neighbourhood: going shopping

I used to believe that if something wasn't "on sale" at the store, that it wasn't for sale. When we'd go to the grocery store and I'd ask for something, mom would say, "No...it's not on sale." I thought the store wouldn't let you buy it if it wasn't on sale.

Thanks to my parents, I believed that the only way you could open one of those Automatic Sliding Doors (the kinds at Stores) was by smiling really big.
I'm sure the camera people thought I was nuts!

When I was little, going to the grocery store with my parents was an adventure. At the end of the first isle was the dreaded produce section. My dad liked to pick up a coconut and tell me it was a monkey head. The three dots at the end were the eyes and mouth of the monkey. He would wave the "monkey head" at me and make me scream until my mom told him to cut it out. When I grew up and realized it was NOT a monkey head, I turned around and did the same thing to my little sister. LOL

When I was little I had the worst fear of being locked in a store. When the lady came on the intercom saying the store would close in 10 minutes, I started panicking. I thought I would have to spend the night in the store. There was more than one occasion when I would start bawling when my mom wouldn't leave right away. 0.o I practically dragged her out of the store everytime.

I used to believe that if you weren't wearing rubber soled shoes when you rode on an escalator, you would be sucked into it unless you jumped before you reached the last step. ( My Grandmother used to tell me this!)

When I was little I thought that cabbage patch kids came out of cabbages in the grocery store . I would really upset me when my mom wouldn't let me stop to look in the cabbages.

I used to believe that the dark spots on the pavement of grocery store parking lots were left from children that had been run over because they weren't holding their mom's hand.

When we first got married, I told my wife (a native of Thailand) that athey sold garages at garage sales. Since we had a garage, we didn't need to stop. I never thought any more of it until she smacked me after one of her friends asked her if she would like to go shopping at some garage sales. Apparently she believed my story. Now if I can convince her about yard sales.

My parents are a big supporter of The Salvation Army charity and would talk about it a lot when I was little. And I remember my Dad saying he was going to take some old clothes to the Salvation Army store and I BEGGED to go with him and when we got there and I saw all the old clothes and furniture and stuff I started crying and asked my dad "Where are all the guns?" You know, cause it was the Salvation ARMY - I was picturing guns and bombs and soldiers marching. Until my dad explained it to me that day I never understood why my parents were supporting an army.

I used to believe handicapped parking spaces were spaces for people to park thier wheelchairs. My Mom always called them "wheelchair spaces" for some reason, and so I didin't understand that they were for cars. We must not have had many disabled people in our town, becuase it was rare to see the spot being used. I always hoped to see a wheelchair parked in its special place. I believed this for a long time!!!!

I used to believe that strip malls were bad because I thought you had to strip off your clothes to go there. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to shop naked.

The first time I heard of a store being "out of" an item, I was very surprised. I had previously thought of stores as magical places able to create an unfailing supply of whatever things they sold.

i used to believe that when i heard of a flea market, i thought they used to sell fleas at the super market.
and when i saw a garage sale i thought they were selling their garage.

when i was little, my parents would take me to the store and leave me in the car till they got back, and i used to beleive that when they didnt comeback after a while that they were being held hostage, and that everyone outside that had baggy clothes on was in a gang and after me.

When I was probably about four years old, I was at this home-improvement shop with my parents. The shop had rolls of colored chains there, like the kind that you hang a swing or a bird feeder with or chain a door closed or something. But I didn't know what they were for, and I asked my mum and she told me that they were used to hang naughty children from the ceiling by their feet and let them hang there forever. I actually believed this for years and years until my dad bought similar chains and used them to hang a swing in the back yard. All that worrying for nothing!

when i was 5 my cousin told me that shop dummys were people who were evil and got thier arms cut off and were covered in plastic in a factory in china. he also said they came to life at night and thats why they sometimes had on clothes on. then i realized they were hollow.:)

When I was a kid I used to believe the "Help Wanted" signs up in store fronts were really a political statement in direct opposition to "Wanted: Dead or Alive" type posters.