Things that bothered you as a child?

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Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Small children who are building their language skills and wider understanding often make quite hilarious misinterpretations.

One of my earliest (I don’t remember it but I recall being told later) was that as a very small child I was giggling with a mixture of delight and horror when told that my granny weed in the garden. :D

My mother was an agent for (no, not MI5) a mail order company, quite common in those days. One day, I was apparently hiding behind the sofa in fear because she had said that the catalogue should be coming today. I imagined some horrific giant insect stalking up the garden path to get me! :shock:

Aside: When I was a little older I used to spend hours planning out all the things I wanted for Christmas. Aged about seven or eight I remember one classmate cutting pages from his mum’s old catalogue. The ladies’ underwear section! :lol: Interestingly, in a different generation my goddaughter, now aged 30, used to refer to the Argos catalogue as The Bible!

Another one that puzzled me for ages was why American astronauts were being sent into space by Nasser, the President of Egypt! :problem:

Any similar stories from yourselves or your children?
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by strapline »

Loud, unexpected noise or bangs. My folks tried taking me to fireworks displays as a small boy and I had to be taken away; the colourful explosions and their shuddering bangs sending me ballistic. Similarly, airshows, which were a weekend pursuit for families in the 70s and 8os could provoke a comparable reaction. The Lightning fighter plane (the fastest of its day I believe) used to do low level fly passes, just feet above the airfield, before pulling in to a vertical climb, its afterburners roaring and glowing red. My poor parents had to depart a couple of airshows after the Lightning did its party piece.

I have since made a full recovery, having even seen The Who live in concert.

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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Bungle-ator »

Nobody else in the family had a video recorder. No, we weren't rich and we weren't pioneers of technology but it was the 80's. The benefits of this was that we could have a short drive to a video store and rent Smurfs videos and any other random cartoon nonsense.
The huge drawback was I had a cousin who would come round regularly for around a decade and would always manage to get my mum to put on Superman. If it wasn't Superman it was Star Wars. It felt like the end of the world as I was so bored of them. I still can't watch Superman.
To further compound this my mum always seemed to put The Sound of Music on when we had a holiday from school. This did give me my first crush though and it appears that Kym Karath was very worthy of it.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Richard D »

Nuns
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by scooter »

People of a nervous disposition may need counselling reading this thread.

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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Thegreyman »

The Daleks and Cybermen on Doctor Who were pretty scary 😧
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by tikkathree »

My mother has quite a bit to account for.

1. As an under-10 year old we'd watch green civil defence vehicles going out on exercise on Sundays. I asked her what they were about: "The Russians have got a big bomb, there'll be flash and we'll all catch fire and be dead instantly." Thanks for the comforting and careful explanation ma.

2. "Don't put your hand in the Leeds/Liverpool canal: you'll get fever and die." I think she had a theme.

3. "If you keep putting your finger up your nose you'll get a big boil up there and they'll have to lance it with a red hot needle." No mention of death though so it seemed the safer option.

Don't even get me started on all the stuff she didn't tell me. I'm still angry.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by magicman »

Hola a Todas

My Grandad would ask "How's Stinker ? "
Our cats name was Tinker.
He added when challenged "I can't say Tinker, I can only say Stinker" drove me nuts !

Mr Parlequin the scary ventriloquist dummy, I was petrified of him.

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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by sproughton »

On a broadly similar theme, from everything I heard as a kid (TV mostly at fault I'm sure) I assumed that quicksand was going to play a much larger part in my life than it has.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by jkbarnes »

When my daughter was around three or four, the phrase “fork & spoon” came out sounding like something decidedly different from “fork & spoon.” My ex and I would howl with laughter at it. We loved it so much we would purposely have her ask for a “fork & spoon” where ever we could. Terrible parenting, I know.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

jkbarnes wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:04 pm Terrible parenting, I know.
I agree. You should have been teaching her to use a knife properly.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by village »

I started watching a new programme about school when I was nearing the end of junior school....it was called Grange Hill and I thought it was effectively a documentary. It made me distinctly nervous about starting comp.

Also,one of the big questions of my childhood....why is dog poo white?
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by jkbarnes »

It has been related to me by my parents that I was quite a difficult toddler. According to them, I would lift my feet up when placed in a walker on grass because I did not want to touch the grass. I hated the beach because of the sand. I refused to ever go in the ocean for fear of being touch by seaweed. This is but a small sampling of the many things that apparently bothered me as a child.

For the record, I still DO NOT Like walking barefoot in the grass, nor do I like even sitting on grass. And I still despise and even freak out a bit if seaweed touches me while in the ocean.

[By the way, this is coming from the same guy who, in middle school, aspired to go to the Naval Academy and to become a Navy SEAL. My wife literally did a spit take when I told her that followed by “You?!” and uncontrollable laughter.]
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by tikkathree »

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:07 pm
jkbarnes wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 1:04 pm Terrible parenting, I know.
I agree. You should have been teaching her to use a knife properly.
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Re: Things that bothered you as a child?

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

tikkathree wrote: Sun Jul 25, 2021 2:08 pm Peas?
Thank you, Norma. Delicious.
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