My recently turned four year old has become quite the conversationalist. I enjoy hearing his explanations for things, and I have a notebook where I write down the more memorable words and phrases. For example, he must have heard somebody say 'sugar buzz,' only he calls it 'sugar bugs.' Fair enough.
That got me to thinking about my own childhood and things I heard but didn't understand as a kid. I grew up in South Texas on the Gulf Coast, and I experienced a couple of hurricanes. I was a little kid when one came along. People talked about the eye of the hurricane, and I immediately pictured an enormous eyeball floating in the middle of the storm. Creepy, right? But wait, it gets better.
On the news, one of the meteorologists spoke about birds and how they get trapped in the eye of the hurricane. So then I was imagining a giant eyeball filled with grackles (because that constituted the majority of birds in the area) trapped and trying to peck their way out. Is it any wonder I have an aversion to all things eye-related?
So this hurricane hit. The windows were boarded up, so I couldn't see outside at all, but I could certainly hear the wind battering at the house. Then there was a lull in the storm, and one of my parents said the eye was passing over. Again, I picture a giant eyeball, only now it's floating in the resaca that marked the back boundary of our property, and it's filled with angry birds trying to peck their way out, and because the windows were boarded up, I couldn't see them at all, and that's actually worse than being able to see a giant eyeball filled with birds.
At some point I figured out what the eye of the hurricane actually was. Boy, I felt a little silly for thinking it was a giant eyeball, and I was simultaneously relieved that it wasn't. What are some things you misunderstood as a kid?
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