neighbourhood

when i was little i was really smartmouthed, i still am really. my sister and my cousin would always tell me that my mom was going to take me to kids r us because they all the really bad kids in cages in the back of the store. when i was bad they would say "oh get ready moms taking you to kids r us!" and every time we passed that store i would scream and cry "dont take me there! no! ill be good i swear!" i was afraid to go to kids r us until i was 10.

My parents told me that when the ice cream van played its loud music it meant that it had ran out of ice cream.

I only allowed to play in my street when I was a kid and some older kids from further down the road told me that if you left the street and turned left you got to Disneyland. One day they all went off to Disneyland AKA the play park around the corner and I wasn't allowed to go. For ages I thought that my mum was really mean for not letting me go to Disneyland.

I used to believe that when the ice-cream van came round playing a tune, that meant they were actually all out of ice-cream! Think my mum must have told me that to save a few pennies!!!

My family was really poor, so growing up my parents told me the ice cream man was the music truck who brought lovely tunes to all the children. Every time the ice cream truck went by my mom would yell "The music man, lets go out and listen with all the other children"

They probably saved so much money.

I used to believe (thanks to my older brother Joe) that if you hit the red button in the meat department at the grocery store, the butcher would come out and chop your hand off.

I used to believe that the real (and only) name of Ethan Allen, the upscale furniture store, was The Look-Don't Touch Store, because whenever we went, that's what my parents called it.

Growing up, we didn't have much money so my mother was always telling us different reasons why we couldn't go to various places. When a 7-11 convenience store opened near us, we wanted to go but she told us you could only go if you were 7 or 11. I believed this until I was 10 years old, when my aunt stopped there for gas and started to take me inside with her. When I explained why we couldn't go inside, she explained my mother's reason for the lie.

When I was little, I used to think that there were tiny, midget policemen in swivel-chairs that operated the switches inside of traffic lights, and I thought it must be hard to find people that were both small enough and that wanted to be a cop.

When I was little we'd often drive past this "Adult Bookstore" in our town. I loved to read so I remember begging my parents to take me to that "bookstore." I couldn't understand why we couldn't go there!

When I was little I used to think the Salvation Army was a real army (like the U.S. Army) and all the stores (I had never been inside one) were like PX's
for civilians. I have no idea why I thought this since neither of my parents were in the military.

i always thought the "caution children playing" signs in our city's neighborhoods meant that the CHILDREN were very cautious about playing there. i always figured there was something bad about the neighborhood if the children were so cautious.

i thought batman lived on the top of the giant store and i believed that batman only drank coffee and ate kids who were up there

When I was little and about to fall asleep and the windows of my bedroom were open I would hear the "end of the day" noise. I believed this was just a sound the world made when the sun had set or almost set and it was time to go to bed because I heard it every night. Much later I realized it was the sound of trucks and cars passing on a highway not far from our house.

We used to pass a building that said "Auto Body/Paint." I thought it referred to body paint, and that hippies would go through there like a car wash and get designs spray-painted on themselves. I have no idea how I found out about either hippies or body paint as a grade schooler.

When I was maybe eight, I remember my parents driving through the sleazier part of our town (the bar district), and I saw lots of signs advertising "NO COVER CHARGE FOR LADIES". I thought this meant that if women didn't wear a shirt, they could go in the bar for free. Wow, did I have a lot to learn!