the law

There's this coffee house in Knoxville, Tennessee that I've gone to with my mother since I was little. It had a huge deck out back, and there was another little part down some steps. I remember some Gothic girls telling me that there were "bad people" under the stairs, so don't go under them.

I feared the space under the stairs, and avoided that part completely. Even now, I'm still a bit hesitant to walk near there.

When I was around seven, one of my friends was goofing off during Crafts and managed to hit me smack on the upper lip with a gob of glue. I burst into tears and told her I was going to die, because she had made me sniff glue.

When I was little and we would watch America's Most Wanted they said most of the people could be found in Florida, where I live and I thought that the murderer's were outside the window watching and would kill us for watching the show and trying to catch them. It terrified me!

When I was seven I tried to make a movie play on a TV at the store. The TV went off and made a loud noise and I ran away because I thought I was in trouble. A lot of store workers came to check out the TV. I thought they caught me on camera or something so the next day when I went to the pool and saw a police officer I thought he was looking for me. I went over bawling my eyes out and told him the whole thing. (oopse!!!)

I belived that cerial killers were people who put poison in your cereal

I used to believe that suicide was a crime you could go to jail for because people would say "They commited suicide" like commiting a crime. I'm pretty sure I thought it was a combination of murder and robbery.

My friend's kids used to come into the room, holding their little fingers like a gun and yell, "Hands in the air, you're under duress!!" Or alternatively, "You're under the rest!" We still say this to them, thought as high schoolers they know that it is Under Arrest.

I used to believe that the Highway Patrol was called the Highway Control.

My parents always told me to behave when there was a policeman around and for a couple of years I was under the impression that if you just spoke to a policeman you were instantly sent to jail. You can imagine my terror when my father was pulled over for not wearing his seatbelt...

When I was little, I often forgot to buckle my seatbelt. My parents constantly reminded me, stating that police officers can see everything. This lead me to think that they all had x-ray vision, and many times I tried to wave at them through the car door, to see if they would be able to see through it.

When I was little, everyone around me said "Don't wave at a police car, fire truck or ambulance because then the drivers would think you were in trouble and needed them." Well, I often saw those vehicles on the road and when I did, I'd just stare at the workers in the car with a determined look on my face, probably scaring them. They'd wave at me out of politeness (because I was about 4) and i felt bad because I couldn't wave back! The one time I accidently waved at a cop car, a different one sounded it's sirens and sped past my mom's car. I thought to myself "Whew, lucky someone else waved at the same time as me!"

one day i overheard a conversation between my mum and dad about my uncle and how he used to be a drug dealer, at school the next day i told all my friends and my teacher that my uncle was a drug dealer because I thought a drug dealer was someone who "dealt" to the norty men who done drugs little did i know that he was the norty man.... opps

When I was about eight years old, I heard something on the news about money laundering. I thought that money laundering meant that you'd accidentally left some money in your pockets when you did your laundry, and I couldn't see why it was such a big deal... but I made sure my pockets were empty whenever I put something in the laundry, because I did not want to go to prison for money laundering.

When I was 4 i broke a window by throwing a stone, and my mates told me the police would come after me. For the next 4 years I was hiding whenever I saw a policeman.

My mother left me in the car while she quickly went into a store. I noticed posted on the shop-window "Help Wanted". I immediately became terrified for my life, figuring they needed help to find a wanted criminal in the area.

when i was about 4 or 5, i first heard of "kids jail" (juvenile hall). i don't remember how i learned about it or who told me about it, but up till i was about 8, i thought it was a place where there were lots of toys and you got to go and get as many toys as you wanted. needless to say, when i learned what "kids jail" really was, i felt very stupid.