body functions

I used to believe…

When I has a heavy cold, my mum told me that the stuff I was blowing out my nose was called "cattarh". Somehow I got this confused with "guitar" and was convinced I had one inside me that was trying to get out.

I used to believe that I could choose to defecate through my penis. I was frightened that, one day, I might jokingly think to myself "now I will poo out of my penis", thereby causing this to actually occur. I think the belief was sparked by the event occuring in a dream. I was convinced that it had been a waking occurence.

I used to believe that I had superhuman strength, which lead to many unfortunate incidents. These incidents could be broadly categorised as follows: (1) Kids beating me up, (2) Me beating other kids up, (3) Humiliating public demonstrations of my strength (once, during lunch break, I gathered a group of friends around to watch me crush a tennis ball, with one hand, until it exploded. I stole the idea from the intro. to the six million dollar man TV show. Amazingly, I was not able to achieve this feat. The demonstration ended with me getting punched).

I used to believe that, if you concentrated hard enough, it was possible to make your body invisible. I remember wandering around the place, switching my invisibility on and off. If it seemed I was being ignored, then I took this as confirmation that my attempt at achieving invisibility had been successful. However, I never did anything strange while invisible, so I guess I wasn't too convinced of my own power.

i used to believe that if you farted too loud, your butt would explode on everyone :)

I used to believe…

When I was little, my brother told me that if I slept with my legs curled up to keep warm, when I woke in the morning I'd be stuck like that for good; I assumed this was true, so every night I made myself straighten out my legs into the cold place at the bottom of the bed...

I am glad to know that I'm not unique in this belief.

I too thought that little men were running about inside me (think of miniature Ooompa Loompas). They'd move my muscles, send messages when it's time to dispose of waste (and open the valves when it was time to), handling cuts and scrapes by scurring to the site and putting internal bandages on (scabs), resting when I did, etc.

I thought the sole purpose of my eating and drinking was to keep THEM going.

I used to believe…

Whenever I would get goose bumps I believed that my body was growing, expanding ever so slightly. Due to my short stature I resulted to tickling myself to encourage the goose bumps.

i used to believe that if you burped and yawned at the same time your eyes would pop out

I once saw an illustration of Rip Van Winkle sleeping with his long beard outside the bedclothes. This led me to believe that women with large breasts did the same.

I used to believe…

A boy in my class at school had been absent for a few days. When the teacher asked him why, he said he had a verucca. At the time he also had a sore throat so for ages I thought that a verucca was something like laryngitis.

I used to believe…

At the age of 5 or 6 in the very early '60s my mom would take me with her shopping downtown. We took a string of street cars and buses to get there. Along the way I would notice on a regular basis "persons of color" spitting while at the bus stops or out the window of the bus. Their spit was brown. I now know it was from chewing tobacco, but at the time I reasoned that white people spit white, and brown people spit brown.

I used to have the ability to tell what colour things in black and white pictures were -- on our b&w tv, in newspapers, whereever. I knew that the things being photographed had colours, but I couldn't understand how colour could be "lost" when photographed.

I still remember, after 30-odd years, the feeling of seeing that a car on tv was blue, or that a woman was wearing a green dress.

I used to believe…

when i was little i thought that if i needed a poo really badly and i didnt go i would have a baby, so i was always rushing a bout the house going to the toilet as a kid.

I used to think that only one person could fart at a time, and every time you did, someone else would breathe it in then they would fart it out then someone else would breathe it in, and so on.

I used to think that marching band uniforms were what sick people wore. I don't know where I got that idea from!