Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Five Weirdo Things I Believed as a Kid

5) When I was probably five or so, we replaced the sidewalk in front of our house. I honestly thought God would be totally P.O.'d at us because he put that sidewalk there when he made the earth and here we were ripping it up. Though, come to think of it, maybe that's why he didn't give me my Cabbage Patch Kid right away. Aha!!!! It was my parents' fault. Typical.

4) Speaking of God, the sanctuary of our church had vaulted ceilings, but the fellowship area right behind it had regular ceilings. That meant the back of the sanctuary had a wall that went only partway down from the ceiling to about 10 feet (ish) above the floor. On this partial wall was a big vent, which I suppose was related to the heating/cooling elements. As a kid, though, I didn't think much about heating or cooling. I did, however (as validated by the above), think a lot about how God was watching me misbehave. It was my working assumption that the vent was where God hid to watch the church service--and me. I figured if it was the "house of god," then God must live there, where he could see all the action from above. It didn't always keep me on the straight and narrow in church, but it did sometimes.

3) Nearly every Saturday afternoon, my dad took my brother and me to the public library to pick out books. I loved going to the library, and in particular looked for books with that plastic wrapping. I loved the sound of the plastic wrapping, which I always described as "special." I have no idea why I used that word. I remember one time I told my mom I liked it because it sounded "special." She laughed, and I didn't see why.

2) I saw Superman (II or III??) with my family...it was the one where some of the people turned into robots or something--that's how I remember it, though I don't know if that's really what happened. This whole thing terrified me. There was one woman in particular who turned into a robot, and she had an Afro kind of haircut. Every night after that for years (seriously, for YEARS), I swore that woman lived under my bed, and countless times I saw the top of her afro creeping up over the edge of my bed to get me. I used to whine that my parents didn't let me see as many movies as I wanted, but maybe that was a good thing after all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My parents were right. Blahdy blah blah blah.

1) There was a young woman who went to our church; she was a newlywed I think. She was just another old adult as far as I knew, but I'm guessing she was probably mid-20s. This was the early 80s, around the same time as the show "Bossom Buddies" was on TV. I rarely watched that show but I was aware of it, and the premise--that two men dressed as women every day. Whenever I saw this woman, I really believed she was just like those characters on TV--she was a man who wore women's clothing. Whenever I think of this, I am both amused and a little dismayed. This poor woman probably had no idea that the little blond brat a few rows back lived under the assumption that she was a drag queen. What if some little kid thinks that about me?? I'm tall, broad shouldered...yipes!!

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