time: general

When I was about 10 years old, I thought that if I raced home from school (which let out at 3:15pm) fast enough, I could get home in time to catch my favorite cartoon starting at 3:00pm. In my mind, the faster I raced home, the more likely I was to get there at 3:00pm.

When I was about 7, I went on holiday and met a scottish girl and we beca,e friends. She said she would ring me when we returned home and I gave her my number. A few days after I came home, she rung and we talked for a while. Foolishly, I thought Scotland and Ireland were that far apart that there was a time difference and asked her what time it was there. I was confused to see my brother and my dad waving their arms and mouthing 'NO' to me and I realised my mistake. So, after she replied 3:30, to save face I told her here in Ireland it was 3:35 and hung up. I never talked to her again!

I used to believe time went by faster if you were asleep or had something you dreaded coming up and it went slower if you were expecting something good or were in a situtaion you waited to get out of (like work). I still believe that to this day.

When I was in the process of learning how to read a clock, I thought that whatever number the second hand was on, that was how many minutes after the hour it was. Like if it was 1:20, I would think it'd be five after one.

I was corrected very quickly about my thinking.

I remember it like it was yesterday: When I was in first grade, my teacher asked the class if anyone could explain what Veteran's Day was. I ever-so-smartly raised my hand and announced that "It's the holiday for all the cat and dog doctors." I couldn't understand why Mrs. Vestea and her assistant were laughing at me.

I couldn't ever figure out why people changed their clocks...You see, in some cartoons, i saw that when they changed the hands on clocks, the sun or moon would move accordingly...I never allowed my mother or father to touch their clocks in my presence...i was about 3 or 4 at the time and very weird...

When I was like 3 or 4, I would share stories with my family, for example, about nursery school. Someone in my family would say something like, "Oh, when did that happen, Marybeth?", and I would be like, "It happened tomorrow", thinking tomorrow meant "yesterday". How funny is that?

When my sister was little she couldn't grasp an understanding of the phrase 'this morning'. Given that it was today, tonight and tomorrow she simply assumed it was called tomorning and continued calling it this for a good number of months!

I didnt understand that clock told the time other than the hour or half hour. I had never heard anything else.( 1:00 or 1:30 not 1:28 or something). one day I woke up and saw a clock that said somthing different than the hour or half hour and i thought it was broken so i went around the house throwing all the "broken" clocks away.

i once got confused between 'months'and 'years'. i thought the latter was shorter than the former. Dunno why i never considered y ppl only celebrate when they turn a year and not a month older.

I believed that time machines actually existed, but only really rich people were allowed to have them. I seriously thought this up until I was about 11 or 12 years old.

For at least a couple of years when my folks told me that Christmas was "just around the corner", I knew which corner they were talking about. It was about five miles from out house. I always looked for Christmas weeks in advance whenever we went around that particular corner.

When I was 3 or 4 some kid in my daycare told me that if I saw the hands on a clock move, the clock would explode. I would stare at clocks for the longest time and never see the hands move (very dissapointing I wanted to see something blow up). It must of been 5 or 6 years later when my mom told me that theres no way a clock would explode like that. I still watch clocks intently (still hoping for an explosion lol!)

I used to believe that every day of the week had its own colour.

Monday was yellow,
Tuesday was lilac,
Wednesday was dark green,
Thursday pink,
Friday orange,
Saturday red,
and finally Sunday was blue.

I never knew why, until I got older and realised those were colours used in our TV guide for every day of the week.
Still, to this day whenever I have to make an appointment, I think in "colours".

In fourth grade, my teacher decided to tell us about the four seasons. However, he had an odd sense of humor, and told my class that on the first day of spring, there was a sound like, well, a spring. In the fall, he continued, there was a heavy thud. Being considerably more naive than I am now, I firmly believed this until the middle of fifth grade.
God, I was an idiot.

When I was young and people would ask what time it was or when it was announced on the radio, they said it was a quarter after or a quarter till the hour, I always thought it ment 25 till or after. I believed this for at least 8-10 years. One day we was to go on a school outing. I showed up at a quater after, and not a sole was in sight, the bus had already left on their field trip. I was disappointed and mad they had left without me. And to top it off, I had no way to get home. The school house doors were all locked. And when I finally found a phone I had no idea what so ever what my phone number was, and yet I knew many other peoples phone numbers. No money, just a check made out to the school for the field trip and I was to get the change for pop, candy, etc... from them. Even though it was only a nickle to make a call, I had no money, no phone number, no ride and I lived about 10 miles out in the country.
I started to cry. After my sob story to a 411 operator, she called my Mom and let me talk to her. She was a nice lady. I felt stupid and hurt.