Silly misunderstandings

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More often when I was a child, but still happens.
Examples:
- In Pre School, we were told to draw a "flowery sausage", I drew a sausage with flowers growing out of it and couldn't understand why everybody else were drawing a sausage with flowers on its skin. Took me a couple of years to understand I was the one who did it wrong.
- The other week, we had a group discussion at work. One point to talk about was "How are you to be lead [by your boss/teamleader]?". I understood it as how would I be in a position where I was leading others.
I had another example, but I've forgotten.

Anyone relate?

/Mats

I remember when I was 8 the class had to draw what they thought God looked like. Everyone else drew a beard on his face but I imagined God as a fat, bald man, with no beard at all, a grumpy face, and a blue and white stripy t-shirt. Kind of like the mythical giants you see in children's books.
But my family didn't believe in God at all, and neither did/do I, so I suppose I was never told or shown what he's "supposed to" look like.

I find the flower sausage and god stuff quite bizarre.

Only thing I can remember is some drawing task was assigned. I was about 9, 10 maybe.

I drew superman. It wasn't what we were supposed to draw. But Teacher, she thought it was so good, I got a pass though.

I don't have any specific examples at the moment, but I have misunderstandings like that daily due to always taking things so literally. People are always bewildered by what I think they meant or the things I do wrong from it. lol

Also I remember when I was 11 we were all asked to do a self-portrait for homework. I don't think I was listening properly, because I drew a (fictional) little sister (don't ask why I pretended to have a little sister), not just the face but the whole body. Then the next time we had art class the teacher wanted us to all lay our portraits out on her large desk and gather around to admire the portraits. It was embarrassing when I noticed that everyone but me had drew themselves. Some kids even said to me, "I didn't know you had a little sister?" and others said, "you were supposed to draw yourself, not someone else, and only the face." My picture was crappy too because I had rushed it. Maybe I thought "self-portrait" meant "draw anyone". I don't know.

in elementary school when we had to color-in pictures, i always drew everything psychedlic-style. i was criticized for that. when i was 5 years old i heard a news report on the radio about long-haired students at the berkeley campus of USC smoking pot, and in my little 5 year-old mind i pictured a bunch of long-haired students walking around with pot handles hanging out of their mouths.

BTW, the reason for the sausage drawings was this song that was popular at the time



/Mats

I used to play a game similar to "Apples to Apples" but it was more about building stories.... anyway, my responses always provoked "wow, you think so differently!"

To which I usually replied, "oops, my autism is showing"

I thought I was being good natured, but that in turn provoked excessive consolation, as if I had just badly burned myself.....

can you tell me how that game works?

Ha, if only I could remember....

It had several cards with varying "answers" to plug into a bigger story with missing pieces.

Each person had x number of cards in their hand, and there would be short story with blanks laid out for everyone to see. We each put down a card from our hands to try to fill in the gaps in the story the best we could.

And I think one player who didn't put down any cards had to the judge of what they thought the best answer was.

The play style was similar to the game "Apples to Apples" ..... I can't remember the name of the story game though.....

thank you for the explanation, i like that game, it sounds relaxing

Yeah..."a flowered sausage" seems like an insane nonsequitar of thing to ask kids to draw LOL!. Unless you grew up in the one country of Sweden where that song exists.

But ...flowers growing out- instead of being printed as pattern upon...the sausage? Kids have come up with crazier interpretations of ...the weird crap that grown ups feed them.

I was in grade school in the mid Sixties in America when it was still required that we stand up and give the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. My nine year old self could grasp the "one nation, under God" part. But I couldnt figure out the "invisible" part. In what sense is the USA "invisible"? Does that mean that you can drive from Mexico to Canada without knowing that you passed through the US because the US is "invisible"? You hafta be a citizen to SEE this place? Must have been years later that mom explained to me that it is "in DI visible".

I have heard that grade school kids will draw the lyrics of "America the Beautiful" by drawing airliners with grapes and bananas hanging from them ("fruited plains"). And that one little boy playing in a sandbox was overheard to be singing to himself "the ants are my friends. The ants are blowing in the wind".

Sounds like a thing we would do in school. A story would be hidden from view, but the class would have to plug in key words- "put a noun here...put an adjective here... verb needed here". And we would all shout out samples of the word types- and then all decide on a suggested word to go with. Then the story would be uncovered-with laughable results.

And at the same middle school age I saw some celebs play the same game on a TV variety show (I think that it was either Mike Douglas, or Merv Griffin). When asked for a adjective someone shouted "Jewish"- they went with that. It resulted in something being described as being "Jewisher" than something else.

I guess it struck me as so funny that I still remember it. I guess because it made me wonder why something can be "redder" than another thing, or "colder" than another thing, or "louder", but it cant be "Americaner", or "Catholicer", or "Jewisher" than another thing. But they are all adjectives. So the same construct should apply

Thank you for the rest of that story, I could not get past wondering why in the world the teacher would assign such a task to begin with.

It's just, IDK
I am fairly good at thinking out of the box.
But sometimes I think in another box

/Mats

I have no idea why this is but i vividly remember that as a child my image of god was Mister T but the lower half of his body was a wispy ghost tail like a genie, religion was also not involved in my childhood.