neighbourhood: excursions

I used to believe…

We used to go out to eat a lot when I was younger. When we were finished with our meal and the server brought the check, my parents would start searching for their wallets. When they couldn't find them they would tell us we would have to do dishes in the restaurant's kitchen to "pay" for the meal that way. I remember we got so scared that we would have to do everyone else's yucky dishes! But every time, they "miraculously" found their money just in time. WHEW! I think I was well into my teens before I knew they were joking with us. And now that I'm a server, I love to play this little game with some of the kids at my tables.

I used to believe…

My dad used to tell me that, at restaurants, a big burly man with a tatoo on his arm was swirling a huge vat of food in the kitchen. When I asked how the food came out, he said they would stick in a plate and out would pop exactly what you ordered. I believed him until I was about 12. I should have known better, because I watched my parents cook my food for me all the time and they didn't have a huge vat of goo.

I live in a neighborhood called Queen Anne and when I was younger and I used to take walks with my parents I would stop at every single house to try to see if I could see the Queen through the window.

I used to believe…

my dad was a member of the lions club (a community servive group) and whenever he went to a meeting i thought him and a bunch of other dads were all in a big circus style ring with whips training lions. i told lots of other kids because i thought he was very brave.

I used to believe…

when i was young i once took a trip to disneyworld with my family. when we went on "its a small word" i thought that the singing was the people on the boat singing. i sat next to my dad, who always sings along to everything, so hearing him sing along comfirmed my belief. i though i would get in trouble if i didnt sing so i tried my best, but really messed it up cuz i didnt know the words. i seriously thought the secerity was going to come after me.

I used to believe…

When I was a kid I cried every time my mother said she was taking us to Applebees because I thought that all their food was made from apples and I didnt want to eat there.

I used to believe…

Once I went to to the circus to see a gigantic (about 4 metres) mechanical King Kong it really scared me, (as I have watched the movie before) so up until I was 7, I used to believe that the exhibition antiaerial guns outside the ministry of defense were to shot down King Kong, in case he ever cut loose from the circus.

I used to believe…

My mother was under the belief for ages that if you went into Arcades by the sea or whatever, there were big men in there who would inject you with heroin, and you would become an addict. What a nice thing to be told by your mother...

I used to believe…

My dad and I used to go to the library. On the side of the library was a big yellow sign that said "Fallout Shelter." I asked my dad what that was, and he said it was a place to go in case there was a bomb. I remember being really worried because I knew I could fit behind that little sign, but I didn't think my dad could.

Later it morphed into the idea that there was a tunnel leading from the shelter to the street that came out right behind the sign, and the sign was about 15 feet above the ground, so when you left the shelter you would just 'fall out.'

I used to believe…

In some restaurants, the waiter takes your order, puts his piece of paper in a little lift and it goes up or down to the kitchen where they cook it and then put it in the same lift for the waiter to take out and bring to you. I used to think the lift read what was on that piece of paper and, as if by magic, turned it into the food you had ordered.

I used to believe…

When I was three and went to Sea World for the first time, I wasn't going to see Baby Shamu. I was going to see "Baby Shampoo!"

I used to think that if you went to the end of a road marked "Dead End", somebody would try to kill you.

I used to believe that plays were totally improv, and that people from random places around the room could just run on stage at any given time and take part.

I used to believe…

When I was little, I believed mannequins came to life at night. Watching Mannequin and visiting a Madame Tussauds museum were both horrifying experiences for me.

I used to believe…

To leave the town in which I grew up you could drive through a tunnel that crossed beneath an estuary, and then came out in the adjacent town. During one of my earliest memories of going through that tunnel, my dad was driving, and as we reached the halfway mark through the tunnel he said, "We're driving under water right now." I thought it was amazing that we didn't have to hold our breath! Also, I remember that there were maintenance doors in the sides of the tunnel, and I imagined that if you opened one of those doors you would see an underwater scene with fish swimming by. Somehow in my imagination, the water didn't just come rushing in through the door and flooding the tunnel.

I used to believe…

As a preteen, I believed that a strip club was where patrons actually stripped naked and pole danced themselves, rather than merely watching professional strippers do so.