Childhood disappointments And First View of the Outside World

[lucky_kari <lucky_kari@yahoo.ca>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Amy Z <lupinesque at y...>" 
> I also remember being absolutely certain that the child-size cars you 
> could buy from Sears Roebuck had an actual engine in them.  I 
> desperately wanted one.  It's a good thing I didn't get it, or I'd 
> have become hysterical upon learning that the "engine" was just a 
> bike pedal mechanism.

Wait a second, they don't?

No, I'm completely serious. Damn! 
 
<everyone shakes their heads>

I thought all dogs were pitbulls.

I also thought the U.S.S.R. was a pyramid scheme cult, not a country. 

I thought "the Government" was the title of Canada's unelected dictator. 

I thought that the political party my parents belonged to was a
military organization that was going to eventually march on Ottawa. 

I thought my local MP was a murderer. 

I thought the teenagers at the local playground were terrorists who
had blown up a bus in Vancouver. 

I thought a display protesting the introduction of the General Sales
Tax, showing boots sticking out of a toilet (I guess to show that the
GST would flush Canada down the train)was some real person who had met
an unfortunate end. After that, I was deathly afraid of toilets.

I thought our mayor ate babies. 

I thought that my friend's father worked for Canada's intelligence
agency, and that enemy spies were after him. (He worked for a security
system company.)

etc. etc. etc. etc.

My first real memory of the outside world was that failed coup when
Yeltsin stood on the tank. I feel robbed of my fall of my Berlin Wall
memory, which everyone else my age seems to possess.
And then there was the Gulf War, in which I hadn't the slightest idea
what really happened, except that I was quite sure Saddam Hussein was
going to attack our city soon, and World War III was beginning.
Whenever I saw anyone wearing camoflauge on TV, I knew the end was nigh. 

Oh, I lived in an exciting world. You can tell that my parents talked
a lot about current affairs, and I sort of pasted it together. 

So, while I may be disillusioned, the world has actually improved for
me. I gather this is the opposite of most people's experience.

Eileen