# When I Was A Little Kid, I Wondered... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 4, 2013, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796 "2013-04-04T02:30:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![smaje1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@smaje1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smaje1)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/101 "2013-04-07T21:32:24Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Just like your non-brothers and sisters did. 😃 > > d&r It took me a second to get that, but I got an awesome “EW!” laugh out of it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/102 "2013-04-07T21:40:21Z")
We lived in the Netherlands, and to get to our usual vacation destination in France, our family’s car had to cross two real borders. The Dutch-Belgian one, and five hours later, the Belgian-French one. Both borders were really border like. With tollbooth like offices on the road, and we had to drive slowly and my Dad had to present his passport to an uniformed official who looked stern at his passport and even, one one occasion, took it and put a stamp in it. After the booths, there was a strip of bare land perhaps 200 yards wide. After that buffer zone, there was another tollbooth with an officer in a different uniform also glancing at that passport. Sitting in the back, I always wondered to who that 200 yard wide strip of land belonged. And if no-one had claimed it yet, then maybe I could claim it and be queen. It looked just small enough for me to handle. Maybe I could build a tiny house and raise chickens and eat the bread and the lemonade we brought in the car. Daydreaming about how I would manage my kingdom usually lasted untill half an hour after passing the border. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/103 "2013-04-07T22:54:20Z")
> [@DataX](#): > > I remember beig confused about things - when somewhat older - like OTC drugs. I figured there must be “under the counter drugs” - and at our drugstore - there was a counter, but no space to slide something under - and why would you do that anyway. It took me a long time to figure that one out. Over the counter drugs _must_ mean the prescription ones that the pharmacist hands you _over the counter_, right? ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/104 "2013-04-07T23:03:36Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > Plywood, Minnesota? 😕 There used to be, maybe still are for all I know, LOTS of commercials on Chicago TV for a company called Plywood Minnesota. (I guess it sold plywood…and was based in MN…) It would’ve made more sense if it had been named Minnesota Plywood–but it wasn’t, and the town of Plywood never appeared in the atlas, so 'twas a great mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/105 "2013-04-07T23:56:23Z")
You know how you can see the tiny jerking motions in the eyes of other people, as their focus of vision changes. Well, I couldn’t understand why everyone else’s eyes seemed to do this, but mine obviously never did. Every time I checked them in mirror, they were absolutely, perfectly stationary. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/106 "2013-04-07T23:56:52Z")
Similarly to the bank one, when I was a kid, I thought that the customer always got a better deal than the store did. See, the customer gives the store some money, and the store gives the customer some money _and_ whatever the merchandise was. It didn’t occur to me that the change was always less than the payment. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/107 "2013-04-08T00:34:15Z")
I told my son once that we were busy and that we would have to “eat on the fly.” That was disgusting to him. ---
**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:** [April 8, 2013, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/108 "2013-04-08T00:45:23Z")
> [@Terra1041](#): > > As a 4-year-old I had no understanding of economics. I thought a bank was a place that just gave people money out of the goodness of their heart, and then you spend the money elsewhere to buy things. I wondered why you couldn’t just take what you wanted from stores and cut out the middleman. When I played “store” with my slightly younger cousins, it worked like this: The person buying the stuff handed the cashier some play money, and got some play money back in “change” - I remember when I figured out that the change the cashier handed back should be less than the money the shopper originally gave to the cashier. I could not make my cousins understand the idea though. ---
**Author:** ![Ambihelical\_Hexnut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@Ambihelical\_Hexnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambihelical_Hexnut)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/109 "2013-04-08T01:45:58Z")
> [@Terra1041](#): > > As for words I messed up, I thought that the phrase “round of applause” was “round menopause”. I used to think that this phrase was “round of a Claus” - I wondered what it had to do with Santa. It didn’t help that whenever I encountered the word “applause” in print, I read it as “applesauce”. ---
**Author:** ![Tamex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ccd318/32.png) [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/110 "2013-04-08T03:36:32Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > There used to be, maybe still are for all I know, LOTS of commercials on Chicago TV for a company called Plywood Minnesota. (I guess it sold plywood…and was based in MN…) > > It would’ve made more sense if it had been named Minnesota Plywood–but it wasn’t, and the town of Plywood never appeared in the atlas, so 'twas a great mystery. [Plywood Minnesota](http://www.startribune.com/business/81171187.html?refer=y) was a chain of home-improvement product stores run by former Minnesota senator Rudy Boschwitz. They changed their name to the much more generic “Home Valu” in 1993 and went out of business in 2010. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/111 "2013-04-08T08:48:49Z")
(Posting before reading the whole thread in case I forget) If you left the tap running, would the Earth flood? Those telephone numbers that said 12345678 (5 lines) - what does 5 lines mean? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/112 "2013-04-08T15:16:58Z")
> [@Terra1041](#): > > As a 4-year-old I had no understanding of economics. I thought a bank was a place that just gave people money out of the goodness of their heart, and then you spend the money elsewhere to buy things. I wondered why you couldn’t just take what you wanted from stores and cut out the middleman. > > Then I got more confused when I asked my dad why he went to work, and he said “to make money”. Since I knew that banks give out infinite supplies of money, I figured my dad drew the pictures on dollar bills. A former colleague of mine had kids with the same idea. Daddy had to spend all that time at work “to get money”. Mommy just went to the bank “to get money”. Guess what, daddy! You don’t have to work any more – mommy found a better way! ---
**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:** [April 8, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/113 "2013-04-08T15:43:16Z")
I was reading the dictionary and found the entry for French kissing, “a kiss in which the tongues touch”. I thought people just stuck out their tongues and pressed them together. (Then I “French kissed” my grandma’s Pekingese. I did love him very much). ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Pumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/114 "2013-04-08T15:48:25Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I was reading the dictionary and found the entry for French kissing, “a kiss in which the tongues touch”. I thought people just stuck out their tongues and pressed them together. (Then I “French kissed” my grandma’s Pekingese. I did love him very much). Oh lord- that reminds me: I learned that French kissing meant you put your tongue in someone’s mouth while kissing, before I had any understanding of romance or sex. I just thought it was a fancier way, or something. I’m sure my mother remembered _that_ good-night kiss for a long time! ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Juicy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/115 "2013-04-08T16:02:02Z")
When I was very little we moved to a different city and my mom joined the “Newcomers Club.” But I heard it as “Cucumbers Club” and figured she went to meetings where they sat around eating cucumbers and talked about cucumbers - best way to grow them, traded cucumber recipes, that sort of thing. Once she took me along to one of the meetings and I was so upset because I couldn’t find any cucumbers in that church hall. What the hell man, where were all the cucumbers?! I remember not eating much dinner because I was expecting cucumber snacks later and I was extra mad because I was hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Ms.Pumpkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a87d85/32.png) [@Ms.Pumpkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms.Pumpkin)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/116 "2013-04-08T16:28:04Z")
> [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > When I was very little we moved to a different city and my mom joined the “Newcomers Club.” But I heard it as “Cucumbers Club” and figured she went to meetings where they sat around eating cucumbers and talked about cucumbers - best way to grow them, traded cucumber recipes, that sort of thing. Once she took me along to one of the meetings and I was so upset because I couldn’t find any cucumbers in that church hall. What the hell man, where were all the cucumbers?! I remember not eating much dinner because I was expecting cucumber snacks later and I was extra mad because I was hungry. a) That’s funny as hell! Did you express your dismay to your mother? b) Now I really want a cucumber sandwich. ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/117 "2013-04-08T17:08:58Z")
I wondered about packaging that said “% More Free!”. How could anything be “more free”? ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/118 "2013-04-08T19:05:44Z")
> [@smaje1](#): > > I always wondered why I could see Wonder Woman’s invisible jet (specifically, from the Super Friends cartoon show). There was an obvious outline of it and everything! You may enjoy [this site,](http://brunching.com/superfriends.html) which rates the Superfriends. Here’s Wonderwoman’s entry: > [@Brunching Shuttlecocks](#): > > Wonder Woman was kind of a grab bag of powers and equipment, as if she had picked everything up from the superhero equivalent of the Sharper Image Catalog. She had the Bullet-Reflecting Bracelets ($29.95), the Mind-Control Lasso ($38.95) and of course the Invisible Plane ($150,000 plus taxes and license fees). That last one always got to me. It’s like a regular plane, only it’s invisible. It doesn’t make HER invisible, though. So instead of this big plane, you see a nice, inconspicuous, flying, squatting woman. Huh. ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/119 "2013-04-08T20:44:54Z")
I had a similar one. When I was between 3 and 4 years, my parents went to the “Castle of Worms” - a place in Germany. I spent the entire trip looking into every vault and corner for the worms. I tried to look that name up just now, and it may have really been the “Cathedral of Worms” - but I’ve always remembered it as a Castle. > [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > When I was very little we moved to a different city and my mom joined the “Newcomers Club.” But I heard it as “Cucumbers Club” and figured she went to meetings where they sat around eating cucumbers and talked about cucumbers - best way to grow them, traded cucumber recipes, that sort of thing. Once she took me along to one of the meetings and I was so upset because I couldn’t find any cucumbers in that church hall. What the hell man, where were all the cucumbers?! I remember not eating much dinner because I was expecting cucumber snacks later and I was extra mad because I was hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Cheryl44](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@Cheryl44](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheryl44)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2013, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796/120 "2013-04-08T20:58:45Z")
There was no wondering about it. I knew, for a fact, that the Queen lived in Buckingham Fountain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-i-was-a-little-kid-i-wondered/654796.md?page=7)