grown-ups

I used to believe…

When I was young, my dad kept getting better job offers from employers and that kept us moving. The new employer would always pay for the move, so I used to think that anytime someone moved to a new house, a big truck would pull up and lots of men would pack everything up and move it for you. I wish I had been right.

I used to believe…

When i was younger my older sister and I slept in bunkbeds.(I slept on the top bunk)

And so every night, I would climb up the ladder to my bunk. And each time i got to the third highest rung, I would try close my eyes and scramble up as fast as i could. For fear that when my sister turned into a werewolf, she would eat my ankles.

I used to believe that you slowly acquired an English accent when you got old.

Of course, my grandmother, great aunt and great uncle came to the US from England in the early 1900's, but nobody had told me this when I was five or so.

I used to believe all old men with white hair (like my grandpa had) were my grandpas. My neighbor growing up was an older man with white hair, and every time I saw him I'd say "hi grandpa!!" He always said hi back. I never believed that all old women were my grandmas, because I had 2 grandmas and a great grandma and they all had different colored hair.

I am the youngest of 3, and my brother and sister are both quite a bit older than me. My mom would always talk about when "Lance and Ricki were little." But because I had never seen them little, I just did not know what to think. So in my head, I saw them as they were at the time (both teenagers) but just shrunken down to baby-size. Quite an odd picture to put in a four-year-old's head.

I used to believe…

when i was younger, my sister convinced me that i had had an older brother but she had killed him because he was bad, so she used to threaten me with that when i was annoying her.

I used to beleive that women had eyes on the back of their heads (ever since the time mom caught me climbing a fence when she wasn't even looking) and that women have long hair so people can't see them.

I used to believe that if your parents grounded you they would actually pound you into the ground, so one day my mother told my sister she was grounded and I cried because I didn't want my sister to be in the ground for a week

I used to believe…

When I was about 4 or 5 years old, I was in Kindergarten and my teacher was asking all of us what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone was saying Doctor, Ballerina, Fireman ect. until I stood up proudly and said "I want to be a Tiger!" All my class mates started chuckling and my teacher said to me "You can't be a tiger. You are a human.' I looked her straight in the eye and said 'My dad said I can be anything I want to be, and people who say I can't, grew up to be nobodies!'

I never understood why my classmates kept laughing at me after that.

I used to believe…

When i was 10 years old i used to belive that my older brother and sister were twins. Because they were in the same grade but only to find out later my sister was left back in the 8th grade!

I used to believe…

My dad worked 3rd sh ift when I was growing up and he would get home usually before I had to go to school. Well we had a big window I used to stand at and wait for him to arrive...the window had nails all around it that we used to hold christmas lights. I believed that if I pulled all the nails out and put them back in he would be home before I was done. It worked EVERY time.

I used to believe that carpenters worked on cars. I was four when my parents bought a house that they kept referring to the carpenter, as in: the carpenter did this or that wrong, or didn't finish something. I thought, "well, what is he doing building houses when he is supposed to be fixing cars?"

I used to believe…

On halloween when i was 5 or so my dad and grandpa went to scare a my neighbor's daughter and her friends at her Halloween party..well that night after they scared her my dad came home with his costume on as warewolf...so nautrally..i thought every halloween my dad turned into a warewolf.

I used to believe…

For several years after I first heard the term "bridal shower", I envisioned that it meant putting a bride, in her bridal gown, in the shower and turning the water on until she was soaked. I supposed she would be lucky if her gown completely dried out in time for the wedding.

I used to believe…

when i was 5, i thought that you got to choose what your wedding cake was made of even though all the weddings i went to had cakes made of bread-stuff.i pretended to marry an invisible boy with a bunch of piled up cheese-its as a cake.

I used to believe…

my mom said, "this is my left." to me when she was facing me. so i thought that her left was my right. i then came up with the theory that when you became an adult or when you had puberty, your rights and lefts would change. i would try to get puberty to come sooner than it would so i would be "special."