# Stupid stuff I thought when I was a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 14, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317 "2021-11-14T03:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/227 "2022-01-06T01:23:19Z")
Some of us learned about that feature from Eddie Murphy in **Trading Places** : > Okay, pork belly prices have been dropping all morning, which means that everybody is waiting for it to hit rock bottom, so they can buy low. Which means that the people who own the pork belly contracts are saying, “Hey, we’re losing all our damn money, and Christmas is around the corner, and I ain’t gonna have no money to buy my son the G.I. Joe with the kung-fu grip!” ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/228 "2022-01-06T02:25:38Z")
It also features in an episode of The Simpsons ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/229 "2022-01-06T03:17:30Z")
We had to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning in class. To me, it seemed like tedious gibberish that had no real meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/230 "2022-01-06T03:46:37Z")
I’ll never forget the teacher asking what indivisible meant, and some kid said, “that means you can’t see it”. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/231 "2022-01-06T04:47:03Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > We had to recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag every morning in class. To me, it seemed like tedious gibberish that had no real meaning. That’s very much what I thought of the ever repeating prayers and phrases that were spoken in Catholic mass. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/232 "2022-01-06T06:38:05Z")
It wasn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/233 "2022-01-06T07:37:00Z")
When I started reading books about knights, I didn’t get the distinction between “mail” as “lightweight armor” and mail as “envelopes the postman brings to your house”. It seemed to me that, in addition to having to wait a long time to get enough mail to make a suit of armor, it really wouldn’t be terribly effective as protection. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/234 "2022-01-06T07:40:40Z")
Also, when I was really little I thought that the government wouldn’t allow anyone to print books that weren’t true, failing to grasp either the First Amendment or the concept of “fiction”. Somehow I was old enough to read _The Wizard of Oz_ before my dad told me otherwise (and I remember being quite skeptical at the time). ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/235 "2022-01-06T19:56:39Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > I’ll never forget the teacher asking what indivisible meant, and some kid said, “that means you can’t see it”. There were a lot of similar sounding words that I confused as a kid (which I bet is pretty common). I think I understood the difference between invisible/indivisible because my teacher explained it, but I mixed up: - Pacific/specific - pneumonia/ammonia - And since the way my mom pronounced “baking powder” sounded like “bakin’ powder”, I thought it was bacon powder. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/236 "2022-01-06T20:09:33Z")
I thought I was indestructible. Nearly proved I was wrong. A couple of times. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/237 "2022-01-06T20:27:11Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > And since the way my mom pronounced “baking powder” sounded like “bakin’ powder”, I thought it was bacon powder. My grandma always talked about “ant bids”. I believe she meant “ant beds”. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/238 "2022-01-06T20:50:54Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > My grandma always talked about “ant bids”. I believe she meant “ant beds”. Like all my friends from the south who will say “Can I borrow an ink pen?” I thought “What a redundancy!” until I realized they pronounced _pen_ exactly like _pin._ Wait _… ant beds_? Your grandma made tiny little beds for ants? Did she tuck them in at night? (I’m just assuming she made little blankets, too) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/239 "2022-01-06T20:55:39Z")
It’s like a flower bed, except it’s a place where a whole bunch of ants come out of the ground. Imagine my confusion if grandma had told me about “ant heels”! ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/240 "2022-01-06T21:20:20Z")
How about a famous author’s confession? Mark Twain wrote (in “The Innocents Abroad”?) that his Sunday school reader had an engraving of the “Israelites in the Promised Land”, which included two men bringing in a bunch of grapes, slung over a carrying pole. And the individual grapes were about the same size as the mens’ heads.(Obviously the engraver took some liberties to make it clear WHAT was being brought in.) As he wrote - he was very disappointed to find out that grapes in the Holy Land were the same size as grapes at home. ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/241 "2022-01-06T23:11:37Z")
When we used to sing our national anthem (God save the Queen), the line ‘Long to reign over us’ caused me some confusion. I’m just relieved I didn’t have access to the internet back then, otherwise I might have looked up what it meant to ‘rain’ on another person. I merely remained confused. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/242 "2022-01-07T12:47:12Z")
The line “Center victorious” always confused me as well. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/243 "2022-01-07T16:13:36Z")
That’s not the engraver taking liberties, the ridiculously oversized grapes needing two guys to carry a cluster is a literal depiction of a scene from Exodus. In fact, that image is the logo of the modern Israeli tourism bureau. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/244 "2022-01-07T16:28:32Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > The line “Center victorious” always confused me as well. Did you mean “centre victorious”? ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/245 "2022-01-07T17:31:00Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > There were a lot of similar sounding words that I confused as a kid (which I bet is pretty common). I think I understood the difference between invisible/indivisible because my teacher explained it, but I mixed up: > > - Pacific/specific > - pneumonia/ammonia > - And since the way my mom pronounced “baking powder” sounded like “bakin’ powder”, I thought it was bacon powder. That jogged a memory in me. I remember as a young child ( 6 to 10 y/o ) admonitions from my grandmother not to go outside with wet hair, without a coat and/or/hat “_because you’ll catch ammonia_”. I knew that from the nasty smell of that stuff that I wanted no part of that. ---
**Author:** ![mmmiiikkkeee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/edb3f5/32.png) [@mmmiiikkkeee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mmmiiikkkeee)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2022, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317/246 "2022-01-07T19:37:52Z")
When I was a kid in the 80’s I was convinced there was a real-life monster living in the sewer down the street from me. I knew because I could see it’s glowing eyes when I looked down through the little holes in the manhole cover. It didn’t help that at the time the movie C.H.U.D and Alligator had come out; both about sewer monsters. The monster was only around on sunny days for some reason. Now, that particular manhole cover had 4 little holes for inserting a lifting tool. One of them was packed full of gravel and blocked. So to look down into the sewer you’d cup your hands around one of the open holes to block light from the sides and peer down. And there staring up at me would be two white-ish dots shining through the surrounding blackness. They were spaced a bit far apart, which meant it must have been a really big monster. It even winked at me occasionally. I eventually figured out that what I was seeing was just the reflection off the standing sewer water of the bright sunny sky through the two remaining tool holes in the cover I was looking through; there weren’t 3 “eyes” because my face blocked light from one hole and the fourth was blocked with gravel. The winking happened when a drop of water or little pebble fell down and hit the water causing one of the reflections to flicker. I’d always get scared and pull my face back when that happened. Eventually I got brave enough to keep watching and even try to drop little rocks down to see what would happen. When I was calm enough to keep watching I could see the eye’s didn’t wink but had these odd wave-like flutters go across them; first one then the other. I was both relieved and embarrassed when I clued into the fact that I was basically staring at my own reflection the whole time and there was nothing down there. Really cloudy days weren’t bright enough to show a reflection… although I did start to remember a few times when the monster’s eyes seemed dimmer. That was just different levels of brightness in the sky, not the monster being more or less angry at me that day. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-stuff-i-thought-when-i-was-a-kid/954317.md?page=13)