I was quite a handful as a child and it was all my mother could do to keep me from tearing down the house. Sometimes she had to induce terror through misinformation to prevent me from engaging in particularly odious habits:
Other
silly things I came up with on my own - or perhaps by
confusing fiction with reality (a habit I have yet to cease...).
- If ever I saw a mounded hill in a lawn, I was convinced it marked the slumbering place of a fierce giant. If I had to go near such a place, I would tip toe about it and become terrified if anyone made a loud noise.
- I thought it possible for my big wheel to attain freeway speeds and just didn't understand why I couldn't drive myself around.
- Not knowing female anatomy very well, I thought babies were born through the mother's belly button.
- Cartoons always puzzled me. Not understanding how a static drawing could ever produce the illusion of motion, I concocted the notion that cartoon actors, scenes, and all other objects were coated with a special plastic. When filmed by a special camera, these things took on a cartoon-like appearance. I didn't worry about exactly how a person's eyeballs could jump out of their head.