grown-ups

i used to think that you god father/mother were the people that were related to god in your family. i thought they were sent by god to watch you constantly, but you just couldn't see them.

I used to beleive that it was illegal for a black person and a white person to get married, up until 1st grade when I saw a sing-a-long video in Music class and the hosts were a white woman and a black man, so I assumed they were married. When I went home I said to my mom "Today in school we saw a movie where a white woman and a black man were married. Isn't that illegal?" My mother then told me that that's perfectly legal.

I used to believe…

When I was five I noticed all the childhood photographs of my father and his sisters on display at my grandparents' house, and I thought that they were their other grandchildren, but that they weren't as loved as we were, because their pictures were old and black and white, and they were wearing odd clothes, and we had never met them.

I used to believe…

When I was younger I wanted to be an Airline-ticket-taker because I loved watching the airplanes all day, I didn't want to be a pilot because I didn't want to leave my parents. I guess I figured I would just have to bring them to work with me

I used to believe…

In 1980, my uncle got remarried to a Jewish woman. Our side of the family was Catholic, and hers was Jewish. They had a really hard time finding a Priest or Rabbi to marry them.

They finally found a Rabbi who would perform the ceremony.

My youngest cousin asked me what to call the man wearing the cap. I told her to call him Rabbi.

She called him "Father Rabbi" all day. Thank God, he got a kick out of it!

I used to believe…

I used to believe that when I went to sleep, my mother would hold wild parties that she didn�t want me to see and one night, I caught her vacuuming the house in my Mickey Mouse hat and I pointed at her and said "HA! I caught you. You made them go away as soon as I woke up!"

I used to believe…

When I was 6, my aunt got remarried to a guy who had two kids. At the wedding, my mom introduced me to the kids, and told me they would be my step-cousins. I instantly thought that my aunt and her new husband were going to make them live on the front steps to the house. This upset me a great deal, as I wouldnt want to live on the front steps, so I asked my mom if they could live with us. She said they couldnt, and for a long time, I felt terribly sad every time I thought about them.

i used to believe that pirates were real. And when i was younger i wanted to be one because you have loads of advebtures and you get to see the world. I still like to think that! lol

I used to believe…

When I was little, I used to think that you had to get married to live together. My cousin (who was my best friend) and I decided we wanted to get married, because after all how much fun would it be to be able to hang out all the time?

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I didn't realise that many old ladies had perms - I just thought that as women got older their hair became curly. My hair is very straight, so I used to look forward to getting old and having curly hair!

I used to believe…

When I was about 3 or 4 I, for some reason, had it in my mind that patients were like points that you lost when ever you got angry. But I also believed that they were something that you could buy at the super-market. So whenever my Mom got mad and said "I'm losing my patients" I would calmly tell her that she needed to go buy some more.

I used to believe…

This is actualy my brothers belief. He thought our mom was a Native American, because she smokes and he always sasw pictures of Native Americans smoking pipes. He believed this until he saw that our mom's butt wasn't red!!

I used to believe…

Used to believe that my little brother was literally a pest that came from the department of sanitation. I thought the garbage man was his real dad. One time when the garbage man came, I was 5 and my brother was 3, and I took my brother out yelling "Wait, you forgot something!"

I used to believe…

Everytime I went to see my Nana, when i was younger, she would give me 50p. For some reason, I used to believe that she made 50p coins in her shed, for the Prime Minister. For years, I always used to try and look through the shed windows, for the "50p machine".

I used to believe…

When I was 5, we went to my dad's office after hours (it was probably around 7 pm). My mom told me not to touch anything, so I wouldn't break it. I was standing there really politely, my hands behind my back. (Incidentally, we had gone to pick up something that my dad had left and needed--he wasn't there, but the building security guard had let us in.) I got bored, wandered over to the window, and there was this little machine sitting there that printed checks. (For all of you young'uns out there, it was this odd thing that you stuck the check in the bottom, pushed manual typewriter like numbers on, and then pulled a big handle, like a slot machine, and it would print the numbers on the check in rainbow colors.) Anyway, I was bored, and I had been allowed to play with this thing before, so I grabbed some blank paper, stuck it in where the check went, and pushed some numbers. As soon as I went to pull the handle, the alarm in the building went off--and it was loud!!! The security guard ran out of the office, and my mom grabbed me to run out of the building--I was really scared! I thought that I had done it by playing with the check machine, especially after I had been told to not touch anything!!! And, I thought the police were on their way to take me off to jail! Needless to say, I never disturbed ANYTHING in my dad's office again!

I used to believe…

This is actually about my brother and not myself. When he was about three or four, my family had just moved into a new house. The town being as small as it was, the local pastor came to welcome my family to the neighborhood.
Now, my family liked to have company over, mainly uncles and aunts. When my brother was little, he must have mistaken all his uncles for more "dads" since they were there so often. It was shortly after New Years that they had moved in, and they let my brother sip a little champagne.
Anyway, upon the pastor's arrival, my brother ran to him and greeted him immediately by announcing, "I drink booze with my dads! I have LOTS of dads!" One of our family's finest moments, I think.

I used to believe…

My grandparents used to manage an apartment building for senior citizens. One of the tennants was an older gentleman who had a condition that caused his entire body to shake (I think it was Parkinson's disease or something). Now, this was at the height of the "breakdancing" craze in the 80's. I mistakenly thought his gyrations were dance moves, and not involuntary. For months I thought I had discovered the hippest senior on the planet, until one day my mom stopped me from going outside with a boombox for him

I used to believe…

When I was younger I believed that everyone enjoyed summer vacation in June, July and August. My mother was a teacher, and my dad worked for an outo company so he had the first two weeks of July off and used all of his vacation time in those summer months. We had a summer cottage and everyone around us was always there for those three months too. It was a sad, sad day when I was about 12 whe I realized that most everyone I knew was a teacher, an auto worker, stay-at home parent, or retired (I had a skewed version of age when I was younger and didn't correllate family friends with time off as being old enough to retire). And it makes sense that when I saw other family members of family friends, it was when they were on vacation too. When the realization struck and I exclaimed to my mom, "I'm going to have to work in the summer!?!?!" she asked me where I thought the people who worked at restraunts and stores came from if I believed that everyone had the summer off. I had staunchly believed that they were students who wanted spending money and retirees who needed something to do with their time. Sometimes when the weather gets warm and Memorial Day approaches I still get giddy at the idea of spending a few months at the lake. Then reality sets back in.