Friday, March 26, 2004
I used to believe... For ages now I've been a fan of the website I Used To Believe, which lists the crazy and strangely logical ways that kids attempt to make sense of the world. It never fails to make me laugh, and I've signed up for the monthly email bulletin of the best new beliefs. Here are some doozies from this month...
Until I was about 13 (I was a naive and overprotected child) I thought that men got up in the morning and put on their new clean condom everyday just like they put on their underwear. That way they had it on when they were ready to have sex.
S.L.T.
When I was little, we had one of those automatic car washes down the street. This particular one had picture of a donkey next to its name. Being young, I was petrified of sitting in the car as it went through the car wash. So my mother, trying to calm my nerves, told me that there were donkeys in the car wash. I don't think I had ever freaked out so bad in my life! I pictured donkeys lurking up in the machinery, then jumped down and smashing the windows of our car with their hooves!
Anon
when I was little, for some reason I was convinced that Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear because he didn't want to hear the traffic outside because he thought it was distracting. it didn't occur to me until much later that he lived long before cars were invented.
Anon
One of my own is that I convinced my little brother Matt that bagels were a kind of parasitic insect that lived in the hair of little boys like him. These kids were sent to a factory where they would be groomed like chimpanzees, and the harvested bagels could then be puffed up in the oven. For ages afterwards he would beg me to groom him for bagels, and I would have to pick some dirt off his head (he was a grubby child) and claim to have squished the bagel. I would say the bagel factories were much more skilled at getting the bagels out intact than I was.
Until I was about 13 (I was a naive and overprotected child) I thought that men got up in the morning and put on their new clean condom everyday just like they put on their underwear. That way they had it on when they were ready to have sex.
S.L.T.
When I was little, we had one of those automatic car washes down the street. This particular one had picture of a donkey next to its name. Being young, I was petrified of sitting in the car as it went through the car wash. So my mother, trying to calm my nerves, told me that there were donkeys in the car wash. I don't think I had ever freaked out so bad in my life! I pictured donkeys lurking up in the machinery, then jumped down and smashing the windows of our car with their hooves!
Anon
when I was little, for some reason I was convinced that Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear because he didn't want to hear the traffic outside because he thought it was distracting. it didn't occur to me until much later that he lived long before cars were invented.
Anon
One of my own is that I convinced my little brother Matt that bagels were a kind of parasitic insect that lived in the hair of little boys like him. These kids were sent to a factory where they would be groomed like chimpanzees, and the harvested bagels could then be puffed up in the oven. For ages afterwards he would beg me to groom him for bagels, and I would have to pick some dirt off his head (he was a grubby child) and claim to have squished the bagel. I would say the bagel factories were much more skilled at getting the bagels out intact than I was.
