the law: criminals

My younger brother used to beleive that superheros and super villians were real. When I told him that they were made up characters, he thought that ALL criminals were pretend. He thought that everyone in the world was nice, and there was no such thing as jail or criminals, just in stories and on tv and movies.

i used to think that when people said you can't drink and drive, it meant you cant drink anything while driving. when one day, i saw my friend's mom drinking coffe while driving out of the school parking lot, i screamed to my mother, "mommy- she's drinking and driving! isn't that illegal?am i allowed to go in her car anymore?" it wasn't till later on when i understood.

I used to think that "don't drink and drive" meant don't drink a coke and drive.

i used to believe that during the night, burgulars would come and try to kidnap me. so to protect myself, i would stick my leg b/w the wall and my bed and tie my opposite arm to the bed. i thought that by doing this, the kidnappers would have to take a long time to free my and i would have time to scream for help!!! lol

When stores have a grand opening and put those huge spotlights out front and light up the sky with them - I used to think that this was how the police would look for & catch criminals that had gotten away by plane or helicopter. Somehow I did not find out that this was a promotional thing until.....adulthood. (Maybe there was something like this on Batman?)

when I was little my mom told us never to have the radio and the TV on at the same time. I thought it was illegal to have both on. So when my little sister turned them both on at once I freaked out, I thought she was going to go to jail.

In the US, pillows and mattresses have a tag on them that says :

UNDER PENALTY OF LAW THIS TAG IS NOT TO BE REMOVED EXCEPT BY THE CONSUMER.

I used to belive that it was illegal to ever remove the tag from mattresses and pillows. I thought that even if you bought it you still couldn't remove the tag or you would go to jail. ( I didn't now what a consumer was then)

Once the tag came off my pillow. I ran crying to my mom, terrified that I was going to be arrested. She calmed me down and explained that the tag only had to be left on when the pillow/mattress was being sold at the store.

When i was very little i thought "to sue" meant "to murder" I thought if someone stole from someone else, the victim could say " i sue you!" and they would be killed.

i belived that little children could not sit in the front passsenger seat and if they did they went to prission and every time i heard a siren i ducked

In the USA it is illegal to possess or use brass knuckles. I used (and still do) believe that the reason is because the constitution said that you could bear "ARMS" not "knuckles". They must think its OK to blow people's heads off but not to gore their guts.

When I was younger, I thought that stores that displayed Help Wanted signs were encouraging people to help criminals wanted by the law. I always felt very roguish shopping at these stores.

I didn't realize that the signs meant that the store was hiring until I was about 10 years old.

When I was about 5, up until I was 7 or 8 years old, I used to avoid or run/sneak past any windows in the house when it was dark outside. I belived that there were snipers positioned outside who would shoot at me if they spotted me.

I used to believe that if someone did something very bad, and got sent to prison for like 150 years or so, that they would have to finish their prison term even if they died in prison. That means their dead body would be just sitting there, in the cell for 150 years, stinking up the prison. I also thought you were forced to eat rat turds in prison, it's what my mother told me.

I suppose that from the ages of about 6-8 I must have thought murders were a pretty common occurence, and that murderers must be generally on the prowl for sneaking in people's windows and stabbing up little kids. I suppose this is what I believed, as I distinctly remember piling my (not inconsiderable amount of) cuddley toys on top of me at night. I remember feeling very bad that I was putting my own life and feeling before those of my cuddlies, but doing it none the less. My idea being that is a murderer should come through my window his knife might not reach me through all my cuddley toys. It neither occurred to me that it was reasonably unlikely that a murderer would come in through my window, nor thathe might have some other weapon than a knife - say, a gun - against which my cuddley toys would provide no defense at all.

Oh, around age six and anyone would talk about cat bulgerors, I thought it meant cats that would rob you. So every now and then, I'd make sure our cat (snickers) wasnt trying to rob us. (My parents really started to wonder) And at night, I would make my parents keep my bedroom door shut so snickers wouldnt rob me.

Once I misplaced my GI Joe box (had about 30 gi joes) and swore up and down that snickers had robbed me when I was asleep.

Needless to say, I had slid it under my bed, and snickers wasnt to blame at all =\

I used to believe that there was only one law at a time, and that they changed the law once a year to something else. So, one year you might have to wear your seatbelt, the next year it would be against the law to steal things.

Not a bad idea, how simple would that make things?