going shopping

I used to think Hooters was a donut shop.

Kat

when i was younger my aunt, my grandma (who i called momo) and my mother all told me that the manakins in the stores would bite me if i touched them. needless to say, they didn't, but i still cringe when i see them. i happen to have a very vivid imagination, and i can just imaging one jumping out at me!

Adrianna

When I was little, I would sometimes wait for my mom in the car while she ran into the store or finished her shopping. I used to believe that if I sat perfectly still when someone walked by, they would think I was a statue and not kidnapp me. Sometimes it occured to me that I might not pull it off because I was wearing a seatbelt and clothes but overall I thought it worked well. I believed this until I was about 10.

Shar

My dad once told me that the litte greasy spots on the pavement of parking lots were little kids that let go of their parents hand when walking into a store. I believed that until I was about 8.

Jess

When I was a boy, I used to live in the bottom of a bowl shaped area in a small farming village in upsate new york. I used to believe that Indians were standing at the top of the hill like in some bad western, and every time I had to get groceries, I would run into the house from what I knew was going to be the next Custer's Last Stand.

keith

when i was little, my mother would put me in the shopping cart. when we went to pay, she told me i'd have to get off, or she'd have to pay for me.

kim

When I was a kid my mother made me hold on to the shopping cart as she pushed it along, so I would not wander off. This was so ingrained that to this very day (I am now 38) I still hold on to the cart when my wife and I are shopping. I am not even aware that I am doing it, and when I catch myself it always makes me laugh.

Charlie

I used to belive that there was a magic underground room underneath the fotomat where little "fotomat gnomes" developed your pictures!

Anon

I used to sit on the bus and see the big supermarket 'Safeway', I believed it was a place where people could feel safe.

Lisa-Dionne

When I was younger me and my mother used to go shopping a lot. She tells me that I used to talk to the manequins believing that even though they didn't move that they were still looking at me. I used to have full blown conversations with them.

ELM New Jersey

'Black Friday', the traditional first shopping day of the christmas season in the US is so named, I now know, due to the fact that the immense revenues gained by stores therein, put them often 'in the black'. That is, operating at a profit. However when I was little I seriously used to believe that on Black Friday, only Black people were allowed out on the streets.

Anon

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.

Ribbon

When i was a little girl, I believed in a lot of things.
When i went with my mother to the supermarket we took a trolley and she put all the things that she needed in her bag.Then we went back home.
I didn t know she had paid a lot of money, I thought it was free.

farida

When I was a little kid, the basics of commercial transactions was explained to me as 'you buy things that are for sale.' unfortunately, due to exposure to mass media, i quickly got it confused with 'on sale,' as in a cheaper price. Needless to say, I was an unintentionally thrify (and sometimes disappointed) shopper whenever I went to a store with my mom and always asked the clerk, "Is this on sale?"

Anon

As a child, a place like the grocery store can seem enormous! I grew up in the 60's-70's. During that time there were a lot of colorful and unique characters regularly used as spokespersons in comercials for products. You probably recognize many of these: Madge (Palmolive dishwashing liquid "You're soaking in it."), Mr. Whipple ("Don't squeeze the Charmin!"), Jolly Green Giant (Ho Ho Ho!", Mr. Bubble, Kool-Aid Pitcher, Honey Bear (Golden Sugar Crisp cereal)...and lots more...There were hundreds of them! And I believed that somehow they magically resided somewhere in the grocery store. So, for that reason, I really didn't mind going shopping with my mom. Well, that and I could help pick-out the snacks!

Rich G.