I remember being vaguely confused around age 5 or so: Seven days in a week? Are you sure? I thought the Beatles said there were eight.
It was one of my first experiences learning the hard truths of the world.
I’m guessing the nearly 4,000 people who commented on a recent Facebook post from National Public Radio would sympathize with my misunderstanding. NPR said it’s working on a story tentatively titled, “I Was Absent That Day,” and asked readers to share a story about something they were embarrassed to learn as an adult that they should have known much earlier. Comments ranged from not realizing pickles were made from cucumbers to believing Alaska was an island in the Gulf of Mexico (in accordance with how it’s shown on most U.S. maps).
A surprising number of people thought the saying was, “For all intensive purposes” (instead of “intents and purposes”), a couple of people didn’t realize ponies are not baby horses but their own species, and countless folks were surprised to learn it’s “sherbet,” not “sherbert.”
I plead the Fifth on whether I once was one of those latter people.
I’m also not going to comment on whether I once thought both Pink Floyd and Monty Python were individuals rather than groups.
Occasionally, I’ve had to be the bearer of bad tidings myself. I was the one to tell a cousin (who was well into his 20s at the time) that shooting stars aren’t actually stars. Recently, Billie Jean King came up in conversation when Slightly Older Princess was around. I asked if she knew who she was. “Yeah,” SOP replied, “She’s the one Michael Jackson sings about.”
I did not add that to the NPR comment list. It’s an exclusive from yours truly.
However, here are some of my personal favorites from their comment collection:
– “I was sure it was, ‘Where the deer and the cantaloupe play.’”
– “My husband just realized that it really is okay to cut off the tags on pillows.”
– “Pineapples don’t grow on trees.”
– “I used to think that Elton John Cougar Mellancamp was one person, and his first name was Elton John.”
– “That euthanasia was not a group of young folk on a certain continent.” (I admit to believing the same thing up until my eighth-grade social studies teacher corrected me.)
– “I did not know that chickens just laid eggs! I thought there had to be a rooster involved.”
– “I was singing at the top of my lungs in the car that Prince song, ‘Pay the Rent Collette.’”
– “I was in my mid thirties before I found out there is a separate state known as West Virginia. Until then I just thought people were referring to the western side of VA.”
– “I was riding in the car with my mother and aunt when I was about 6. My mother shouted, “Oh no! That transformer blew up!” I desperately searched the roadways and for years could not believe I had missed my chance to see a Transformer. I was at least 20 before I figured out what had actually happened.”
Go ahead, share your I-never-realized story. You’re in good company here.