Tag: Cogs of a Child’s Mind

This is part two of my misinterpretations of a variety of concepts as a child.  To me, these misunderstandings make the best of stories and show a peek at your perspective as a kid

2.  China is Part of the U.S.

Before I fully understood geography, I believed, deep down, that China was included in the U.S.  In my 7-year old mind, the whole country had just broke off from wherever it was and floated swiftly to America, crashing violently into the side.  This is how I reasoned all of the problems in America had arrived from poverty to international affairs.

In my defense,  my mother had told me that Wal-Mart was China’s creation.  She also told me that the reason all of my favorite local stores and markets went out of business was because Wal-Mart had all of those things so no one needed to come and buy from those small stores.            This made me angry.

In fact, I was very angry.  I was so angry that I vowed to never purposely step foot in Wal-Mart again.  Ever.  Why couldn’t people even of poverty, realize that supporting your country would increase the wealth of the country and possibly them?  (I never said I was an highly educated seven-year old)

Soon, Mom had to get groceries and most of the markets and small stores had been shut down, so, we had to go to Wal-Mart.

I still didn’t understand why.

I mean Wal-Mart is just a dumb place in general.  Like,  what does ‘Wal-Mart’ even mean?

Still, I stepped out of the car and soon decided that not going into Wal-Mart was quite unrealistic considering the many times Mom had left me.   Thus, I declared to myself that, when I was grown, I’d never go to Wal-Mart for anything.

Anywho, that was only a fragment of my thought process when my sister quizzed me on geography.

“How many states does America include?”

“50!  Wait, no.  51!  52…?”

“Um…What?”

“51.”

“Are you sure?”

“Duh,” I sang mockingly.

“Where do you get 51?”

“My brain,” I stated, curious as to why she asked.  “Colorado, Connecticut, Kentucky, China…”

My sister looked at me with a blank face that seemed to barely hold straight a smile before bursting into laughter so strong that she was knocked backwards onto the floor.

“What!?  It is!”

“Oh my gosh! You’re so dumb!”

“Um…no.”

“Um…yes.”

“It is!”

This went on until my sister walked by and we asked her.  China is not a state.   I repeat.  China is not a state, no matter how many Wal-Marts there are.

Has anyone else had those misunderstandings as a child of certain concepts in life?  From babies to refrigerators,  kids sometimes misinterpret ideas.  To me, these misunderstandings make the best of stories and show a peek at your perspective as a kid.

1.          Skyscrapers and Airplanes.

When I was young, let’s say 5 or 6,  I had the greatest realization.  People were dumb.  I mean, my evidence for this wasn’t exactly valid.  In fact,  I was very well a dumb human myself.  However,  my assumption still stands.

Now.  What lead to this assumption was the fact that after, I’m estimating, a year of pointing out exhaust from the airplanes to my mom and shouting, “Mom, look!  The airplane is scraping the sky!”

At this point, I thought, everything had feelings and personalities just as I did.  Rocks, Trees, Animals.  The wind, for God’s sake.  So, as you could imagine,  the sky had these traits as well, and whenever an airplane would cross over the horizon or trail above my head, the thought of airplanes purposelessly scratching at the harmless and beautiful sky  made me blow up the airplanes in my mind.

Then at times, I enjoyed the scraping of the sky and wished the airplanes would curl intricate designs onto the sky.  But the never did and this made me sad.

 One day,  I looked to the sky and and quietly said, “Look, the airplane scraping the sky!”  Mom didn’t hear me.

“What, dear?”

By this point,  I was already too deep in thought to respond immediately.  I was perplexed.  Mom repeated herself.

“What?”

I didn’t know what to say yet.  So, I started spilling my thoughts as I thought them.  Thinking each sentence through.  Looking back, obviously I didn’t think them through well enough.

“Mom who made up the words airplane and skyscraper?”

“I don’t know.  Why?”

“Well,”  I said this quite seriously, “They’re dumb.”

I didn’t give her time to process, I guess, because she didn’t respond.

“I mean,  skyscrapers don’t even scrape the sky like airplanes do,”  I stated, emphasizing the word scrape.  “They just sit there.  They don’t scrape anything unless you rub a man against the top of one,” I paused.  “Ya know,  and they could’ve come up with a less dumb name for airplane.  I mean,  we get that they are in the air.  I mean, they should just be called plain planes.”  I ranted, making sure to differentiate the word plain and planes by emphasizing the later.

After a moment of thought and a slight giggle,  my mom started to reply.

“Honey–“

Just then, my sister butted in.

“No, dummy.  They’re called skyscrapers for a reason,” she stated plainly, making sure to drag out the word reason.  “It’s because they are so tall that they scrape the sky.  Airplanes just fly through the sky, leaving exhaust behind them.”

It all made sense.  I mean,  stupid sense.  Not the logical sense that my point made, it seemed.   Although, she didn’t give a reason why ‘air’ was tacked to the front end of airplane.