neighbourhood

When my mom took my sister and me to the mall, I would stay clear away from the fountain that was by the food court. My sister had told me that if I got too close and didn't throw money in, the troll that lived in there would get me. I was always scared for those people who sat by the edge of the water and didn't do anything. It seemed like a death wish to me.

At my preschool, we used to go to the local pool every friday. It was a small school, only about ten kids... anyways. We thought boys had some weird disease, and that if they touched us, we'd turn into boys. At the pool, they'd always be on one side, we'd be on the other... we decided to have a 'war'. The boys splashed water on us. I convinced every girl there that if we put our arms out and spin fast enough in the water, we'd create water tornadoes that would wipe them out.
Everyone believed me, but we just spun around there looking like little morons!

When I was a child, my family often donated old furniture and appliances to the Salvation Army, who would come in a truck to pick up such things. I thoguht they were called the Salvation Army because they salvaged old items like the ones we donated.

When I was a kid our house was on a dirt road, with the main paved road just two houses down. My mom always told me I shouldn't go on the pavement with my bike because I might be hit by a car, but I didn't hear "pavement". I heard "pregnant". So I went around the neighborhood telling all the kids they couldn't go on that road because it was pregnant. The laughter still rings in my ears....

my mum used to tell me that whenever the Ice cream truck came along, if it was playing a song it meant they were out of ice cream! I believed this until I was 12!

When I was little, I asked my parents what the little conical-like object on the top of streetlights were. Not knowing they were light detectors, they said it was a seagull's refrigerator, seeing as there are many seagulls where I live, and that they need SOMEWHERE to store their food away from others....
O.o
I fell for it until I got older, and found out what it really was...

I was well into my early 20's before I had an epiphany moment and realised there is no such thing as a musical bus. My parents had instilled in me the belief (from day one) that only adults could tell the difference between icecream vans and musical buses. I used to sprint into the house for confirmation, invariably disappointed as they cocked an ear to the distant chimes...

Thanks to Willy Wonka, i thought that if i went to the very top floor in an elevator i would crash right through the roof, and i wouldnt be as lucky to be unharmed.

I used to believe that the steam rising from sewers during the cold winter months was caused by dragons playing poker and smoking cigars while doing so. Why? My brother told me this was the case when I asked about the "smoke". He later caught me staring down into a sewer grate on our block trying to spot the reptilian gamblers puffing away.

There were two red lights on radio towers, one on the top and one halfway down. I used to believe that they were giant cars driving on their sides and I was seeing there brake lights.

While walking down the streets of Chicago, my mom always made sure we avoided the grates. I asked her why and she said that I would fall in if I walked on top of them. It was really because she didn't want to get her high heels stuck. I still avoid them for some reason.

OK, this isn't a belief, but my brother told me he saw a store with a big sign tht said "Tobacco Pizza" and next to it was a sign that said "Out of Buisness".......

I used to believe that getting the right bus to town was pure luck. I had no idea that which side of the street you were standing on decided whether or not the bus went to "town" or to "Plymouth". I thought my mom was soooo adventurous.

When I was little, my grandmother babysat me during the day while my parents worked. She warned me never to stand in the driveway while I was playing in her front yard because cars used the driveway to turn around and she didn't want me getting run over. I took this to mean that if I made any contact with the driveway at all, a car would zoom in (because cars could "sense" when people were in driveways) and run over me. Sometimes I would feel brave and try to test her theory, so I would stand next to the driveway and carefully stick my toe out far enough so that it touched the cement. Nothing happened. So I would step further into the driveway each time until eventually I was actually standing in it. Still nothing happened, and I remember being disappointed because that wasn't very dangerous and here I thought I was being so brave!

my neighbor, bill, is a very scary middle-aged man. my brother and i used to think that he would sick his insane cat on us if we ever went in his yard to pick up a ball or something.

to this day, i don't deny he would.

When I was little me and my sister were told a story to keep us from going outside without our parents knowing. They called this guy the Sack man. He was actually some old guy that carried around a sack and went around picking up cans and garbage. He supposedly put any kids he found inside in that sack and they would dissapear instantly. So we would sit at the window and watch him go by our house picking up cans and stuff in the road, and soon as the coast was clear we'd go outside. To this day I still see him sometimes and I always think of him as the Sack man

Being little and trying to entertain me constantly, my parents took me to the local movie theater alot. Inside, the walls had poofy curtain-like things on them. I had always thought that lions in cages were behind them ready to eat me if I talked during the movie. I was fairly imaginative as a kid.