neighbourhood

Back when I was very young, my parents dragged me out someplace and told me they were taking me bowling. I raised holy hell, and finally they got so fed up with me that they brought me home and punished me for ruining their outing. When I was that young, the only place I had seen bowling was on television, so I assumed that if I was going bowling, I'd be on TV.

I was a very shy (and stupid) kid

When I was young, I used to really want a "lion chop" from the butcher, because I reckoned it would be cool to eat a lion. My mother used to look at me like an idiot whenever I asked her to get me one when she went to the butcher. It was only later when I was about 8 I read the sign properly and saw it actually said "loin chop". D'oh!

In Sydney, Australia, when I was about 4 or 5, whenever any road construction works started, the workers would always put a sign up a few hundred metres in front of the area to warn people which said "NEW WORK AHEAD". I'd just learned to read and always thought the sign read "NEW YORK AHEAD". Hence, I was very excited whenever I saw this sign because I'd be getting to see the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building etc, because I knew about New York from televesion. Of course I never got to see any of these things. I'd always think it was because my mother had turned off before the road to New York and comforted myself with a "maybe next time".

I used to believe that a boy in my class called Naieem lived in a Scip

Some of my friends and I in kindergarten during recess found a photo of a couple naked people. We found the photo near a drain in the ground, so somehow we concluded that there was a place underground where a bunch of naked people lived.

When I was a little girl, my family went out to dinner at Lyon's. My brothers told me that if I ordered the wrong thing, a lion would come out and eat me. I still remember my terrified little voice asking the waiter if "it's okay to have chicken strips."

My brothers were jerks.

When I was about 7 or 8 my mother took me and my brother to a card shop. On the counter was a fish tank full of water with a bubling water filter inside.

It was suspiciously absent of fish. I am not sure, but I think I asked my mom why there were no fish.

In front of the cashier she told me there were fish in the tank, they were just invisible and that they would appear when the moonlight shined on the tank at midnight. The cashier seemed to happily confirm this fact.

I stared at the tank to see if I could see any movement, but it was difficult with the bubles bubbling from the filter. My imagination would conjure up visions of moon light streaking in from front of the store while it was dark and the store was empty and the fish suddenly appearing.

I thought this true for years until I was a teenager. My mom liked to tell me things like this.

My Mum and Dad used to tell me that the ice cream man was really "vinnie Green the naughty children collector" and if we saw him coming or heard his ringing bells you had to run away before he caught you and took you away to france to eat frogs legs

I used to believe that the street lights around the country were all operated on one switch, and that when dusk came, Princess Diana would flick the switch and make all the street lights come on.

When I was younger, probably to young to go into the drugstore by myself even in our small town, My mother would often charge her medicine. She would drop me off at the door, I guess the drugist knew what I wanted because something had been called in, and tell me to charge it. I would often get charge and cash mixed up. So when he said will this be cash or charge, I would say cash, and then we both would just stand and wait, he waited for cash and I waited for him to say O.K. or thank you so I would feel as if I could leave. I would say charge to myself all the way in to the store but once he said, cash or charge, the confusion set in.

When I was a kid, my Dad convinced me that when the ice cream van plays music, it means that they've run out of ice cream

I used to see dead animals on the side of the road that were obviously dead-hit by a vehicle. In the infinited wisdom of my parents they told me, to keep the tears from flowing all day, that the animals were just sleeping on the side of the road. Until about the age of five I kept wondering why my parents would never stop and catch one of these sleeping pets so that I could have them as a pet.

Not necessarily my own, but I used to tell my little sis that when the icecream man played his tune it was cos he had run out of icecream, worked for a while...

When I was about five or six, my dad brought me along with him to go to work and on the way we crossed this parade where there were a bunch of bears giving out candy, and apparently I was REALLY fascinated. So about a week after, I asked my dad if we could go see the bears again, because I thought it was perfectly normal to see blue and green bears dancing around in the streets on your way to work.

I used to believe that water towers were giant metal spiders. Don't ask.

My half-brother (who is much older than me) told me, when we went to McDonald's, that the red light on the ventilation shaft was a camera and that if I didn't finish my Happy Meal before I played with the toy someone would come out and get me.