Funny Memories
The other day, I was thinking about things I used to believe, really and honestly, before finding out that they were both untrue and somewhat silly. Amused, I decided to post some of the ones I remember.
I actually used to believe:
. . . that seven-year-olds could fly. I distinctly remember being on a swingset at the age of six, swinging high, and thinking "I can't wait until I'm seven and I can fly. Then I'll just jump off when I swing this high!" I'm not sure how I reconciled this with the fact that I never saw any people actually flying . . .
. . . that I should change my favorite color from blue to green, because "Jesus probably liked green best." This was one of my briefest and strangest beliefs. Jon and I were very young and had a babysitter who, horrified to realize that we weren't Christian, took it upon herself to tell us the terrifying story of a man who was tortured to death to try to save us from going to an awful place forever and ever after we died, and if we didn't believe and pray, we could go there anyway. This effected an extreme change in my worldview that lasted until the next day when Jon and I told our parents. (The babysitter had said not to tell them.) That babysitter did not come back.
. . . that if you got any object (particularly a white one) clean enough, it would glow in the dark. I once attempted to get the bathroom this clean as a child, as it has a lot of white surfaces.
. . . that the clothes you saw when you looked into our laundry chute piled up all the way from the floor. This may not seem like an important belief, but I broke three bones learning that that was actually just a thin layer of clothes over a trap door with a not-that-strong latch.
. . . that Tom's parents were maple syrup barons. Someone definitely told me this, okay?
. . . that the Bolsheviks were a family, kind of like the Romanovs. I actually retained this as a vague idea until last semester.
I'm sure there have been many, many more. There are definitely things about which I've been iffy - the infamous "Is Greece in Rome?" question in my fourth semester of Latin comes to mind. (Look, Greece was totally in the Roman Empire, okay?) At any rate, these are the ones I immediately remember.
I actually used to believe:
. . . that seven-year-olds could fly. I distinctly remember being on a swingset at the age of six, swinging high, and thinking "I can't wait until I'm seven and I can fly. Then I'll just jump off when I swing this high!" I'm not sure how I reconciled this with the fact that I never saw any people actually flying . . .
. . . that I should change my favorite color from blue to green, because "Jesus probably liked green best." This was one of my briefest and strangest beliefs. Jon and I were very young and had a babysitter who, horrified to realize that we weren't Christian, took it upon herself to tell us the terrifying story of a man who was tortured to death to try to save us from going to an awful place forever and ever after we died, and if we didn't believe and pray, we could go there anyway. This effected an extreme change in my worldview that lasted until the next day when Jon and I told our parents. (The babysitter had said not to tell them.) That babysitter did not come back.
. . . that if you got any object (particularly a white one) clean enough, it would glow in the dark. I once attempted to get the bathroom this clean as a child, as it has a lot of white surfaces.
. . . that the clothes you saw when you looked into our laundry chute piled up all the way from the floor. This may not seem like an important belief, but I broke three bones learning that that was actually just a thin layer of clothes over a trap door with a not-that-strong latch.
. . . that Tom's parents were maple syrup barons. Someone definitely told me this, okay?
. . . that the Bolsheviks were a family, kind of like the Romanovs. I actually retained this as a vague idea until last semester.
I'm sure there have been many, many more. There are definitely things about which I've been iffy - the infamous "Is Greece in Rome?" question in my fourth semester of Latin comes to mind. (Look, Greece was totally in the Roman Empire, okay?) At any rate, these are the ones I immediately remember.