Things you used to believe

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I thought if you did a murder as a juvenile, they would wait until you are an adult to execute you. I didn't know they go by how old you are at the time of the crime when they give out a sentence. So if you committed a crime and it took them four years to convict you and you were now over 18, they wouldn't sentence you to death because of your age at the time of the crime. Though it used to be 16 when I was a kid depending on what state you were in but they got rid of capital punishment for 16 and 17 year olds in 2005. But yet they still try them as adults which will never make sense unless it's about giving them mental treatment and to continue giving them mental treatment when they are over 18. That is like a loop hole in the law they do by playing the system.

I remember worrying all the time that my mother would die. But then I heard of a funeral home and thought if we got her there before she died, she would be okay. But the catch was she wouldn't be able to leave the funeral home but my dad and I could go visit her.

This wasn't so much something I believed as it was a lack of understanding of circumstance and perspective, but when I was in middle elementary school I wondered if I would marry one of the boys in my class. I tried to imagine it and didn't like what I saw in my mind. The reason I thought I would have to marry a boy in my class if I were to marry was that I couldn't imagine where else I would meet a boy

Perhaps it'll make more sense if I tell a story.

When I was 10, our class was having a discussion about ethics. This led to discussion about the food industry. One girl said: "My brother has autism, and he's 16. He can't have gluten, and we can only order certain foods."

And then another girl said, "My brother is also 16 and has autism."

The next time I heard someone talk about their autistic relative was 1 year later. A boy said: "I have 2 nephews who are older than me. The 16 year old has autism."

And so I believed from now on when I hear about someone's autistic relative, they'll say that the autistic relative is 16.

Or maybe I just secretly hoped that I can set some sort of world record for "Consecutively Finding Out Someone's Autistic Relative is 16".

The next one I heard about was 9.

If the tornadoes don't gecha, the flying monkeys DO!

That doesnt follow logically. It IS kinda dangerous, to tempt fate by walking around on .say, a golf course during a thunder storm.

The odds of you being hit by a car as a pedestrian during a given year is slim (like one in a billion) ,but that doesnt mean that its a good idea to run blind folded across the Washington D.C. Beltway at rush hour!

Last edited by naturalplastic on 01 Apr 2017, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

before i could read,
"speed limit" was "speed lemon",
"treadmill" was "threadmilk",
"sunglasses" were "sunplaces",
"lawn mower" was "lawn moater",
"grocery store" was "crossery store",
etc.

a lot of my language was like this until i could read and then i felt really stupid. i used to believe even the ones that didn't make any sense at all were just named that randomly.

I understood the meaning of quite a few phrases before understanding the words. When my mother would shout "Keep it down to a dull roar!" my older sister knew to make less noise or shush me. Years later, I finally understood the sarcasm, etc.
I once gave a ride to a teenager who hadn't understood that 60 MPH means that it will take an hour to travel 60 miles. He was making wild guesses about our arrival time.

It is amazing how many folks make it into adulthood without grasping that the phrase "sixty miles per hour" means...sixty miles....per....hour. Lol!

Was riding with a buddy when the radio DJ invited listeners to call in to answer the trivia question "what common object moves one mile in a year".

My buddy started to blurt out "a comet!...an asteroid!...a meteor!...". It didnt occur to him that if the thing took an entire year to move ONE mile that it would have to be moving slower than something like a car that routinely moves all of sixty miles in only an hour, and that it could not be something goes faster than a car.

The answer turned out to be "an office desk chair".

Apparently, 80 MPH is even tougher! There's a whole genre of entertainment based on that question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhm7-LEBznk

I used to believe that people were basically rational, with a few bugs in the system. Discovering that they are controlled by emotions, with just a veneer of rationalization is particularly hard for an engineer.

"Shut the door, you're letting a draught in."

No-one ever explained what a "draught" was. I worked it out all by myself: a very large, paper-thin, translucent grey bat that is utterly horrifying to behold.

Up until 2003, I believed that while the governments of the major Western democracies aren't perfect, they are basically rational, sensible and just. I didn't protest against the Iraq war because I assumed the USA and Britain wouldn't actually do anything so obviously stupid on grounds so evidently false. In all seriousness. I was kind of in shock about that afterwards. Went rooting around in the History and Politics sections of the University library for some kind of context, and found a little book about the Suez crisis. Yeah.

I had expectations of a watershed event to restore balance and justice on earth. First in '73, then '84, '01 and finally the end of the Mayan calendar in '12. Now I think that's about the date that methane started boiling out of the arctic, thus ending the world as I knew it, and marking the beginning of the Anthropocene. I always thought I was living in a most extraordinary period of history, and still do.

I used to think that real villains, like those in movies, knew they had evil intentions, and could not get by with bad data and rationalizations to keep a clear conscience.

Until about a month ago, I believed that my life would finally be headed in a direction which would lead to some degree of normalcy. That came to an end. Whatever I do from here on out will be forever lessened.

I used to think the same, since I watched Ghostbusters as I child I had weird fears off toilets!

I believed things I was told which included that if I played with my belly button it would unravel and that if I was hit on the head I would die, if I was struck by lightening I would disappear in a puff of smoke.

I used to think that it was cheating to even wait for a good time to ask for something, let alone use any of the usual methods of persuasion. I expected people to be able judge things on merit alone anytime. I also had a strong tendency to assume they had the same background information as I if they were older.

I was very confused when I was sent from second grade straight to fourth - it felt like trying to skip a floor in building construction, but I kept passing just on common sense and exposure.