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Shattered illusions when you were very little?

(92 Posts)
Witzend Wed 21-Feb-18 11:32:38

For some reason I've just remembered trying to get behind the great big old 'wireless' that was plugged into the mains, to see the little people who were talking!
Oh, the disappointment at seeing only wires and mini light bulbs! Don't suppose I can have been more than 3 - maybe not even that.

As let-downs go, it was much greater than eventually finding out about Father Christmas/the tooth fairy, though of course I was a lot older then.
Any more?

Apricity Mon 26-Feb-18 02:16:39

Aged 6 I was very taken with the quilted vinyl lining my mother had put in the drawers in my parent's bedroom. When visitors arrived I gushingly asked had they seen the pretty pink bottom in Mummy's drawers. ?

indispensableme Sun 25-Feb-18 23:38:47

Just read that I wasn't the only one to wonder about the lack of a city wall round the green hill!

indispensableme Sun 25-Feb-18 23:35:53

In hospital after the birth of my first baby a woman heard the song You Picked A fine Time To Leave Me Lucille, with the line 'four hungry children and a crop in the field'. She said he was a sex maniac, four hundred children.

indispensableme Sun 25-Feb-18 23:31:13

We used to go to the football match on Saturday afternoon, I was then amazed that the players knew exactly how to play the game again for the evening TV!

When the TV conked out my Dad would tell us that it was clogged up with dead Indians, being a great cowboy programme fan!

My brother once asked where Random was and why, when there had been a competition, did they go all the way to Random to pick the winner, the winner will be chosen at random.

Why did a green hill need a city wall? 'There is a green hill far away without a city wall'.

My mother once wondered why the horse Bar seemed to run in all the races as it was always the last on the list of betting odds.

Emma49 Sun 25-Feb-18 08:41:45

I could never understand why it was necessary to ‘Hush Puppies’ in the shoe shop.

Witzend Sun 25-Feb-18 07:57:12

STs again, and not me, but someone I shared a house with aeons ago.
At about 9 or 10 she thought it'd be nice to go and meet her mother from work in her nice new 'hat'. In one of her mother's drawers she had found this long white thing with loops to go round your ears, rather like one of the more frivolous kind of fashionable little hats.

She was at a loss to understand why her mother was red-faced and mortified, and ripped it off straightaway!

MissAdventure Sat 24-Feb-18 17:39:49

My daughter misheard a Michael Jackson song, and was singing "Hold me, like the river Jordan.. I am a centipede, and you are my friend"

Christinefrance Sat 24-Feb-18 17:31:07

My daughter used to sing ' Ruby don't take your gloves to town ' we didn't enlighten her.

DanniRae Sat 24-Feb-18 17:27:33

I thought it was lovely for my brother to have a Carol especially for him. I was disappointed when I found out "Once in Royal David City" wasn't just for my brother after all.
I remember going on a coach outing from my dad's work and when all the ladies on the trip queued up in the toilets I couldn't understand why my mum wouldn't tell me what the sanitary towels' machine was for. And why were all the other women laughing at my question. Took a while to figure that one out!

Nelliemoser Sat 24-Feb-18 17:21:41

Our then young children around 5 had a wooden pop gun which was really annoying to us and for some reason one of us put it away and claimed "Daddy ate it." They were just at that age when they might just have believed it so they were never quite sure. Keep
them guessing.

Hilmix Sat 24-Feb-18 17:15:06

My Mum loved Glenn Campbell especially singing, " Nine Stone Cowboy"

MargaretinNorthant Fri 23-Feb-18 12:06:30

Another I got totally wrong was God Bless the Prince of Wales. It seemed totally reasonable to me that people would want the "prairie" to echo......was most disappointed to find it was Oh let the prayer re-echo>

TillyWhiz Fri 23-Feb-18 09:32:01

Thank you all for giving me the most laughs I've had this winter and actually the bum cheeks one had me streaming tears! DH had a heart attack just before Christmas so it's slow progress since - that one just made me think of the two physios at cardiac rehab with their big backsides!

d4dsquared Fri 23-Feb-18 02:28:53

Oh MargaretinNorthant, you did make me laugh with that! My father had a shop and the man that did his accounts was called Mr Pryke. I was baffled by everyone's reaction when (aged about 5 or 6) I referred to him as Mr Prick!!

Apricity Fri 23-Feb-18 01:26:44

Also remember wondering why on earth Miss Muffett would be sitting on a "tuffet" ( whatever that was?) eating her curtains away.

mrswoo Thu 22-Feb-18 22:13:50

For years I thought aspirin cured an illness called “wonder greunder” - or so the telly advert claimed. It actually helped you feel better if you were feeling “one degree under”

Elrel Thu 22-Feb-18 21:42:26

Gillybob - Sorry, your father.

mancgirl Thu 22-Feb-18 21:12:11

The sanitary towel story reminds me of a girl I knew who went home to find her much younger twin sisters with sanitary towels looped round each ear and tied under their chins pretending they were beards, like father Christmassmile. Hymns - let us with a glass of mild, instead of let us with a gladsome mind!

Moocow Thu 22-Feb-18 19:53:26

gillybob your post about your father made me feel so sad about how adults can quickly misunderstand and be sooo cruel. Then your lillets toes post made me laugh out loud! Not something that happens to me very often, thanks!

pollyperkins Thu 22-Feb-18 19:44:03

On the subject of hymns my father told me when he was little there was a boy in his class called Abel Lever. They all looked at him with i terest when they sang How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in Abel Lever's ear.

varian Thu 22-Feb-18 19:29:00

I think it was probably when Harold MacMillan was PM that I realised I should not be praying "Our Father who art in heaven Harold be thy name"

Elrel Thu 22-Feb-18 19:22:13

Gillybob - your poor grandfather, how some pompous cruel man in a red suit do that to a little boy? ?

Marieeliz Thu 22-Feb-18 19:20:26

Why, because Y's a crooked letter and you can't straighten it!

dogsmother Thu 22-Feb-18 19:07:55

I so recall Princess Alexandra coming to open our new school, I was probably around 12 so should have known better, but was disappointed that she didn't make more of an effort to look a little like a Princess.
A tiara or something.....very disappointed.

NannyKasey Thu 22-Feb-18 18:47:35

I was very upset, as an avid watcher of 'Animal Magic' to discover that the animals at Bristol Zoo didn't talk like they did on TV (I was 4 or 5 at the time) grin