the world

i used to think 1 million dollars was all the money in the world

When I was naughty as a kid, my dad would threaten to send me away to live with a Mrs Griggs, who lived in Ipswich. She was a nasty, mean, child-hating old spinster, who would make me eat things I didn't like and keep me locked in a cupboard. If I was misbehaving, my dad just needed to say the words "Mrs Griggs!" or "Ipswich!", and I would become panic-stricken. Even though I later found out there was no such person, I had an irrational fear of Ipswich for a long time.

I used to believe that the US President (Ronald Ray-gun) lived in the magic castle at Disneyland and that his wife was called Mary Whitehouse. In fact I still do

When I was a child and we used to visit family in Italy in the summer, I used to think that Italy floated in the sky somewhere and thats why we had to go on an aeroplane to get there.

I used to believe that for on this side of the world, three leaf clovers were common, and four leaf clovers were lucky. But on the OTHER side of the world it was the opposite. Lots of four leaf clovers and not so many lucky three leaf clovers. I used to dream about going to the "other side of the world" and picking enough four leaf clovers to last a lifetime, and bringing them back to this side of the world so they'd be lucky.

I used to think that the Giants only played the Redskins because whenever I asked my dad who was playing, it was the Giants and the Redskins.

I'm from Atlanta and I used to believe that at the end of the Star Spangled Banner, when you sang "and the home of the Brave..." that everyone across the country put in the name of their own hometown ball team.

When I was around four, I believed that all countries were separated by water and that the US states were also separated by water. In my mind, the water boundaries were what made them separate countries or states.

in learning about the layout of my city (new orleans) i became aware that there was a west bank. i never liked being there because it didn't look as nice as other parts of town.

and besides, whenever the news was on there was talk about more bombs going off there.

I used to believe that Niagara Falls was in Nevada. It made perfect sense -- after all, since lots of people went to Las Vegas to get married and Niagara Falls was a big honeymoon spot it stood to reason they were nearby. I think I was confusing NF with the Hoover Dam. Geography was never my strong suit.

When I was about 8 we were watching TV and there was a picture of the Arch of
Triumph in Paris. My mother said, "Oh, that's in Paris, they make perfume there."
For longer than I'd like to admit I thought the arch was a perfume factory.

Once, in the car on the way on a holiday to Devon, I asked if he would be there...I was slightly confused, and thought that God would be there...as he "art in Devon"

My Mum couldn't understand why I kept crying everytime she mentioned going on holiday until I told her that I didn't want to live in a pipe. I had seen refugees on TV sheltering from a flood in huge concrete pipes and believed they were in Wales, where we were going on holiday.

When I was very young, perhaps 5 or 6, I asked my dad, "Does the President(of the U.S.) own the world?"

He replied, "Well, he thinks he does."

Not having been introduced to the concept of sarcasm, I spent several years thinking that the President was this poor deluded soul whom everyone was humoring.

At about age 3, I thought that the tip money my parents left on the table was actually for Me as some sort of reward for finishing my meal. I'd stash the $$ in a hole in my mattress, so my mom finally found it one day while re-arranging my room. She spent the next week driving to area restaurants trying to compensate the wait staffs that had been stiffed!

I'm not quite sure when I realized the err of my thinking, but for awhile, I thought Pennsylvania (where I live) was pretty much the entire country, and the states that border us were really far away. Someone I knew was moving to Ohio and I was aghast at how "far" she'd be. I'm pretty embarrassed that I was like, eight or nine when I thought this. I knew that Santa Claus was fake & had a basic grasp of what sex was, but I really thought our state was so damn important that it was the whole country. Blame it on the state maps the teacher used! Not a full nation map, just our own. It certainly *looked* big to me.