I used to firmly believe that there was an opposite to everything. The opposite of a carrot was a pea, just as the opposite of a boy was a girl. I got quite annoyed when my dad, who, after all, was a scientist, wouldn't help me classify some of the ground rules to this world of mine.
I used to believe…
Me and my sis who is two years younger then me used to try to make ways to fly like putting blankets on our tricycles handle bars. Once I got this great Idea that I would take a box and tape feathers to it and slide down the slide and go flying. At the last minute I got concerned about safety. I decieded I had better tie a rope to the top of the slide so I wouldn't crash land. believe it or not the rope held good the problem was it was only half the lenth of the slide so I "Crash Landed" without my box. I got some bruises from that one.
I used to believe…
My mother told me that ceiling fans where used to hold up the ceiling. Being a somewhat smart kid at five years old I knew how propellers worked so this seemed possible to me. (but what happens if someone turns them off by accident?)
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I used to believe you could parachute with a bin bag. I realised my painful mistake upon landing but tried again anyway... a few times, just to make sure.
I grew up hearing a lot about the atom bomb, and, having just heard about atoms in school, I thought that these incredibly powerful bombs were, well, the size of a single atom. When my father told me that atoms were always dropping off of me I was wondering how there weren't explosions everywhere.
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I could NOT understand why, if a pen worked on paper, it couldn't also write in thin air.
I used to believe that if I was quick enough, I could beat my shadow. I often used to try to hit my table faster than the shadow, sometimes pretending that I wasn't watching it, just to trick it. I never did beat it though...
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I used to believe…
When I was in 6th grade I told a classmate that if reflections and shadows didn't exist that we would fall through the floor. And he believed me!
I used to believe…
My sisters once told me that the Laws of Gravity are all relative, and that the only reason they work is because we are so convinced that they are true. So basically, if you forget about gravity, then you'll float/fly. They told me that to do this you have to trip and become so distracted that you forget all about the falling, the fact that the ground is coming up very quickly, and the fact that its going to hurt.
I decided to test this theory and went to the living room (which is a carpeted floor) and got my sister to throw pillows at me as I tripped. This was so I could become distracted and forget to fall. It didnt work and I became very distressed and finally gave up.
I still believed that I could fly if I was properly disctacted until my Dad, several months later, told me that they had made it up to make me do something stupid so that they could video tape it...
I used to believe…
When I was little, my parents had a neon sculpture that lit our dining room. They told me that if I touched it, I would get electrocuted.
Fast forward 20 years...
I'm on a first date with my future husband, and we're seated next to a neon beer sign. He reaches out to touch it, and I say, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IF YOU TOUCH THAT, YOU'RE GOING TO GET ELECTROCUTED!"
He just laughed and told me it was fine as long as he didn't touch one of the joints between the neon tubes. I felt pretty dumb.
i used to think that if i were to accidentally run off a clif that i wouldnt ever fall because i wouldnt be stupid like the cartoon characters and look down realizing i wasnt on the ground and then fall.
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I used to believe…
My grandfather told me that when he was little, he thought that if you stood on an electric cord, it would block the flow of electricity.
I thought the speed of light was different for fluorescent light since the fluorescent light in our kitchen would take longer to turn on than the incandescent light in our dining room.
I thought that the word "radioactive" meant if you turned on a radio near the thing in question, it would blow up (the radioactive thing, not the radio itself).
I couldn't understand why after putting a piece of coal next to a hot furnace wouldn't turn it into a diamond. Forgot it also needed pressure.
I used to believe that people turned off the plug sockets to stop the electricity escaping and electrocuting people.
I believed this until I experimented by waving my hand in front of a plug socket that was on end experienced none of the effects of electrocution.
I used to beleive that if you had a big enough magnet, you could reverse the rotation of the Earth and time would go backwards.
I used to believe that the world spun so fast that cars didn't move. Instead it was the rotation of the Earth that was causing roads to move underneath the tires of the cars.
I used to believe…
While sitting on the shore of a small lake in the path of the local airport, my sister asked why the waves appeared every time a plane flew overhead? I replied "sonic waves of course." She said that's what I thought.
I used to believe…
As black is the opposite of white, I used to believe that blue was the opposite of red. Also, bannanas were the opposite of apples, and giraffes the opposite of elephants. It's not such a bad analogy, when you think about it.