One time in Sunday School, the teacher was talking about the difference between humans and animals, and mentioned that Animals had Tails and humans didn't. I let her know this was not true, because my Dad had a tail, just in the front, instead of the back. The teacher was silent for several seconds, and tried to correct me in a church appropriate way, but I doubled down, and insisted that my little brothers also had front tails too. This got so heated that the teacher had to go get my parents to take me out of Sunday School.
@RickiTarr
Not my story but a friend’s: B grew up in a Pentecostal cult in which his father was a minister. B, when he was 8 yo, decided he would see whether if he he prayed hard enough he’d be able to fly. He spent a whole day praying as hard as he could, and then climbed up to the roof of their house and leapt off. He broke his arm when he landed. Dad was pissed because they were poor and had to ask the congregation for money to get his son’s arm splinted. He laughs about it now.
@RickiTarr
At Halloween one year, my dad was handing out candy and I was taking a break sitting on the srairs...
Dave from up the street: trick or treat Mr LastName
Dad: I see you are wearing your baseball uniform
Dave: yes, this is my costume
Dad: I have seen you play Dave, good costume.
This is the level of snark that aspire to carry on.
@RickiTarr I was invited to a neighbour's birthday party when I was about 3 or 4 years old. That was a highly respected lady who was about 50 years old at the time. My birthday wish for her was: may you thrive. This phrase is usually used to wish minors under 10 years old, of course not suit for adults.
Spent years 2-5 outside London. Mom told the story of the time I picked up the word "bollocks" and they had a tough time breaking me of it because adults always 😂 when I said it.
@FreakyFwoof@RickiTarr I was 18 months old and my mom was using her hands to lightly bounce me up and down on a trampoline when I landed and my nose hit the mettal on the side. Mom calmed me down and she asked do you want to do that again? I looked at her and said "shit no!" Mom said she thought her grandpa was going to have a heart attack right there.
@RickiTarr when I was in Primary School, maybe 3rd or 4th class, one of the teachers gave a speech to the whole school during assembly about the importance of manners. I was not a disruptive kid, and in no way planned it, but at the precise moment the teacher finished their talk, I did the loudest burp I had ever done. It's possible I've only ever managed to match it during the intervening decades. That led to my first ever (and one of maybe only 2 or 3 in my entire school years) detention.
@RickiTarr My son was 2ish. After lunch, we'd usually watch something on Netflix, and I'd ask him what show he'd like. One day...
Him: Poop!
Me: Wut?
Him: POOP!
Me: Uhhh. Do you need to use the potty?
Him (angry, now) NO, MAMA! POOP! POOP BEAR!
Me:....
Him (pointing to the TV, and an icon for Winnie the Pooh) POOP. BEAR.
Ohhhh!
He's 11 now, and still regularly demands that I tell this story. 😅
@RickiTarr When I was in third or fourth grade, I was on a road trip with my parents and we were driving by a farm. My mom pointed to a silo, and informed me that the tall structure next to the barn was called a silo. Being the smartass that I was (but not really trying to be), I replied, "Duh. I learned that in kindergarten." My dad thought that was beyond hilarious, and it became an inside family joke that whenever something was painfully obvious, we would say "I learned that in kindergarten."
When I was 3 in Sunday School the teacher was telling the story of how baby Moses was sent down the Nile in a basket. To illustrate, she passed around a doll baby wrapped in a blanket in a basket. As I was holding the basket she asked “Don’t you think he looks sweet in that basket?” and I very seriously replied “He looks like a hot dog to me”
Another time when I was 3, I attended my first wedding (as flower girl) and the preacher was praying for a very long time. Every head bowed, every eye closed.
I was sitting with my parents, bored out of my mind, so after awhile I just stood up in the pew and said as loudly as possible, “OK, we sing now! 🎶 Row, row, row your boat, gently down the streeeaam!” 🎵
@RickiTarr In the spirit of the OP, my mom got a call from another child’s parent when I was very young (maybe 1st grade?), upset that I had shared the amazing and disgusting story of how babies are made.
My mom was a believer in “if they’re old enough to ask, they’re old enough to know,” but apparently this other parent wasn’t. :blobcatshrug:
@RickiTarr I had 3d (3 old pennies) for the collection at Sunday School and 6d for sweets afterwards. I put the 6d in the collection by mistake. After the collection bag went back to the front, I got up and shoved my hand in and took out some money, and got my 3d change.
The minister asked what I was doing, I said "getting my change". "You don't get chang" he said. I sat down, with my change after telling him that "I was getting my change"!
@RickiTarr when I was little and my parents used to take me to church there would be a time in the service where they would call the little kids to the front.
one time they produced a feather and asked who knew what it was and of course everyone knew it was a feather.
they asked questions like where did it come from and what else do feathers give us.
at this point my friend and I who were older (didn't go up) started laughing way too loudly because the answer to that is clearly "diseases"
When I was five, I thought I started the Loma Prieta earthquake. We used to go to this playground with a boat climbing structure, complete with a rope "anchor." One day I wanted to see what would happen if I pulled the rope. I did - suddenly everything started shaking. I was anxious even then, as my first thought wasn't of my or any other park goers safety. Rather I imagined a breaking news story shaming the little boy who pulled the rope. 🫨😂
@RickiTarr I only have my mother's word for this, since I was just a toddler at the time. My grandmother drank coffee with lots of cream and sugar in it, and I would wait until she abandoned it and then finish off the delicious syrupy coffee goop at the bottom of the cup. Unfortunately, my grandmother also occasionally put her cigarettes out in her coffee cup. One day the inevitable happened: I slurped up a cigarette butt. I didn't drink coffee again until I was in my 20s.
@RickiTarr As someone who's been car-obsessed since birth, I never cared about favorite stuffed animals when I went to bed as a toddler. I just lined up favorite Matchbox cars around the periphery of my crib. Completely predictable.
What wasn't at all predictable -- I've always been realistic and pragmatic, even dreams were never fantastic -- is that I believed tiny versions of the Fruit of the Loom characters were under my pillow and would bite my fingers if I felt the nice coolness under it.
@RickiTarr I once was at church and this elderly distinguished guest pastor was talking about how the lion is the chief of the pride and provides for all the lionesses by being the primary hunter. My mother turned fifteen shades of red as I stood up and said, "That's not right. The male lion is only there to make babies. The lionesses are the ones who do all the hunting. They also protect the cubs from the lion, because he doesn't like competition."
@RickiTarr When I was 4ish (pretty sure it was before kindergarten) I went for a walk one day. I came to a house that I recognized as belonging to my mother's friend. She burst out the door, hustled me inside, and called my mother to come fetch me. I had no idea what the fuss was about, as I knew exactly where I was and how to get back home, I just wasn't done walking yet.
Looked at the area in Google maps and I'm pretty sure I found the house. It's a bit over a mile from where we lived.
@RickiTarr We lived in a small rural town, and my mother raised us with benign neglect. My best friend and I would romp around without restrictions until a cop would see us and take us home. We got very sharp at spotting the police before they saw us, and did some amazing things to avoid them, like jumping down from the sidewalk into a yard that was set more than head-high below the grade.
@RickiTarr Sunday school stories are wild. I had a tutor who taught me to read Arabic/Quran. His stories were pretty traumatizing. Of course, I never told anyone anything because I was deathly afraid of everyone and everything.
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