Stupid Things You Believed

My grandmother used to tell me (and I used to believe it) that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, it would grow inside your belly...then she'd add, "How do you think you grew into a Poppy?" hahaha

I believed that finding Mr. Right and getting married automatically meant living happily ever after.

Boy, was I surprised to find out that living happily takes a *lot* of work, compromise, and commitment to God and each other, and has little to do with emotions and fireworks. (Although emotions and fireworks are fun when they come!!)

I believed that "determine" was pronounced with the accent on the first syllable and with short "e" and long "i" sounds (I'd never heard it used in conversation to that point, only seen in writing...)

I believed that anything you ate could probably be improved by the addition of chocolate, bacon, or cheese. (OK, not liver - nothing can improve it.)

Oh, wait, I still believe that! Excuse me... <ducking out for a bacon cheeseburger and some brownies and a Coca-Cola>

Only women have this?

Smile! That's beautiful Jenna! Re the 'awakening' of a young woman (and this kind of tender naivity) there's this book of Sarah Dunant 'The Birth of Venus' which has a lot of this kind of things in it. Myself ... mm, I can't remember any such 'beliefs' that I had. Is it because I was brought up to be a male?

Only women have this?

My father told me, the day before I left for college and just a few days after I'd turned 18, that if I had sex before I got married, no one would marry me. Thank goodness I listen more to my mother (even if she hates my hair color), who said, don't make the mistakes I made. (No offense intended to folks who stay celibate until marriage.)

I was not generally inclined to take things on face value, with one exception.

I have an older brother--six years older--whom I worshipped. He could do no wrong in my eyes, and I followed the poor guy like a puppy dog. Mostly he was very good to me, but he wasn't an angel, and I'd believe anything he told me.

He told me if I combed my hair at night, the bats that lived in the eaves under the attic roof would attack me.

He told me that the circulation fan and vent in the elevators at the university library were an electronic eye connected to a deadly laser beam that would zap me if I played in the elevator.

He told me photocopying pages in a book would eventually "wear out" the type.

I don't think I believed any of these beyond the age of twelve or so--and I wouldn't have believed them if anyone but my brother had told me. He is now suitably penitent; I don't think he really understood when he was a kid himself how seriously I believed anything he said.

But it worked the other way as well. When the kindergarten teacher told us that storks brought babies I politely but firmly contradicted her.

This did not go over well

Wow this brought back some memeories. LOL

When my uncle was coerced into babysitting, he used to take my ten cousins and me outside geared with paper bags and flashlights to go boon hunting. He told us we had to be very quiet because the thing about boons was they could see in the darkness of night, smell you coming, hear your breathing, and they were very quick. Uncle Joe would sit on the porch sipping his coffee smirking as we crawled on hands and knees through the big yard. The only sound was the leg rubbing of crickets. We’d search for hours then complain to our parents that we never did catch any boons. When I grew older and bought a dictionary I realized why; his blessing was keeping us occupied, watching us have fun, and enjoying his peace and quiet.


Joanne

That the devil lived in the ground! When we were young, my best friend and I would take our trusty, metal, soup spoons to the curb near her house and diligently scoop and dig away, in hope of making such an amazing discovery. We would dig away, peering carefully into the dirt for a glimpse of red horn or pitchfork. We'd keep going until we got bored or would find something else more ridiculous to amuse our minds. Never did find the devil! LOL Even a little billow of smoke or flicker of flame would have been exiting....

Debbie

I used to believe that when I closed my eyes it made everyone around me disappear and when I would open them back up again they would magically reappear. I mean disappear literally.

I once believed that when a woman asked me if she looked fat in her dress/pants - she actually wanted my honest opinion.



Ha! I was such a fool…..

My mother had a lot of strange wisdom.

She said if I ate food too late at night I'd dream of my great-grandmother.

She said all babies come into families by picking them out at the hospital.

If you sit too close to the TV you'll go cross-eyed.

What Debbie said about the dirt. She said if we dug too far in the dirt in the back yard we'd reach Hell.

I was seven or eight. My neighbor's daughter talked me into helping her paint their fence. She opened the paint can and stirred it up, making slow clockwise circles so as not to slosh the contents over the edge of the bucket.

"Now you try."

I grabbed the stir-stick and slowly made my circles, but counter-clockwise instead.

WHAP! She belted the back of my head.

Shocked, almost crying, I said "Hey! Why'd you do that?"

"You're unstirring it, stupid! Now I have to do it all over again."

That's funny, Galoot.

Joanne

As a child I believed that you got pregnant by kissing, that watermelon seeds grew into vines in your belly if you swallowed them, and that our car knew when you were going to turn and applied the blinker. I believed that the President read three papers at once, in different languages. I imagined that if you gave criminals money, they would stop being criminals. I fantasized buying my own printing press, giving millions to whoever wanted it, but my dad said that was communism.

Once I believed I’d swallowed a battery, even though I couldn’t remember doing that. I believed the human skeleton was solid, like a pile of white rocks. And I believed that dreams were real. I spent half an hour looking for the gold coin I had in my hand one morning when I woke up. Where the devil had it gone?

I believed that dogs were male and cats were female. I wanted to fly in the air and play in the clouds, which I believed were as soft and snuggly as mattresses. I believed that the jets overhead were full of people going somewhere important. I believed that canned spinach would confer great strength if I could only eat it, which I couldn’t.

I thought euthanasia stood for Youth in Asia, and that OD meant Oh Damn, I took too much. I thought adults were mindless robots, that I would never reach puberty, and that I would never have sex.

Once I had sex, I thought I’d never get married. But I did get married, and I believed it would last forever. Then I got married again. Okay, this time it would last forever.

Well, now I’m drawing the line: No more than four divorces.

Next time...it’ll be murder.

My grandmother told me never to eat taffy because it would pull all your teeth out. To this day, I've never eaten taffy after her showing me her dentures and saying, "see".

Joanne

when my brother told me the "sky birds" would take me away . . . not that any of us ever did know what what the hell they were, but i sure did cry like a fool over that one.

when my brother told me that i would poop little red balls of fire after eating hot peppers--i held it in for three days. honest to god on that one. and for the record, it didn't burn.

when i believed that a man would call when he said he would.

and the best, when i believed that my toys came alive at night. for years of my childhood i stored my toys in a chest, so that they would not come after me in the dark. probally why i poked the eyes out of my dolls--so they couldn't see me. and yes, the fear that my toys would attack me came from my brother. he sure was a devilish little fellow.

annessa

If you chop your fingers off, they'll grow back.

Pearls are eyes of slain dragons.

A monster lives in the school storage room.

A favorite toy (a knight on a horse) disappeared because he ran away...

If you wish for something hard enough, it will come true... (well, this one is not "stupid" -- it just doesn't always work... I'm not a 6'5, 250# He-man yet).

When I have sex with a virgin, she'll go "pop."

The myths about masturbation (can't imagine how many times I checked the palm of my hands...)




j/k about the last one.

Not so stupid, and I think I still believe this one.

When you see a shooting star, it's suppose to mean another child is born.

Joanne

I found out that there was no Santa Claus at the time of my son's first Christmas. There I was assuming that Santa would bring him what he wanted...



Brady H.

Tooth Fairy
Easter Bunny
The monsters under my bed left when my mom told them it was time to sleep.
Lightning bugs were lights for ants to work through the night.

That the Democrats would win.

Got me laughing now!

OMG! This is true and I've never told anyone before! When I was around 8-10 years old, I used to leave my piano sheet music out on my piano to Partridge Family music thinking that their hip bus would crawl down my street and Reuben Kincaid would peak into windows and pluck me to be part of the show, because you know that Suzanne chick kid actress (who played the youngest Partridge) needed to be replaced! E-V-E-R-Y night for WEEKS I thought I'd be discovered. I think maybe I'm lucky I wasn't??!

hmm, I just can't think of any. I was the kid who didn't believe in santa or the easter bunny--and so on.

Shawn

Grampa told me if I pulled a guinea pig's tail his eyes would pop out.

It was years before I realized that guinea pigs had no tails and this was pure hoo ha.

Ignoring completely my own experience as a child, I actually believed that my children would be grateful for the things I've sacrificed for them. Apparently that's something they won't realize until they have children of their own, if I'm lucky, that is.