When My Brain Was Small

It always cracks me up to look back at misconceptions I had when I was a child. I remember when I first started kindergarten, my teacher, Mrs. Smith kept asking me if I had remembered to bring a tablet. I kept saying "no." She kept telling me to tell my mother that I needed to bring a tablet. Finally I told her, in dead earnestness, that "my mother is never going to allow me to bring a tablet to school." She meant a writing tablet. To me a tablet was a pill; as in "aspirin tablet." If she had said a "pad of paper" I would have known what she meant. I guess she told my mom and I got one or she got one for me. I don't remember because I wouldn't have associated the fact that she stopped asking me to bring a "tablet" with the fact that I suddenly had my own pad of paper.

In 5th or 6th grade, the song "Band of Gold" came out. I loved that song. Unfortunately, I had never heard the word "band" associated with a ring. I had never heard the term "wedding band;" it was "wedding ring." To me a band was a set of drums, a couple of guitars and maybe a keyboard or saxophone. So when I used to hear that song, I pictured a garage (and why the garage, I have no idea) with all of these bright shiny gold instruments. I used to imagine this woman holding open the door to her garage and pointing to this band of gold, which was all she had left. I didn't understand why she didn't just sell it. I may have been somewhat stupid, but I think I did know that a full set of band equipment made of gold would be quite valuable. I still picture those shiny instruments when I hear that song. Geez, I was stupid.