was Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. :smack: Paragraph 2: Awesome toys adult kept all to themselves - yeah, you got that right! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/86 "2018-08-28T03:49:08Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > My mother said once she was traveling in the old south and saw 2 water fountains. One was labeled “white” and the other “colored”. Well their was a line to the white one so she walked over and used the colored one. She was dissapointed in that the water was just plain old water. Am I a bad person for chuckling at that? Assuming your mother is Caucasian, it’s a pretty safe bet that she got some strange looks. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/87 "2018-08-28T03:55:46Z")
> [@Jennshark](#): > > . . . In San Diego ocean = West. . . . but it’s hard to shake my So Cal Pacific Ocean directionality). I had the same problem in reverse. I grew up in Chicago, so the big water was to the east. . .I lived in San Diego for 12 yrs (with the water on the “wrong” side) and never completely got used to it. Thank heavens the water is back on the proper side now! mc ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/88 "2018-08-28T04:31:29Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Am I a bad person for chuckling at that? Assuming your mother is Caucasian, it’s a pretty safe bet that she got some strange looks. Responding to my own post, before anyone gets the wrong idea: There is nothing funny about “white” and “colored” drinking fountains, etc. I envisioned a little girl being puzzled about the clear water (I HOPE) coming out of the “colored” fountain, and that’s what made me chuckle. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/89 "2018-08-28T13:09:14Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Responding to my own post, before anyone gets the wrong idea: There is nothing funny about “white” and “colored” drinking fountains, etc. I envisioned a little girl being puzzled about the clear water (I HOPE) coming out of the “colored” fountain, and that’s what made me chuckle. Yes, she is white and from North Dakota. She was hoping it would be some color like red or purple or pink and maybe flavored and yes, she got some strange looks. On the same note, back in my school days we always wanted to sit in the back of the bus because it was away from the driver and was where all the cool kids hung out. So the big confusion as to why Rosa Parks wanted to sit in the back? ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/90 "2018-08-28T13:20:44Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > I understood the mechanics of how sperm got to the ovum, but until I was 10 or 11, I didn’t know this was something people did on purpose. I had that part figured out by then but a critical part the mechanics escaped me. “How is this limp little thing going to be inserted into _anything_?” I had a vague impression a vagina could open and close like a mouth so she would take it in and he would pee semen or something. I still remember the epiphany I had about 12 when I was puzzling over why my penis got hard when I thought about girls\* and the penny dropped. \*Not even naked girls; I was so naive. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/91 "2018-08-28T14:47:50Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > In case you’ve never seen it: > > I give you, [Video Pirates!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wVksuhqjlE) Yes! This is exactly how I imagined video piracy happened. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/92 "2018-08-28T15:18:54Z")
Not mine but a cute story. My boss told me that when he was a kid, he could hardly wait to start school. He had an older brother that was in school and was always telling him about his “glassroom”. He said he was so disappointed on his first day of school when he realized he wouldn’t be in a glassroom - just a plain old classroom. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/93 "2018-08-28T15:26:30Z")
Was very excited about visiting the Rocky Mountains. 'Cause that must be where Rocky and Bullwinkle live. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/94 "2018-08-28T16:35:58Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I was a Target cashier when I was in my late teens, in the early 1980s. One day, a boy who was about 10 years old ran up to his mother in a panic and said, “We have to call the police! That man over there is going to rob a bank!” Mom replied, “What makes you think that he’s going to rob a bank?” and the boy replied, “HE’S BUYING PANTYHOSE!” > > Mom’s response: “That man is not going to rob a bank. His wife probably sent him to the store.” The real kicker to this story, if O. Henry or someone like that was telling it, would be that the guywas indeed buying panty hose because he intended robbing a bank. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2018, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130/95 "2018-08-28T16:52:46Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > I had that part figured out by then but a critical part the mechanics escaped me. “How is this limp little thing going to be inserted into _anything_?” I had a vague impression a vagina could open and close like a mouth so she would take it in and he would pee semen or something. I still remember the epiphany I had about 12 when I was puzzling over why my penis got hard when I thought about girls\* and the penny dropped. > > \*Not even naked girls; I was so naive. When I was 12 I found a dirty joke book. From some of the jokes I somehow got the idea that when you were an adult your penis was erect _all the time_. I solemnly informed my younger brother of this amazing fact. TV host Art Linkletter had a segment on his _House Party_ show in which he interviewed kids, and published a book of their bloopers as _Kids Say the Darndest Things_, which I read. In one of them, a little boy said that you could recognize an octopus because it had “eight testicles.” At the time (I must have been eight or ten) I had never heard that word, and thought it was funny because the kid was mispronouncing “tentacles.” One day I was in the car with my family and I loudly repeated the joke, with no idea as to why it was actually funny. I was mystified when it was greeted with stony silence.😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everyday-normal-things-that-mystified-you-as-a-kid/820130.md?page=4)