neighbourhood: going shopping

When I was little, I used to be petrified of mannequins. I don't know why, but I have distinct memories of going through department stores with my mother and screaming bloody murder whenever we passed mannequins. I thought that they were real people who were paid to stand really still and grab children who were really bad in the department store and take them away from their parents.

I used to believe that the black market was a maket that used to take place under real market stools with black cloths where they sold dead rats! (I think this strange idea from when i learnt about the plague- but still very random seeing as that doesn't have anything to do with the plague!!!)

It's simple: I thought Dollar Tree was a casino.
So, from a young age I was told gambling was a bad idea, and from the age I was, I thought that the name Dollar Tree referred to all the money you could earn. I later learned it was a dollar store.

I thought the "We Card" logo in the window for businesses that sell tobacco (meaning they'll ask for your ID card) meant there was some kind of identification program called a "We Card", not yet recognizing that card can be a verb.

When my brother and I were about 5 and 7 years old, we were stuck in a traffic jam near a retail park where there was a branch of B&Q. I decided to tell my gullible younger brother that B&Q stood for "Be Queen". He believed it until he was about 8 years old!

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.

Elevatiors were run by very strong, yet very short people. I used to throw change and small pieces of candy down the crack for them. They couldn't get paid enough and I figured they were hungry.

I dropped a new book down the crack by accident, and tried to convince my mom that the 'elevator men' would give it back to me if we asked them. She wouldn't listen and continued shopping.

She found me some time later after a department store employee rescued me from getting my head smashed between the elevator doors. I tried all the elevators to make the men hear me.

After that I tried to spit on the men, but I quickly gave up when I reaslized the danger of angering them.

When i was 7 my Mum would stop the car to go into the Royal Bank of Scotland. Even though I knew I was in Bolton, England I thought that the branch must be in Scotland. I never resolved that problem until I realised the truth.

When I was little, a white milk truck used to come once a week to deliver milk. Very rarely when I would wake up and walk outside I would see sitting alongside the milk a gallon of chocolate milk. My mom only occasionally ordered it, and somehow I just never happened to see them deliver it on those days. I remember standing on the porch on some days watching the UPS truck going by...and screaming at the top of my lungs "MOM!!! Please get chocolate milk!!!!!"
It's dark brown.....I thought it was the chocolate milk truck.

When I was very small, my brother and sister (both older) used to tell me that I was ordered out of a "Montgomery Ward" department store catalog. If I misbehaved or pissed off Mom too much, she would simply return me for a better model.

i used to believe that a sign in a cafe bone-fide meal meant meat with a bone in it

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?"

one of my classmates(in 2nd standard) once convinced me that there was a store tht sold the spiderman costume with the liquid for the webs. They just drilled a hole in the wrists and poured in the liquid. the button of the palm was always there when u wanted to have a go.

I grew up on the East Coast of the U.S., where there was a chain of Thom McAn shoe stores. Whenever my parents took me there to get shoes, I always asked when Thom was going to come out and try shoes on me! I waited and waited, but he never did...

when I was little, I thought that in the stores after closing, the maniquies summoned up life and took a walk by the mall

this was not mine but my mom's belief when she was small.she we were riding to the mall one time and we passed a flea market.she told me that she use to think they sold fleas when she was small.i guess she never went into one. lol