Stuff I Used to Believe...

Periodically it is brought to my attention that I used to believe some things that were pretty dumb when I was a kid...for example:

I used to think "water" in Latin (or Greek...I didn't know there was a difference) was "Aquas Tapis" (thanks to my dad...)

I thought I had eyes that were better than everyone else's. I thought I could see much better than the average human. I was sure I could find lost items better than anyone. I think it stems fro a time when I found something my mom dropped in the car and she said, "Wow. You have eyes like a hawk!" And, to take it a step further, I was sure I could see air. Yes, I said air. I would rub my eyes and then I could see those little floaty things for a few minutes while my eyes were "coming out of it". I was sure that was air.

I used to think that when my favorite professional football team lost a game, it was because God was trying to teach me a lesson. Yes, Sunday night football was set up to teach me a lesson. Me.

I thought I could drink water faster than most other people. I was in the kitchen drinking a glass of water with Paul Muckinsterm and I finished a little quicker than he did. So I said (in a very authoritative and scientific voice), "I was born 'fast-drinker'". I said that last part--"fast-drinker"--the way Tonto would have said it to the Lone Ranger on TV. Apparently I believed stereotypes as well.

When I was in grade school, I thought that if I ran fast enough during recess my feet would raise up off of the ground like I was floating. It made sense. I'd run really fast and my clothes would provide enough of an updraft that I'd get off of the ground just a little. And I thought it happened a few times but was too afraid to tell anyone. I was sure they wouldn't have believed me.

I thought that if I slept with the covers over my ears, I wouldn't be able to hear if there was an explosion in my house and I'd die in the fiery inferno.

I went for a little while thinking that I thought of the internet before it was invented. When I was in fourth grade (about 1981 or so) I would daydream about having a little house in the classroom where I would work on my school work. When my work was done, I would magically mail it to the teacher's desk. Then she would magically mail my score back. So, maybe I did think of the internet first. At lease I beat Al Gore.
So that's something.

Sometimes I thought that if I watched my favorite teams on TV, they would win, and if I didn't, they would lose. So I would sit there, kinda praying for God to smile upon the 49'ers, and not using the bathroom until a commercial so that I didn't let Joe Montana down.

I used to think that the Prophet wore robes and walked around Temple Square with his hands in that steeple position (I don't know what else to call it) and that when he received a revelation, he would do it by closing his eyes, cocking his head to the side and humming. There was really no basis for that belief of mine, I just figured that was how it was.

I used to think that the most important invention one could make would be to create a plastic dinosaur that an adult could fit into, and drive around, really slowly. The legs would move really slowly and the person could look out of the eyes, nose, or mouth of the great beast. Then I would picture myself driving it slowly around Vacaville impressing all of my neighbors.

I used to walk home from elementary school trying to outsmart God by pretending I was going to step on a certain place on the sidewalk, then quickly changing my mind and stepping somewhere else. I tried to do it randomly so that God could not read my mind. So God would be like, "Hey, I thought Brian was going to the left, but apparently he stepped to the right. Wow, he tricked Me." Then, if I did that enough times in a row, He wouldn't know where I was. It made walking home quite an ordeal at times.

I thought most girls were thinking about me instead of their work when I was in sixth grade. So I would sometimes make my face look a certain way while I sat in my desk so that the girls would think that I looked like a movie star. I would try to look dark and mysterious (the way girls would like a guy to look). I suppose, in hindsight, I was wrong about that.

My parents told me that the bushes in our backyard were poisonous (not all of them, just a certain clump of them). I was nervous that if I went into the bushes to retrieve a ball that I might get stabbed by one of the branches, be instantly poisoned, and die before I could get out to get help. I know my brother Jon believed some version of this, too, because he always held his breath when he went in after the ball. I would make fun of him but was secretly glad he did it because I didn't want him to die. He was fun to play with.

***UPDATE*** That bush was poisonous. I just checked Wikipedia. Read the article down where they talk about toxicity. Now that I know this, it makes me wonder why my parents had me and my brothers cut all of the bushed out, stack the branches and carry them away. None of us brothers wore shirts during the job. We could have been stabbed by a branch while not wearing shirts. I don't think my parents were being very careful that day.

This last one wasn't really a false-belief or anything. Just something I used to do. When no one was home I would lock all of the doors, go outside, and try to figure out ways to break in to my own home. Then, after failing, I'd wait in the backyard for someone with a key to get home. Doing that, I thought, would make my a better problem solver.

There's probably more, but I can't recall any of them right now.