I used to have a walking cane that had once belonged to my dad (don't know why). I used to take it to Mother's when she lived in a particularly large house.
This cane could do anything. It was my personal "pogo stick" for transportation around the huge house (very exclusive and rare wooden pogo stick
), a beating stick for bushes and stuff, a dance practice partner, a hook to reach up to high places, a baton, a "butt hook", a baseball bat, and a lot of other stuff. I never really figured out how you could benefit from a butt hook. All you'd have to do was turn the cane upside-down and put the now U-shaped part between your legs...
Another thing, I used to practice my "filthy dancing" in the upstairs hallway alone, near the stairs.
Nothing too nasty, though, I was only eight or nine. ________________________
My Uncle Randy is a pastor. When he talked about God creating us, I would always imagine Jesus sitting in front of an art easel painting a picture of some one before they were born.
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I used to believe that, somewhere in my house, there was a trapdoor under a piece of furniture. The trapdoor would lead to many secret, unexplored rooms or a little underground river with a boat.
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When I was little, I used to believe that when someone was "drinking and driving", that meant they could be drinking anything. Needless to say, I got very nervous when my mom opened a cola while driving.
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I used to believe that if I jumped high enough off of my grandfather's armchair, I'd fly. I soon stopped believing this, however, because the end result was always a head-first collision with the sofa.
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When I was six, I had an imaginary friend. His name was Barney and he was a biker who acted kinda like The Fonz. Barney was the same age as me and would always tell me about going into bars and traveling the world with his friends. The Taj Mahal, Mt. Everest, Cinncinatti...
There was also Barney's sister, Angela. She was a prissy, preppy teenager who liked to talk about boys, nail polish and general girly stuff. She had a crush on the guy who sat next to us (yes, they did go eveywhere with me) in Kindergarten. After dinner, we would always gossip about him and our teacher.
When I was eight, I had a few more imaginary friends.
"Angel" was a comforting tiny angel girl whom I made up when my second-grade teacher yelled at me for misspelling a word, and I was trying not to cry. Angel either sat on my shoulder or flew around my head, telling me what to do in a bad situation. Sometimes, she'd have to go back to Heaven for her "occasional angel IQ test" and she'd mail me little post cards and letters (which I drew and showed to Papaw). Angel looked just like the first ghost in that cartoon Christmas Carol movie with Mr. Magoo.
Another one was "Maria". She was a Hispanic lady that lived within the pages of my math textbook. She'd always talk to me, tell me silly stories about "back home in New York" or bounce around and hang off of the letters and numbers. She also had a daughter, Rita, but I rarely saw her because she was a loner. Oddly enough, the two women were actually made up when I saw two photos in the textbook.
Then, there was Zelda (from the Sabrina the Teenage Witch comics) and Obi-Wan Kenobe. They were madly in love and were always kissing. Obi-Wan also helped care for Zelda's newborn baby boy from a previous marriage (the baby never grew any older; Zelda's previous hubby died in a plane crash). Then, Zelda and Obi-Wan were able to get married when Obi-Wan got a job in a Ragtime band and made a million dollars. I was the flower girl, the vacuum cleaner was the preacher, and various toys were the guests. Can you say, "Soap Opera"?
The last one was my "army" of toys. I had six or seven little toys, including a foot-tall plastic anime bendable dragon thing, a Barbie doll, and a little baby pegasus doll from Hercules. The army was responsible for going into rebellious battle with the grown ups. I can't tell you how many times I shut the kitchen door and screamed at the top of my lungs at the others, while pretending it was General Dragon. General Dragon and General Barbie had an attitude problem and had a slight infatuation with each other, while Pegasus was the perfect little solder everyone hated.
One more imaginary team I can remember took place when I was about ten or eleven. I created a cajun/dixie/New Orleans-type band on a shelf on my mom's deck. We were called "The Berts", because each of our names ended in "-bert". There was Jessbert (me), Herbert, Hobert, Bobbert and Billybert. Hobert and I were the singers, Herbert played banjo, Bobbert played the trombone and/or saxophone and Billbert played the harmonica and/or the snare drum. The other band members were toys, by the way.
Wait, I take that back. I also named some of my mom's plants. I can clearly remember a pink vinca flower named Rita (love that name!) and a tomato named Jeremy. They were just like Zelda and Obi-Wan!
Even today, all of these little imaginary beings still live in my mind, coming out every-once-and-a-while to say hello.
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Up until I was about ten, I thought that the ultimate insult was to scream "Chicken Pot Pie!" out of a window, with the blinds closed (especially bad if it was a fat person).
Why? I don't know.
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Once, in fourth grade, I looked in the bathroom mirror and noticed several small, hardly-visible black dots on my upper lip. I got scared and thought I was growing a beard. Then, I figured out that they were actually blackheads.
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When I was little, I believed that animals died the way they did in the cartoons - they just flopped down on their backs and put their feet in the air.
I firmly believed that until one day. I saw a squirrel run across the street and get hit by a minivan doing over fifty (in the suburbs). Needless to say, it has remained one of my most vivid memories.
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When I was about eight or nine, I discovered the lovely "f-word". I knew that my grandparents and my dad would pass out if they heard me say it, but I had to "feed my undying obsession" somehow.
So, I wrote it down on little sticky notes and hid them in a "secret place" (under the couch). Every so often, I'd sneak them out, go into another room alone, and read them while laughing hysterically.
Gosh, I can't tell you how many afternoons I sat in my grandparents' room, staring at little yellow pieces of paper with dirty words scribbled all over them.
It's not like every nine-year-old doesn't have problems.
That's all.
You mean there isn't? I've got ten locks on my basement door for nothing? 
I asked her if there was cheese in peoples' ears and of course she said no. She probably just thought I was being a goofy kid or whatever. Anyways when she pulled out the wax on the q-tip it was kind of a light brownish color and stringy or "hairy looking". That did it for me! Until I was about seven I thought that there were "ear rats" in peoples ears and when the inside of my ear got an itch it was those d@mned rats crawling around. I forget how I figured out that it wasn't rats but that I mistook "wax" for "rats" but I felt pretty dumb when I did! 
