I didn’t dream this up on my own - a friend told it to me and I believed her.
When I was about twelve my parents took me out of school for two weeks so that I could accompany them on a driving vacation to Mexico. My best friend told me that at the border I would be strip-searched for drugs, and that the same would happen again when we crossed the border coming north.
I was a very bashful, timid girl and the thought horrified me. I did mention it to my mom, but rather than reassure me that it was all bullshit, she just laughed and ridiculed me for my bashfulness. I was sick with fear on the trip down, and only slightly relieved when we crossed the border with no strip-searching. There was the still the trip back north to worry about! Needless to say no strip-searching took place then either.
My parents couldn’t figure out why I was so glum and miserable for almost the entire trip. I wasn’t about to share again that I was frightened about the border-crossing.
I guess my friend was jealous that I got to skip two weeks of school and made up that story as her revenge.
Yeah, but when you’re only 5 or 6, little details like that are lost on you. I probably thought everyone everywhere had the same weather we had in Pennsylvania.
When I was a kid, long before ATMs, my parents had a discussion weekly or so about how much money(cash) they should get from the bank for the next while. So my mom wrote it on a little piece of paper, sent it through the little tube, and the bank lady gave her money.
I was so pissed off that mom refused to give me any of the pieces of paper. I wanted money too. Stupid unfair world.
And I (like a lot of kids, probably) thought that writing a check was a way to magically pay for things without having to have any actual money. And similarly, when our bank got an ATM at some point in the 1980s, I thought it was a machine that just gave out money.
And when you deposited money in the bank I thought they took your money and put it in a safe somewhere, and when you made a withdrawal they would go to the safe and retrieve the exact same bills you deposited.
When my son was about five, he told me he was going go live on his own,.
“But from where are you going to get money to buy food and clothes?” I asked him.
“From the ATM”
When I was five or six, the family went to visit my uncle (Mom’s brother) and aunt for vacation. They lived away from the city, so the night sky was beautiful - unlike my home in Los Angeles. One night Dad and I were outside looking at the stars, and I asked him if there was anyone who knows everything. He said no, nobody knows everything. Then under his breath added “except your uncle.”
Whoa. My uncle knows everything!
Some months later, Mom was trying to figure out how to do something or other, so I suggested she ask Uncle. The conversation went something like this:
Mom: “How would he know?”
Me: “Well, he knows everything!”
Mom: “What? Where’d you get an idea like that?”
Me: “That’s what Dad said!”
Mom: “Oh, REALLY.”
Your son reminds me of the boy who announced that he wanted to drop out of school. His mother asked him what he’d do with only a 4th-grade education, and he replied “Teach 3rd grade.”
My parents were from Poland, and I heard many stories about crossing the border into Slovakia and the like, so when we crossed the border from Illinois to Wisconsin on a family trip, I expected there to be a proper border crossing with a checkpoint and armed guards there and was disappointed to find out all that there was was a “Welcome to Wisconsin!” sign.
@ekedolphin: Good timing! I was just thinking I’d start a similar thread, but with a twist.
My twist: wrong things you thought when you were young… and you thought those wrong things were a stupid way for the world to work.
So, basically, a misconception where you were wrong on the facts but correct in your “analysis.” Weak on knowledge but strong on wisdom.
Example: There was a presidential election when I was four. The grownups explained something about a race to see who would lead the country. I thought they meant a foot race. Congratulations, fastest candidate, you win the presidency!
And I thought – correctly! – that foot races were a stupid, unfair way to determine something so important. Those crazy grownups sure devised a wacky system!
(The punchline came when old man Reagan defeated a relatively spry Mondale in said foot race!)
I remember reading a kid’s book about war with pictures of planes, battleships, tanks etc, and I asked my dad “How many hours does a war last”?
I think I had the idea that countries just put all their planes, guns, soldiers etc into one big field and basically had a giant smash-up - rather like a massive game of football.
Needless to say, his answer was a bit of a shock to me.
A friend of mine reported that when he was a kid, he thought that the USSR had “the bomb” - a single bomb that could destroy the entire United States in one massive explosion.
Growing up in California, I thought that the concept of four seasons, with a snowy winter, flowery spring, green summer, and brilliant orange fall, was a beautiful fairy tale that clearly never existed anywhere.
I also couldn’t fathom ‘growing up’, i.e. becoming like my parents. I could not imagine being so distant and unemotional, like such boring things, and so filled with such dull concerns. That turned out to be true (well, the dull concerns are mandatory, unfortunately). If I met me now as a child we’d still have a lot in common.
