I remember when I was a kid, everything seemed to be exactly as it appeared or was presented to me.
–I had never heard of Puerto Rico and never had any racist inclinations. However, once when I was little some older kid mentioned a place that was bad because it had “too many pordoreekins” so I naturally assumed that was some type of bad person. He was an older kid so I figured he knew more than me. Thankfully I kept that to myself and learned of my mistake before reaching adulthood.
–To take things home from the store you had to pay with money, of course. And when you needed money, you had to go to the bank. My father mentioned something he wanted to buy, so I told him he should buy it. He said it was a lot of money, so I answered “but Daddy, why don’t you just go to the bank?”
My observation was that he stopped his car at the bank’s drive-through teller, wrote his name on a piece of paper along with how much money he wanted, and in just a few minutes, they gave it to him…makes sense, right?
–I used to think that all people who wore eyeglasses were intelligent.
One year at the Thankgiving meal I made a facetious comment about the stuffed olives. My kids were in their twenties at the time.
Something like, “Thank you for all those poor folks slaving away somewhere cutting pimiento peppers into strips and tediously stuffing them into these olives so that we can enjoy them at Thanksgiving.”
Light bulb goes off over Darling Daughter’s head. “You mean they don’t actually grow that way?” :smack:
I didn’t realize that people lived in Texas. I was under the impression that only Texans lived there. I really don’t remember what I thought Texans were, though.
You know how some utility poles have grey buckets at the top? When I was little I was convinced they were filled with KFC. You see, the KFC in my town had a big lit-up KFC bucket on top of a pole, and when I asked my dad if there was real chicken in there, he said yes (of course, because what kind of dad wouldn’t take such an opportunity to mess with his young daughter?), and I believed him. Then I generalized to other pole-topping buckets about town.
You may think this is weird, but once I told this story to someone and they told me they thought the same thing. Maybe our dads were friends.
One time I went grocery shopping with my mom. I guess I was being either a pesky brat or extra good, because she agreed to buy me a toy at the store. When we got to the checkout counter, the clerk told my mom she didn’t have enough money and we would have to put some stuff back. I didn’t want to give up my toy, so I said “Mom, of course you have money. You still have checks.”
Mom and the clerk just looked at each other for a second and then laughed. She let me keep my toy, put some stuff back and told me we’d come back to get the rest of it later. I never remembered that we had to go back because I had my toy and was therefore occupied.
I imagined it as a little switchboard kind of place, with people all lined up working the complicated switches. Yes, they were inside the lights. The little red-light room was red tinted and all the people there had to work like crazy to make sure the light came on when it was supposed to. Same for the yellow and green lights.
When I was little (4 or 5) I thought I could walk up to the television and look left or right and see more of the scene. I also tried to look down the dresses of the actresses.
Except for the watching porn part, this could have been me. My dad died when I was five, and my mom was very literal (she was an RN) when it came to part names, but there were NO verbs in her description. I remember thinking, “How do you know when you’re done?”
There were no actors. All that stuff on TV was real and we were actually watching those people go through situations in their lives.
Jesus Christ was available for a lunch date, but not on Sunday. On Sunday he obviously had lunch at the minister’s house. If Jesus had lunch at your house some day you could do some serious bragging. I was bummed out that Jesus never had lunch at our house.
Smokestacks made clouds.
The people who lived next door didn’t have a bathroom in their house (they did) because they were always so nicely dressed and proper. It was obvious that they didn’t do anything nasty like pooping.
All financial transactions were physical. If you wrote a check to somebody and they deposited it in their bank then your bank had to carry that much cash over to their bank. I imagined that wheelbarrows were involved for paychecks.
I grew up in a dry county, so my great aunt used to take me along with her for beer runs. She had an older Chevy Bel-Air: backseat for DAYS. I loved it. Anyhow, we’d have to travel through a couple of very small towns, more appropriately called wide spots in the road. One of these wide spots had a sign that said Congested Area. I asked my aunt if that meant everybody had colds.
She started laughing so hard that she had to pull off the road.
I didn’t want my dad to run for president because then he might be assassinated. Like there was any chance of him running for president. Like all presidents get assassinated. (I was born in 1958.)
I thought all cats were boys and all dogs were girls (perhaps the opposite of what others believed).
You told the doctor how many babies you wanted to have and the doctor made it happen.
I first saw the words pubic and orgasm in a magazine (most likely Penthouse forum letters). I read them as public and organism and kept thinking that way until 6th grade.
I thought plants converted dirt into plant material. It turns out plants convert air into plant material with a few minerals from the dirt.
Well, barring health problems and assuming the doctor is basically competent…
When I was young, I thought dark-skinned people had rough skin. Like sandpaper. I have no idea where this idea came from, but I can remember the moment I actually examined the idea and realized it made absolutely no sense.
When I was very young, I thought a big, old mirror in an ornate wood frame kept on the mantle of the first home I lived in would take me to daycare if I could only climb up to it and go through it. I liked going to daycare; they let me sit and read.
I suppose all toddlers are literal thinkers before a certain point. My parents told me that when I was in that stage, they’d tell me to keep an eye on one of my toys and I would go over, pick up the toy, and put it against one of my eyes.
I remember discovering that french fries were filled with mashed potatoes. I still didn’t know what the skins were made of, or how they got the mashed potatoes in there and closed them up without leaving a hole or a seam.
