Unusual things that irritated you as a child

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I remember that, when I was perhaps 8-10 years old, a media photographer was doing a news report of some kind. Among other things - and I’m sure a lot of other people were photographed for this news story - she wanted to take photos of me playing piano.

So I was sitting and playing piano, and this journalist was hovering next to me, with the camera, just waiting in silence. And for the longest time, she wouldn’t really take photos; just waited. But whenever I coughed (or something like that), or grimaced, or otherwise had some odd face expression, she would then furiously suddenly snap off a flurry of shots with her camera for 1-2 seconds, focusing on my face, before falling silent and inactive again.

It was obvious that she was trying to get bad photos of me, and even at that age it was irritating. Strangely, that incident has bothered me more, not less, as I’ve grown older.

Any other unusual things from childhood that still irritate you today?

2

Wow, where to begin. So many.

When I was in Kindergarten (back in the 70’s when you just played all day) I was pulled out of the classroom and taken to another room where this lady had me do some kind of weaving exercise. I remember it was weaving paper strips through a paper grid. Now I realize that it was some kind of skills test, but little-kid me had no idea what was going on and was getting annoyed at being made to do these things when I’d rather be playing in my normal classroom. What irritates me is that I don’t recall them explaining the purpose, they were just like “Do this like this” and I was wanting to do it my way (different colours or something) and I felt like they were getting annoyed with me and I couldn’t understand why.

Parent-Teacher Night. Back in the day when you could leave your kids home alone. My parents would go to the school to talk to the teacher and I would sit at home FUMING because they were talking about ME behind my back!

One day I came home from school and my mom had me put on a different coat and marched me up to the busy intersection at my school. She proceeded to lecture me about not looking both ways before crossing the road because apparently somebody told her that they’d seen me - and they knew it was me because I was wearing that specific coat - step off the curb in front of a car and the car honked at me. Thing is, I do not remember that happening and I hadn’t worn that coat in ages because I didn’t like it. I was a very sensitive child and would definitely remember being honked at. Pissed me off because I felt my mom believed what someone else told her over what I said plus I felt humiliated for something I didn’t even do.

Funny how seemingly small things stick with you for decades.

3

That witch of a woman, whose name has been expunged from my memory forever, on Romper Room. She looked through her magic mirror at the end of each show and, over time, saw every freaking child in the world and called them by name - except me! I WAS THERE EVERY SINGLE DAY. Right there in front of the TV. I would jump up and down and wave my hands when the magic mirror came out, but did she see ME? Did she ever say MY name? NO, NEVER, NOT ONCE!!

But I’m not bitter.

4

I think that adults used to send in their child’s name to be read out. At least I’m pretty sure that’s how they knew to call out birthdays.

5

When I was in seventh grade, I had an English teacher that I adored. Everybody did–she was the most popular teacher in junior high. But she tested my adoration hard one day. We used to get these little magazines with stories and plays in them, and one came out in conjunction with the TV movie “Captains Courageous,” with a short play included. She announced that we were going to read the play in class. I was very excited–I loved dramatic reading, and I was good at it, too. I volunteered, but she said no–since all the parts in the play were male, then only the boys got to have parts.

That happened like forty years ago, and to this day thinking about it pisses me off–not only because of what she did, but that it was so out of character for her to do it.

6

Well, you have to admit, back in the days of Romper Room, there were still very few children with the first name of Doctor.

:smiley:

7

I loved math in the early grades. Math was great. It came so easily to me and was by far my favourite subject. All I had to do was write my answer, which was usually just a number or two.

Then in grade 4 we were introduced to a different concept that now required the writing of sentences, in math! Unbelievable. So, after reading the question, one now had to answer each question in this format:

Let the train traveling to Chicago equal X.
Let the train traveling to New York equal Y.

The time it took train X to travel 100 miles is 60 minutes.
The time it took train Y to travel 150 miles is 100 minutes.
If blah, blah, blah…and I don’t even remember the rest.

I remember telling my grade 4 teacher that I could solve these without writing all that other stuff, but she wouldn’t let me. I seriously almost started crying in grade 4 because now math just became as arduous and tedious as all other subjects.

Man I was mad. :frowning:

8

I keep reading the thread title as “Unusual things that irradiated you as a child”

9

Well, that would be irritating, too. :cool:

10

I had a student teacher in the 5th grade who would not believe me that AD, as in “the year AD 1977,” stood for Anno Domini, which meant “in the year of our Lord” in Latin. She told the whole class it stood for “After Death.” I said if she would let me go to the library, I’d look it up, and come back with proof, but she didn’t need any, because she was right, and I was wrong.

I tried pointing out that her theory left an approximately 33 year gap, because the year AD 1 would be the year of the crucifixion, not the year of Jesus’ birth, which it clearly was, but she was unmoved.

I brought a note from my parents the next day, and she blew me off.

About ten years later, it dawned on me that part of the problem might have been that I was Jewish, and what did a Jewish kid know about anything to do with Jesus? but I have no idea. That made it bug me even more.

If she hadn’t misinformed the entire class, I wouldn’t be so annoyed, but she said I was wrong in front of the whole class, didn’t ask me where I’d gotten my information, and then affirmed the wrong information for the whole class.

She was a lousy teacher otherwise as well. I hope she chose something else for her vocation.

11

Couple more ones:
I read a children’s book that depicted a race between a hot-air balloon, a car, an airplane, and a horse…and the book ended with all 4 things crossing the finish line at exactly the same time so that it was a tie. It was irritating because it was “everyone gets a trophy” mentality and also because I knew that an airplane was far faster than the other three things.
Also, one time a teacher gave us pennies. The other students spent their pennies but I saved mine and didn’t spend them. Later on, the students complained that I had pennies left and they didn’t have any remaining. The teacher then ordered me to share my pennies with them!..First encounter with communism/Marxism.

12

along these lines, when I was a kid my aunt evidently told her sons (my cousins, obv.) about the concept of “sharing.” unfortunately, the brattier of the two decided he could use that as a demand. if you had something he wanted, he’d bellow “Share!” to him, “share” meant “gimme!”

13

And the veil was at once lifted from his eyes, angels filled the heavens with song and the whole earth rejoiced. Yea, verily, the truth had come to light!

:smiley:

Nope, still pissed.

14

I had to be nice to my little snotbag cousin, who made fun of me and broke my toys and ate all the good snacks before I even had any because she was “company” and got to have first pick. I couldn’t defend myself since she was “company” so I had to be “nice” and “share” or else face the Wrath of Mom (which leaves the Wrath of God in the dust.) Plus, she was “mouthy,” which in my mother’s eyes was a mortal sin worse than nun-punching and puppy-kicking combined, but Snotbag Cousin was able to get away with it again because she was “company.”

Of course when I visited my aunt’s house, Snotbag got to have the best of everything because it was “her house” and she didn’t have to “share” if she “didn’t want to.”

I couldn’t fucking win.

15

I have a couple:

My mom taught me to read and count before I started school. Before kindergarten I was enjoying puzzle books and simple fiction. One day early in my kindergarten year the teacher passed out mimeographed dot-to-dot puzzles and I was super excited. I wrote my name at the top as directed. Then she started walking the class through how to do the puzzle, painstakingly one number at a time. “See the number 1 <pointing>? And here, see where number 2 is? <pointing again> Okay, draw a line from the number 1 to the number 2.” It took like five minutes - or ten years in small child time - for the class to get to 4 so I got impatient and just completed the puzzle. Then she happened to walk by my desk and saw that I’d finished the puzzle while they were ever-so-slowly working on number 5 and scolded me for jumping ahead of the class. :mad:

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, they decided that recess one day would be archery lessons. But not really because they had us line up to take turns and we each only got one draw of the bow and then had to go to the back of the line. When it was my turn I didn’t know I was supposed to pull back as hard as I could (yeah, also zero instruction in how to do it) so I pulled the string taut and let go and the arrow fell at my feet. NEXT! There were so many kids that I never got a second try. :mad:

16

When I was six, my youngest aunt lived with us for a while before her marriage. She was always my favorite aunt, and promised me I’d be the ring bearer in her wedding. Turned out, there was no ring bearer at all. In spite of my love for her, I never quite forgave her for that. I also never brought up the subject.

17

it still bugs me as an adult that in almost any cartoon where an animal eats meat the meat eaters are the dull slow stupid ones that don’t get actual speech …

18

Reminds me of someone who called in to a Glenn Beck show in 2010, talking about how his daughter was performing very well, better than that of her peers, but her teacher refused to let her study any faster or more than her peers, saying that it “wouldn’t make everyone equal.”
Probably the sort of teacher that would have suppressed Einstein for his peers’ sake. Some people take “equality” to mean “wasting potential for the sake of feelings.”

19

I remember as if it were yesterday, in elementary school - kindergarten, or first grade - we had no music class, but a ‘music teacher’ pushed a piano (on wheels, of course) from room to room. On top of the piano were some tambourines and triangles and other simple instruments for kids to play along with while she pounded out songs. I was NEVER EVER chosen to play the triangle or tambourine. One day I reached out to just touch one of the stupid things and she shrieked at me to keep my hands to myself and not touch a goddam thing.

I was beyond mortified . To this day, I hope that cunt met an early and painful death.

20

I was in the gifted program in elementary and middle school, which involved being bused twice a month to another building in town with students from the other schools in the school district, and being taught by teachers who taught only one subject. You got to choose your own classes every marking period, and if, say, you really liked art and music, you might be taught by the same art and music teachers for all the years you were in the gifted program, and never have anybody else.

So, all this to say, I usually picked the art, music, and science classes – one marking period, however, the math teacher offered some kind of math class that involved tangrams and other math- or logic-based toys and games, which sounded fun, so I signed up for it. This teacher was unfamiliar to me, and I to her.

My sole memory of the class is of sitting with the other students and the teacher around a table with a bunch of these toys scattered around. At one point, I had picked up one of the toys and was idly fiddling with it while the teacher talked to us. I was listening to everything she said, but my eyes were on the toy on the table. I heard her say to someone, “You’re not listening to me. Stop playing with that toy and listen to me.” Well, I thought, obviously she was talking to some other kid, because I was listening to her and I *wasn’t * playing with the toy – which would have taken concentration – I was just moving it around in my hand.

She said this a couple of times and then screamed shrilly with full voice, like she was screaming after a purse snatcher, “HEYYY!” I looked up to see who the poor kid on the other end could be, and to my surprise, it was me! I had never been screamed at by a teacher like that before, and I was beyond mortified and said nothing, and then never took another math class from her again.

After 30 years, I still get mad when I think back to that moment because, goddammit, I WAS listening to her! You awful witch, you can listen to someone without looking at them, you know!! JEEZ.