grown-ups: work

When I was very young, I overheard my father quietly telling my mother that he was afraid he might be fired. I decided that that meant his employers would take him out the back door and shoot him dead. This really scared me for a short time until I figured out what it meant. I never did ask anyone or tell them about my fears.

When I was little my dad made me belive their was a midget in the box saying the numbers as you push them. He also led me to believe that he was especially trained to sound the same every time.

One day our teacher asked us to find out what our parents did for a living. My mother was outraged as she is from another country and thought they were just trying to find out how much money our family made. She told me to tell the teacher she was a prostitute (I didn't know what it was). I did. You should have seen the teacher's face. She called my mom to tell her I said that.

I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up when I was about three. I replied, ''A hairdresser except I'd only comb people's hair because my parents won't let me cut hair.''

I used to think that grownups made money by being given change at restaurants and stuff. Because at drive throughs and whatever I would see them hand my dad some money with his taco.

When I was 9 or 10 I heard a word "prostitute". I asked my dad what it meant anh he told me "It's a woman, wearing nice dresses who goes dancing with all men who want it". So I tolm him: "I would like to be a prostitute". Later I became a teacher

I once asked my parents to buy me something, and they said they couldnt afford it and they showed me how much money they had (a little pocket change)

I went to bed that night and cried myself to sleep, thinking that soon we'd be poor and living in the streets becuase we had no more money. It never occured to me that my dad going to work meant we'd get more.

When I was little I once saw the word "stripper" and asked my babysitter what it meant--she said that it was a woman who takes off all her clothes layer by layer, and for the longest time I imagined that strippers wore bulky winter clothing with lots of layers for their routines.

When i was 5 or 6 me and my dad used to go to work together. One thing that constantly atracted my attention was my dad telling his clients that he would give them ring(call them on the telephone). I heard this atleast 20 times a day which lead me to believe that he gave lots rings away so i set out on a journey to find the rings...

I once believed that work is where adults went to play, like i did in kindergarden. But they didn`t seem to have as much fun as we did. I remember thinking it wasn`t fair that they got paid to play while i was doing it for free.

My mum is a sociologist and it took me a long time to work out exactly what she did for a living. When I was three we went for a holiday on a farm. One morning at the farm I ran off and hid. My mum called me from the yard and said "Where are you?". A little voice said back "I'm in the henhouse". My mum then said "what are you doing in the henhouse?" and I replied "sociology"!!

My father used to tell me when I was little, that his co-worker needed a stopsign on his street. He used to tell me that when I grew up, he would dress me in red and make me be the stopsign. I was very upset by all of this, so the next day my father came home and told me that another litlte girl was the stopsign and that I didn't have to. I then got jealous and demanded to see the little girl who STOLE my job.

When i was little 4 or 5 i used to believe that to be a fire man u had to be a man so when my friend sarah said she wanted to be a fire man i was disscusted that she wanted to be a man and stoped talking to her.....she's still a woman lol

When I was little, I owned a Cinderella book in which Cinderella was referred to as a "maid." I asked my mom about that, and she said that "maid" was a shortened way to say "maiden." So, the next time we went on vacation, I referred to the woman who cleaned the hotel room as a maiden.

I remember being around 5 years old and being put to bed in the early evening. As I lay in bed, I would hear airplanes flying over our house and sooner or later hear my dad come through the front door. I thought the planes dropped him off at our house after work.
Also, my Dad was an electrical engineer. I thought he drove a train and wore a striped hat since he was an "engineer."

When I was under five, I used to think that there were people who were squished btween the ceiling and the roof of dept stores, like Sears, and their job was to give all the announcements through the speakers in the ceiling. I pictured them laying down in the dark, yelling through those speakers, like "Clean-up in aisle seven.."