the law

I knew that Scotland Yard was something to do with the police, but I couldn't figure out why the Scottish always had to solve crimes, no matter where in Britain they occurred.

I remember taking a tour of a police station and discovering they had a machine called a lie detector. this meant that any statement you could make it could tell you true or false whether or not you knew the answer. or anybody did.

When I was 4 or 5, everytime a TV would broadcast an EAS test, my brother would tell me it was an FBI alert and that a killer had escaped and was coming after me!

When I was 4 or 5, my older brother and I were playing out on our front lawn when a man drove up and asked us, "Is this Ellington Drive?" It was, so I told him "Yes." Later, my brother imformed me that it was illegal to talk to strangers. For months I lived in fear of policemen coming to arrest me for talking to that man.

Once my sis was using the computer, and got an illegal operation error. Me wanting to use the computer, I told her that she should get off, as if it happened again the police would come and arrest her.

I used to think that when someone was read the "Riot Act" that a policeman would pull a little card out of his pocket and read it to the bad person, like a Miranda warning.

I use to believe that cops were hiding behind every tree and bush. I would walk home from school, trying to get look behind the trees without them noticing me. I had thought since I never actually saw them, they were just really good hiders.

when I was little I asked my mum where robbers and other people in jail came from. Mum said that they weren't people like her and I, that they came from frog spawn. I spent years believing that the tadpoles I collected could turn into nasty people!

I shared a bedroom with my sister and the water tank was in the loft above and it would make shushing noises and I never knew what it was but I thought there were burglars outside our bedroom door whispering shush to each other.

when i was little, i believed that there was a theft living permanently in our garage. i was always the first person awake in the morning and i would go eat breakfast or watch cartoons all alone while my parents were still sleeping upstairs. and i had that funny rule that if i lighted an odd number of lights, the theft couldn't get out but if i lighted an even number by mistake, he would come out of the garage and kill me.

even now, when i go in the garage, once my business there is done, when i close the light, i immediatly close the door and run upstairs.

i used to believe either the firemen or the policemen had been responsible for my great-grandfather's death. he died of natural causes.

my mum told me she had heard an interview with santa on the radio where he had admitted that he didnt come down peoples chimneys at all but in fact visited every police station in the land to collect skeleton keys which would enable him access to every home in the land in order to leave all good boys and girls their appropriate presents.
this information meant i willingly suspended disbelief for an extra couple of years
also ended up quite traumatised when i moved out into my own home , thinking the police could get the keys back off santa and gain access any time they wanted

I remember hearing my parents talking about people "doing drugs". So, I thought drugs was just one thing. I imagined people walking around drinking out of containers labeled "drugs".

Back when I was growing up, it used to get a LOT colder during the winter, and thus my mother would go out and start the car and let it warm up for 10-15 minutes. I asked her why no-one stole the car during the winter. Her response - thieves don't steal cars during the winter. For years I was convinced that car thieves took the winter off.

One year I found a kiddy tool kit under the Christmas tree, in it was a hacksaw (mistake). I set to work that day and eventually cut the back fence in half, we lived in a large property so my parents didn't realise. The same night there was a big police chase that ended in our street, I believed that the ten police cars were coming for me due to the fence shenanigans and not the armed robbers who had shot a cop. I quickly fessed up to my parents since I didn't want to go to jail, I escaped a criminal record but had my new hacksaw confiscated.

I used to believe that TV show ratings were actually law. Once I accidentally started watching an 'adults only' movie but turned it off after about five minutes, I spent the rest of the day worrying that the police were after me since I wasn't an adult.