BEST OF: Dumb Things We Thought When We Were Kids

21:30And if you're eight, you have your mom's phone and whatever. Like these things that we came up with were only out of like complete boredom or just that sort of absent thinking that you have while you're driving or in the shower or whatever. I feel like it's good for kids to have that space and time in their head, even if they come up with crazy stuff like Renee thinking her giant finger from space was going to appear on the side of the road.

21:51Amy Wilson:Yeah. And I still think they have it. I mean, I think that A, there's a certain boredom that goes along with being in the car that even the DVD can't replace. And also, like, I know that my, I see my kids when we come up to red lights, they're like green, like they're still doing the thing of like, I can change the light to green by saying green in this very slow voice and making this very magical gesture with my hand. Somebody was saying that I don't have it right here in front of me. But one of our listeners said that her mom had her thinking that you could concentrate and then blow like blowing out a birthday candle and you could make the lights change from red to green.

22:24And I thought, well, that's a mom having some fun. But in New York City, in a lot of big cities probably now, there's delayed changing of lights. It's gotten so long in New York City that like the traffic going north and south turns red, but the traffic going east and west, they're waiting for the light to turn green. And that delay now is sometimes like six seconds or something. And I think it just leads to like, it's that thing where you're a pedestrian and like, I'm just going to go. Am I going? Am I not going? Right. I'm just going to go. And that's when the light turns green that these super delayed lights are very confusing that you can't tell.

22:56And I thought, yeah, we were all, we were children of a time where it was like three, two, one, change. It was better. It was better as what I was saying. Three, two, one, change. Loved it. Lived for it. Yeah. Old days. Olden days. Dahlia says that she thought that cashiers got to keep the money they put in their registers. So she figured that was the most obvious career choice for her future. Same.

23:16Amy Wilson:Same. I was like, yeah, they make a lot of money. Yeah, definitely. Why wouldn't everybody be a cashier, right? That would be the most lucrative job in the world. Sell expensive stuff and you'd make even more money. Like work at the Lamborghini cash register. Yeah, you just, people hand you cash all day long. It's amazing. This is what I mean. Like back when you're in the store with your mom and she's writing a check or whatever and they're digging out cash, like now it's just beep, bop, boop and money's invisible. Yeah, everything is. I mean, I just was running out this morning to do a couple errands and I just ran out with my phone in my hand.

23:55Amy Wilson:Like if I get stopped, I'm not going to have a driver's license with me because I'm constantly like, I just need my phone. I'm going to grab something at the little convenience store. I got to get my broken nail fixed. Everybody just takes the phone, the phone paying. I remember being in a mall. My husband dropped me off. I went in with the kids. We were looking for like a birthday present or something before we went. Of course, we were like buying the birthday present on the way to the party that was in the store. So and I went running in and I was like, oh, no, I left my wallet in the car. So then I'm calling my husband.

24:26Amy Wilson:You have to come in. And the lady at the register said, well, if you have a phone, you could just pay for it with your phone. And I was like, what is this wizardry you're speaking of? Pay for something with my phone? And she's like, you just double click. And I was like, oh, no, this is the end of it all. This is the end of it all. Right. But yeah, as long as you have your phone with you, you're good. It's your desert island object. Mary says that she thought when you moved, you were just trading houses with another family. I mean, technically, you probably are. But they have to come to your house.

24:55Amy Wilson:Oh, yeah, you're right. I mean, you're all trading houses. Eventually. There's a very large pot. The human race is mostly just trading houses. I mean, when you think about it, right, we're all just trading houses. That's like something you could put on a t-shirt. We're all just trading houses. We're all just walking each other home. Until we die. And trading houses. Yeah. I mean, that's right. They don't have to go live in your house. That would be a funny system. But no, you are just moving into someone's house and they're moving into someone else's house who's just moving into someone else's house.

25:25It would be kind of, I mean, it's kind of like a VRBO kind of thing, which you're supposed to say Vrbo, right? How old were you when you realized from the ads that they wanted us to say Vrbo instead of VRBO?

25:36Amy Wilson:Never. I was never old. I don't even know that now. you're telling me new information if you go in the ads yeah they say verbo it's verbo and i'm like what i'll call it what i want thank you very much it's arab and verbo that's it hayley was utterly convinced as a kid that you couldn't drink and drive as in drink anything even water uh she's not the only person who said this one several people are like oh yeah me too me too me too my brother. Yes, yes. Not allowed to drink while you drive. Yeah. Or that sleeping with somebody being a potentially life changing choice for a young girl meant sleeping in the same room as somebody.

26:16I definitely thought that. Yeah. See, we use these euphemisms with kids and they're just like, they're literal. That's a category. I'm going to make categories here. Like there's the magical thinking that kids have. And then the magical thinking that their parents thrust upon them, right? But then there's also the like overly literal application of don't drink and drive.

26:34Amy Wilson:Emily believed that her stuffed animals and dolls came alive and had a whole entire lives when she left the room. She blames Raggedy Ann and Andy, the movie, a live action when the kid was around, they were just dolls. And then cartoons when the kid left the dolls alone, they came to life. This, by the way, is an old deluxe alert. Back in my day, it's a very old Old Deluxe. Raggedy Ann and Andy themselves are on Old Deluxe Alert. There's got to be somebody listening. Like, I don't know what they are. I mean, yeah, they were raggedy rag dolls. That was a selling point. I mean, Raggedy Ann and Andy were Old Deluxe when we were kids.

27:10Amy Wilson:I mean, they're like oldie timey dolls. They're really rag dolls. They're made of fabric and are really floppy. That was their thing, right? That's what they did. And they were, were they lovers or brother and sister? I cannot believe you just used the word lovers. That's so upsetting. Trigger warning, please. I think they were just friends. I think they were brother and sister, you gross monster. I don't know what the backstory was of them. I've watched a little bit of this YouTube clip that Emily, she helpfully dropped a link to this YouTube to this. Was it helpful or was it disturbing? Fever dream.

27:45Well, it was helpful to me because when it came on, I'm like, oh, totally. I remember this. It was like a late 70s. I remember my sisters watching it, so I think it stuck around. where everybody I was watching part that was like a camel, that again, he was also, the camel's whole song was about, he was a draggity, draggity, draggy camel. And he was sort of like limply dragging his like, you know, doorstop limbs.

28:09Amy Wilson:We have to do a whole episode. Well, maybe it's a subscriber episode where we walk people through the nightmarish entertainment that we were subjected to as children. Yeah, like our favorite shows. It would not fly today. those Marty Croft puppets oh that yeah skull who read horror stories what was his name the death man the crypt keeper yeah all right you're on that's our next subscriber episode and this is pretty much what our subscriber episodes are usually even like even more bonus of us visiting the nonsense of our past but this is just Toy Story like I thought Toy Story had an original plot but apparently it was stolen from the 1977 movie Raggedy Ann and Andy it was just stolen from in the minds of every child.

28:50Amy Wilson:Like, I think every child believes that their toys have an inner life. I mean, that they're, yes, that's why Toy Story is so wonderful. And to me, like also deeply disturbing. Like it's somehow it's too much to bring that idea to life. You know what I mean? It's too deep a cut. Yes. Like I can't take it. I've seen more than once somebody will set up as their kid is leaving for college, like walking down the sidewalk to leave to college, like a photograph of the kid walking down the sidewalk to the you know packed car for college and then they'll set up the like woody and buzz like in the doorway like waving goodbye cut it out people it's too deep for me i can't do it that's not funny you're freaking me out guys it doesn't hurt so good it just hurts i don't want to see leslie believed firmly that the line on the bottom of her grandmother's pool that separated the deep end from the shallow end had an ability to open up she says my cousins and i believe that if you stepped on that line the bottom of the pool would suddenly open and dozens of sharks would be released from the secret waters below.

29:50Amy Wilson:She's totally right. I mean, what's the problem? She did follow up by saying, I have never stepped on that lawn and I never will, you know, adult or otherwise. Yeah, we had a lot of lore about using the bathroom that like things, you know, alligators lived in the sewers or come up and bite you on the butt. And like, it still gets me. I'm decades later and every once in a while, I still get a little creepy feeling. So that's what's wrong with social media, because I feel like stuff like that, those, you know, old wives tales are like, and the alligator is going to get you like, yeah, yeah, like there'd ever be an alligator in the toilet.

30:20And then you open Twitter and it's like, you know, Florida man finds alligator in toilet like this stuff. Oh, yeah,

30:26Amy Wilson:it does actually happen once in a while in Florida. I had a babysitter who told me when I was probably seven or eight that you get nightmares if you lay on your back. I am solidly at my middle age, I do not sleep on my back because it gives you nightmares. How is your nightmare ratio? Yeah. I whenever I have a nightmare, I think, oh, I must have been sleeping on my back and I roll over like it's crazy how I think I have a very suggestible mind. Like if I join a cult, you'll be like, see, she was right. Very suggestible. Megan says she thought the cast of the Mighty Ducks movie were, in fact, professional hockey players as well as actors.

30:59Does she mean the Disney movie with like the Bad News Bears kids playing professional hockey players? She means the Mighty Ducks. Don't you know the movie The Mighty Ducks? I thought the Mighty Ducks was like Bad News Bears, but hockey. It is. But it's kids, right? It's not adults. Or is it adults? Is it cool runnings and everybody's adults and they're terrible, but it's fun? Or is it Bad News Bears where they're kind of like 12 and they're terrible, but it's fun?

31:18Amy Wilson:I mean, it's a deep cut. I think they're adults. Isn't Amelia Estevez one of the Mighty Ducks? He's the coach. He's the coach. Is the Mighty Ducks children or adults? Margaret's pretending to think about it and she's actually looking it up right now. So I'll tell you while I'm doing this. Have I told this story? I think I have along the way. that I worked for the commissioner of the NHL for about six months. It's about a youth league hockey team. It's a youth league. Okay, so Megan thought that these youths were actual professional NHL players at 12, as well as actors, which would really be something.

31:51They would really have had their busy lives, really have done a lot with their lives so far. All right, let's take a break. We'll be back with even more dumb things we thought when we were kids.

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33:24Thanks. Oh, agents, where would we be without you?

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33:39Amy Wilson:And now, dumb things moms believe. From the What Fresh Hell podcast. Food eaten off of kids' plates while standing up doesn't actually count as eating food. What is that teacher talking about? My child is an angel. What is that teacher talking about? My child is a legit nightmare. If I just close my eyes and stomp on this invisible brake while sitting in the passenger seat while my teen is driving, it will surely stop the car. You know, I bet the kids are old enough that I can get that white couch I've been dreaming about without them ruining it. If it dips below 55 degrees, children will rapidly perish from the cold if they go out without a jacket on.

34:22I don't think anyone can even tell these pants are actually pajamas. My child would never behave so rudely. Oh my god, Brandon, what are you doing?

34:31Amy Wilson:Where are your pants? Who, me? Oh no, I don't need any help. I'm doing great. I've got it all covered. I'm not even tired. Definitely not. I bleedingly exhausted. Nope, I am totally fine. This has been Dumb Things That Moms Believe. From the What Fresh All Podcast.

35:02Allison says she grew up thinking the parking lot to get into Toys R Us was confusing because that was what her mom told her when they drove past and did not stop at Toys R Us. And did not stop at Toys R Us because the parking lot was too confusing.

35:17Amy Wilson:The parking lot was too confusing. This is, that's the song the ice cream truck plays when they're out of ice cream. Yes. It's just straight up mom lies. That's a free one, guys. Some parking lots are just too confusing to stop in. Sorry. Tough break. Nicole's dad, this is similar. These are related. Nicole's dad told her that they didn't get MTV on their TV because of the mountains that were nearby. Hilarious. Nicely done. She says, I was out of high school before I figured out this was a load of - Not actually true. Nonsense. Yeah, a lot of this stuff is parents lying to us and us being too dumb to believe it and then figuring it out when we're like 40 years old.

35:59Amy Wilson:My mom would refer to anybody she couldn't remember as FNU LANU. Do you know that expression? That's definitely, I think that was a her special. It was? FNU LANU. FNU LANU. But do you know what it stands for? First name unknown, last name unknown. It's FNU NLU. Oh. First name unknown, last name unknown. And so she would be like, oh, that's Fanu Lanou. That was her expression and she said it all the time. And it's some sort of code speak. I mean, she didn't invent it, but it took me a long time to figure out what she was talking about. Can I keep that one? That's what I'm going to take with me today.

36:37Amy Wilson:Fanu Lanou. I mean, it's like, oh, you know, she's like the Fanu Lanou from down the street. It's a very useful and funny Bronx lady expression, which my mother was a Bronx lady. and she's finoon a little new. Maybe this section is going to shift into useful things that you can tell your kids. Emily says her mom had all of them convinced that if we sat on the hood of the car, we would put too much pressure on the engine, which could make it explode. She says, I believe this until college. She thinks her mother just didn't want her car to get scratched. Yeah, I think that's probably right. She didn't want butt dents on her hood.

37:14Amy Wilson:That's why she said it. Meredith says, her sister told her, that if you took the cigarette lighter out of the car, the car would blow up and I 100 % believed her. Now, a cigarette lighter is an oldie Lux alert in a big way. They don't have them in cars anymore. But I would say I spent 10 % of my youth in a car threatening my brothers and sisters and they threatening me with a lit cigarette lighter. We would push it in. So it was a little button and you would push it in and it would get glowingly red hot and you would chase each other around the car trying to touch each other with it. Like that was our it never occurred to me to do that.

37:51Amy Wilson:The other big game we like to play is we locked each other in suitcases and then roll them down the staircase. Like what the heck? How did we survive our childhood? I don't know.

38:03Amy Wilson:Oh my god. This was clearly before tort laws where you could like sue car manufacturers if kids had like circular burn rings all over their arms from putting the cigarette lighter on each other. I mean, that could fully like if you held that to the fabric seat, because also we're talking the era of fake leather or a weird fabric airplane seats, like polyester that was made of Yeah, I mean, wouldn't that wouldn't that like light up in 30 seconds? I can't believe we drove around like this. To be clear, we did not burn each other with the cigarette lighter. It was just kind of a funny like we could if we wanted to like I've got it.

38:37Amy Wilson:Whoa. Kids in the backseat with that probably fine. They won't actually burn each other with that thing that would burn them if they touched it. They won't actually do it though, as if like a bump in the road couldn't cause somebody to get tagged by the cigarette lighter. Yeah, we couldn't do it when our parents, after our parents got in the car. It was like we would get in by ourselves. Super fun game. You're out there early. Katie says she thought the cream filling in Cadbury eggs was actual egg yolk, so she wouldn't eat it. I mean, good choice. It's disgusting. Gross, yeah. Chelsea says her mother told her when she was little that if she fed her goldfish too much, they would explode.

39:15I mean, I think I still have internalized this as a thing that fish can easily explode.

39:19Amy Wilson:Yeah, I believe that is fact. And that you'll drown if you go swimming within 30 minutes of eating any kind of food. Yeah, that you will immediately cramp up and drown even in a pool. We did an episode. I'm going to dig it out. I'm going to run it as a best of because it was a good one where we talked about the, you know, dubious science behind you have to wait half an hour to swim or 10 ,000 steps a day or whatever. Like I dug and I couldn't even really get to like who said 30 minutes after you swim. Just some mom. Some mom at the town pool said it once and everybody else was like, that's a good idea.

39:49I'm going to say that too. And it became accepted as fact.

39:52Amy Wilson:What I don't understand about it is it works against the mom. Like it just means they have to sit next to you for 30 minutes. What's the upside? I don't know. How does this scam work, frankly? I don't understand it. Getting them out of the pool long enough to actually eat something. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Melissa I believe we might have even talked about this on that episode as well if the interior lights are on in a car at night it would make all the other cars crash like I don't know exactly what I thought would happen if you turned a light on in the car but it was like of all the things that were forbidden in my childhood turning on the interior light in the car at night I guess it makes it harder I guess the it's not physics what is it it's the like I'm telling you guys, here's another free one.

40:35It works. If you have a hard time with the super bright headlights these days that are like LED and white light, and they're way brighter than they used to be, put the light on in your car. It immediately makes it easier to drive at night because the only light source isn't coming at you. It's also in your car. It's actually better for me to drive with the light on in the car.

40:53Amy Wilson:Amy, I could never do this. What are you suggesting? I mean, next, just tell me to, you know, fly to work in the morning, flapping my arms. It's not possible, blame me. I've been told that turning on the interior light is like the worst thing a human being can do. And again, I don't know. This is just like the waiting half an hour thing, because I don't know how that was working for our parents. I think my parents firmly believe that when they told me that too, that they'd be like, oh, I'll lose control of the vehicle as soon as we turn the light on for more than three seconds. I think they also believe that.

41:24Amy Wilson:No, but it is because in the oldie timeies, the lights, the interior light was super bright, So if you turned it on at night, you couldn't see out the windshield as well. That was the logic behind it. Yeah, I'm not sure it was true even then, but that was a lot. It messed up the vision. I think it was because like you would turn it on and you would see yourself in the windshield. They were that bright. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, now they're not as bright as the like operating room, like deep space floodlights coming at your eye from all these, you know, tall SUVs. So give it a shot. I'm here to tell you, you won't crash the car in the first five seconds.

42:01Amy Wilson:I don't believe you. I'll never believe you. My mommy told me different and I believe my mommy. Anna believes, believed slash believes that chocolate milk came from brown cows. Yeah, this is an oldie. And I feel like they put them on the box too, you know? They made us believe this. They fed us this lie. I just heard a story about a little kid who it was like a friend of a friend. The dad says to the kid, they're going on vacation. What's your favorite part of going on vacation what's it going to be honey they're going to someplace they go every year and this kid like he's like three or four he says meningitis and the dad's like sorry what what's your favorite part sweetheart meningitis is going to be my favorite part meningitis and she and the dad's like i don't get this so waits until the older sibling comes home from school and says will you ask him what is he saying older sibling asks meningitis is my favorite and so they're trying to figure out what the kid means finally the older sibling asks the kid what color is meningitis and the three-year-old is like well it's brown and it's dark brown and it's white and that's when the older sibling figured out that the favorite part of the vacation was ben and jerry's because it was fish food ice cream which is like chocolate ice cream with marshmallow fluff and then also like little chocolate fish it's meningitis it was going to be his favorite part of the vacation Men in jade us.

43:27Amy Wilson:Love it. Well, there was nothing to solve today, but we did take a trip down memory lane. No. And remember what dummies we were when we were kids. Were we dummies or what? We got all the answers for today from our Facebook group. We'll link to it in the show notes. Join the Facebook group. We talk about super silly stuff in there, but also super serious stuff. It's a lot of parents helping each other out and it's the nicest place on the internet. We're so proud of it. Yes. Awesome spot. Go to facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash what fresh hellcast to join the conversation over there.

44:01Amy Wilson:And you will also be finding out in that spot about our very exciting news. Amy and I are going on tour. That's right. We're going on tour this fall to Charlotte, Boston, Washington, DC, New York City and Philadelphia. Hopefully these are the first dates of more to come and you can find out more about our tour dates again by going to our Facebook page or by going to whatfreshhelppodcast.com and click where it says tour dates at the top. Believe me, we'll be making sure you guys know about it. Absolutely. You'll hear about nothing else in the fall. And we would love to see you come. What do they call those people who follow the Grateful Dead?

44:38Amy Wilson:You know, deadheads. Come be a fresh head. You can follow us to every single date. Take the fall off. Tell your spouse now not going to be available. I'm going on tour with Amy and Margaret. That'd be so fun. Really fun. Be fun for us. I think there's like four weeks between dates. So you could just live in my basement. That's also fine. Well, that's true. There's time to get a few things done at the library or something. It's a big commitment. Big commitment. And with that, thank you so much for listening. And we will talk to you next time. So long.

45:19Amy Wilson:Thank you to Osea for sponsoring the show. Go to oseamalibu.com and get 10 % off your first order with code FRESH. That's O-S-E-A Malibu dot com code FRESH.