grown-ups

I used to believe…

Since both my parents had the same last name, I thought you had to marry someone with your last name. I didn't want to marry the only girl I knew with my same last name, so in 4th grade I bit her on the arm.

I used to believe…

When I was little I used to think that a golden retriever was a type of person involved in a wedding - like a ringbearer, best man, maid of honor, etc. The reason why I believed this was because I had seen a Charlie Brown TV special in which Snoopy the dog was getting married (to another dog). In the show, Snoopy ends up not getting married because the bride ran off with a golden retriever (a guest at the wedding). I just interpreted it as the bride running off with the best man or something like that. I believed this one until I was about 8.

I used to believe…

When i was in about 2nd grade i thought that since my parents were named Ann and Larry that everyone, when they got married, changed their name to be Ann and Larry.

I believed that if/when a married person removed their wedding band it meant that they were then divorced. I shed so many tears when my mom took off her band to do the dishes one day! It took awhile for her to get to the bottom of the tears, but we sorted it out. Whew!

I used to believe…

At Christmas, we would always have big family get togethers. I remember when I was about 4 years old, listening to my Mother making plans for 'Boxing Day' and having visions of my Dad and my Uncle John squaring up in the ring...

I used to belive that you couldn't get married to someone you knew, because cousins and siblings couldn't marry, and the groom couldn't see the bride before the wedding.

i use to believe that adults all belonged to a secret club, and when you went to sleep at night all the adults got together to talk about us kids (especially me) and conspire against them ...

as i got older i revised my belief so that it was just women that belonged to this secret club, and they conspired against men ...

i'm still half convinced this club exists ...

I used to believe that an aunt twice removed meant that she had married into the family, then gotten divorced and then married someone else and gotten divorced again (removed from the family twice, ya know?)

I thought being a hippie was a job or a career of some sort in which you had to have long hair and wear interesting clothes and talk about peace and flowers. This sounded absolutely wonderful to me. So when I was around the age of four or five, if grownups asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (which of course they would constantly) I would say, proudly and with glee, "I'm going to be a HIPPIE!" Naturally, adults always reacted with enormous amounts of consternation, which I could not fathom--what could be wrong with pretty hair, peace and flowers? My parents told me never to say that again. In spite of their worrying--perhaps also because of it-- I grew up to be pretty much EXACTLY what I had planned. I have no regrets.

I used to believe that all old people eventually become demented when they get old enough. This was before people had identified Alzheimer's disease, so people couldn't easily explain why some old people became more and more incapacitated mentally. Anyway, I ued to wonder when my grandparents would start becoming forgetful and losing their minds...

I used to believe…

When I was young, around 5 yrs or so, I was sure that a woman's name would change to "Mary" because I had heard a woman changes her name when she gets married, and well, getting "MARYed" was what it was all about!!
I remembered loudly arguing this fact with several wedding guests while attending cousin's reception, screaming, "her name is NOT Cindy any more, it's MARY!!"

I used to believe…

When I was around 2-3 I was had the belief that as humans we not only turned into adult humans but everything around us, so you would choose what you wanted to be I was asked the question all adults seem to ask "what do you want to be when you grow up?" and ny obvious answer (well to me anyway) was "an apple", what do you think you would have chosen to be, it could be anything?

I used to believe…

when I was 15 I grew up in a very strict Pentacostal faith, after attending so many single sisters meeting taught by older sisters
constantly reminding young women not to chase boys and that the bible says "He That Findeth A Wife Finds A Good Thing"!
I belived that if a man in the church asked you to marry him I had to!!
I was so afraid of men I wore dresses longer than my grandmother and ran from men.
As we now know the more you run from a man the more he wants you. It got so bad that by the time I was 18 10 brothers asked for my hand in marriage.
I drove my pastor nuts and asked him to choose for me!!!

I used to believe…

This is probably a case of paranoia. When I lived with my very religious aunt & uncle in Blaine, WA USA, during my senior year -I was 17- I believed that they were monitoring my drug & alcohol use (I was doing that stuff very rarely). One way was by having some sort of device built into the toilet plumbing that would take a sample of my urine and send a signal to their bedroom and tell them if I was on anything (maybe even monitor pregnancy!). ...paranoia?
Another way was by collecting hair samples from my brush and the floor, and sending it to a lab. They were pretty wealthy, so they could afford that sort of thing!! (They shoulda been more worried about their own teens.)

I used to believe…

My grandad used to make jokes about how his stubble was the "hedgehog", my other grandads short, bristly beard was the "broom" and great-grandads long white beard was the "mop".

A few years ago i asked my parents and it turned out my great-grandad didnt have a beard.

I guess it was such a good joke...

I used to believe…

My college roommate was the middle child in a huge Irish Catholic family of 11 children. One time she was asked to take care of whichever child was the current baby. The baby fell off the bed and was knocked out.

My roomate was terrified that she'd killed the baby, so she hid the baby under the bed. She figured her mom had so many children that she'd never notice the missing baby.

Fortunately, the baby was fine, and woke up squalling. So my roommate was convinced she had the power to bring the dead to life again.

I used to believe…

When I was five, my uncle told me he had a wooden leg. When I tried to touch it to feel if it was really made out of wood, he used to say "don't, or you'll get a splinter". He also told me that my other uncle had a wooden head, but not to say anything, because he liked to pretend he had a normal head.

I used to believe…

Until we were preteens, my siblings and I believed that our mother had eyes in the back of her head. We believed this because she told us that she did and because she had an uncanny knack for sensing when we were up to no good. We would try to find them sometimes by sorting through her thick black hair, but never found them.