Another thread about cluelessness

I was just reading a thread on a music board i frequent & they're discussing things that went way over your head way back when. I didn't want to steal Shootingstar's post..

I have a few...

In Jr High, we had a rather frightening/great math teacher but we loved him because he gave us twizzlers & was amazingly sarcastic. I always wondered why he drank so much coffee or wandered out to get coffee. I learnt many moons later (after high school) that he was an alcoholic..

I didn't know that our language arts teacher was gay?

I thought I was the only abnormal teen in Jr High/High school..then found out that everyone else's family was in the same boat or even worse.

Music..some of my favourite songs went way over my head...

"The Relfex" is about drug addiction? :confused: "Come Undone" is about suicide
"All you zombies" is about the cold war..
"She Bop" :eek:
"Magic Carpet Ride"...:o basically anything from the 60's..
"Hold me now" "
"Tell me more"from Grease..I didn't pay attention to the lyrics when I was younger but now know..


Any more clueless memories?

Layla - :D

I didn't know I was gay in high school...it just never even occurred to me. Can you say obtuse? :p

My grandfather never talked about high school, it never occured to me it was because he didn't get to go. I learned when I hurt his feelings by badgering him about which high school he went to.

I didn't know what I was smelling at the middle school bus stop!

There is a lot of songs over time I have learned the true meaning of. :eek:

I didn't realize my Calculus teacher was gay. He referred to his partner "bob" (or some male name), I thought they had a side business. A couple years later then wandered hand in hand into my work. :o

I was totally clueless that someone in my husband's family was a meth addict and often high. I just thought they were quirky.

I am usually quite dense though, I am used to it.

Before I spoke decent English, I had no clue what exactly Frank Zappa's song "Bobby Brown" was about. I just liked the song.

also, I thought "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was pretty innocuous fun. Yeah I got that it was about "initiation", but had no idea it might offend people.

At least twice I was clueless about someone having a crush on me. But that evens out with my having eternal crushes on several guys.

I started out clueless, but life taught me to grow up fast.

when i was in 8th grade, the kids had a field day with me because i did not know the slang words that most kids knew. I knew the long proper words, (thanks mom) but had no idea that pricks were body parts, etc.



as a sophomore, a teacher asked us if anyone in our families had a drinking problem. I was living with a detested drunk stepfather at the time and I raised my hand. NO ONE ELSE DID. Humiliated and infuriated, i turned to my class and said, "you mean NONE of you have a family member that drinks too much?" no one would look at me.

I knew my trigometry teacher was gay when I was a senior. I despised the way he flirted with innocent boys. I had the same disgust for the handsome young chemistry teacher who acted like he was buddies to the "in crowd" in our classroom. Imagine my disappointment when i went back to my highschool 30 years later and he was the only teacher left that was there when I was.

When I was about to leave my old job, I found out one of my coworkers had dated our boss before either of us had started working there. I had no idea! It made some of the company dynamics a lot more clear!

When I first got into raising alpacas, our mentors kept talking about "spit tests" to determine pregnancy. I didn't know what the heck they were talking about - do the animals spit on a progesterone card? Do we collect spit and then run a test on it?

I found out after I conjectured, in front of a lot of other farmers, the above theory. Everyone laughed. Then we went out to witness a "real" spit test. All it is is bringing in a male alpaca to the paddock, and if a female spits at him, she's 95% of the time preggers.

Boy was my face red.

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Originally Posted by indigoiis

When I first got into raising alpacas, our mentors kept talking about "spit tests" to determine pregnancy. I didn't know what the heck they were talking about - do the animals spit on a progesterone card? Do we collect spit and then run a test on it?

I found out after I conjectured, in front of a lot of other farmers, the above theory. Everyone laughed. Then we went out to witness a "real" spit test. All it is is bringing in a male alpaca to the paddock, and if a female spits at him, she's 95% of the time preggers.

Boy was my face red.

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When we moved home from Italy I was placed in a civilian school populated with farm kids, there were bovines wandering about the pasture next to the school and I asked if they were boy or girl cows and was the bull a boy or girl bull...I had no idea that cow = female and bull = male. :o

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Originally Posted by Pax

When we moved home from Italy I was placed in a civilian school populated with farm kids, there were bovines wandering about the pasture next to the school and I asked if they were boy or girl cows and was the bull a boy or girl bull...I had no idea that cow = female and bull = male. :o

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oh, that's really cute! ( I love the spit test story too!)

oh geez that reminds me. my 2nd grade best friend made animal sounds while we were playing with toy ponies, she thought they go "pon-pon"....

Let's start this with... my dearest Mother is a prude (and probably most of her generation was). She explained about having periods. But as for where babies came from - you got married and then you had babies. So there was something in that marriage certificate that caused babies.

Well in H.S. biology class I found out how other mammals procreated, and boy was I surprised! I knew about male human anatomy, but if I knew THAT had something to do with getting me pregnant, abstinance would have been very easy. The same thing they pee with? :eek:

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Originally Posted by bmccasland

But as for where babies came from -

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Y'know, in certain ways my early childhood exposure to the facts of life was pretty liberal. I knew what the external parts on male animals were called (and from stories my mom loves to tell, wasn't shy about naming them, at the top of my voice, at the zoo :rolleyes::eek:). I knew what had to happen between a male and a female before a baby would result. But as far as female parts, EXACTLY where babies come from? My mom pointed in the general region of her crotch. For years my sisters and I believed that a hole opened up in the crease of the groin, for babies to be born from :p

my mother told me the way you got pg was you SLEPT with a man.
Boy did that freak me out as a child!

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Originally Posted by mimitabby

my mother told me the way you got pg was you SLEPT with a man.
Boy did that freak me out as a child!

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You're dating yourself Mimi. ;)

I'm still waiting for my mom to tell me where babies come from! & bless her heart she died in '99.

I remember a girl in college who did not know the 'facts of life' until her sophomore year!

I remember a girl at my church in AL who was date raped. she got morning sickness. she had no idea why. she kept the baby.

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Originally Posted by alpinerabbit

also, I thought "Rocky Horror Picture Show" was pretty innocuous fun. Yeah I got that it was about "initiation", but had no idea it might offend people.

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Well, I'm still clueless about this one. :o
I am not aware of any teachers as gay. I'm still clueless.

*We had a high school math teacher that was an alcoholic. He didn't hide it. He kept his bottle of booze in his top desk drawer. This caused great amusement amongst us at that time: the guy must have been clueless-drunk to do that.

*When I was in my early 20's, I went to a wedding shower of a good friend. A guest was in a wheelchair. She was a lovely, gracious person. After the party, I found out she was transsexual. The first transsexual I had personally met. I haven't met one since...but then I might be clueless...once again. :p

*When I was in kindergarten and not knowing English at all. First month was awful. After school, the (white) boys taunted me and called me: "Jap" and tripped me. Pitched stones at me. It was 1964. After awhile, they stopped, when I befriended some gals. (Or I should say, they wanted to protect me.) For the next 10 yrs., I never understood why they flung the term at me: "Jap" since I was Chinese. Then I figured out later, this must have been hangover of fear/resentment of the Japanese-Canadians/Americans during WWII and how they were misunderstood, relocated to camps, etc. I didn't know about this part of North American history until I was 18. Clueless, yes. Humilated and yes, abit traumatized as a child...when other people are cruelly clueless to others.

*When I was 19, found out my work supervisor was gay and in love with another floor supervisor. I had no clue ...and same for many other women employed there also. This was at a retail store. They announced their love..and broke up not long thereafter.

*I've told this story on TE forums under a different topic, but here it is again:
My parents bought their lst house, a dilapidated place with a backyard. During our lst spring, we noticed this huge low bush of large leaves with red stalk. We hacked up the bush since it had to be a pesky weed. But it kept growing back every spring. Several YEARS later we found out we had several bushes of ...rhubarb growing.

That last story reminds me of when I worked in a b&b in a tourist town. Two German tourists came and I gave them a map and directions to the Cliff Walk. They came back with armfulls of a lovely, shiny leaved green vine that they intended to use to make wreaths. I looked at the plants and told them I thought they were poison ivy. Sure enough, next day they were both covered in raw, pink welts. D'OH!

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Originally Posted by SouthernBelle

I'm still waiting for my mom to tell me where babies come from! & bless her heart she died in '99.

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ditto for my mum, died in 99 never having uttered a word. :) as she told my older sister when she asked was my mum going to mention anything to me - "oh don't worry, the nuns are going to explain it, i signed the permission slip".

God love her and man i miss her.

my aunt was very proud of a plant she had in her yard, one she thought my cousin had planted. my sister and i looked at each other and cracked up. it was a marijuana plant. but my aunt was right, it was growing like mad!

A funny tangent to this topic is mis-heard song lyrics.

Anyone familiar with www.kissthisguy.com ? If you're in need of a good laugh you're sure to find a few there! :)

I was a grown, married, woman (early 80s) when I finally realized (or, more precisely, someone *told* me) that Elvis Presley wasn't singing: "Return December." :o

No, my family will NEVER let me live that down.

Mimi, my mother in law told my husband the same thing about getting pregnant by "sleeping" together. He said for years he thought something happened automatically in your sleep, like maybe magic pajamas?
Me, on the other hand, seemed to know all the facts by the time I was 7. I rarely was clueless in school/social situations, but when I was on my first teaching job, I had a crush on the school psychologist; that is until someone told me he was gay. I wasn't unaware of this stuff in 1977, but it just didn't occur to me.

I'm sure most of us have stories of cluelessness about skeletons and achievements of family members that we learned much later...

*I was sitting on a transit bus a few years ago. As bus moved along, I saw a woman jogging ahead, quickly and smoothly. And then I caught a glimpse of her face..it was one of my sisters. I had no idea ..she jogged that well. :rolleyes:Then later that month she ran a marathon.

*One day a nephew, when he was around 11 yrs. old, was practicing on his electric keyboard piano. Then my father joined him by tapping a few keys with him..he did abit more. It stunned my sister (mother of the nephew) since she ..and no one else in my family knew my father had any muscial ability.

So Dad admitted he did play a Chinese musical instrument when he was in high school. He used to play jam sessions with some buddies in their leisure time. Thereafter he completed abandoned playing any musical instrument. Now, you have got to realize that this is the same father who did not want me to take art classes or even pursue anything art oriented at college/university. (Despite endless hrs. of tearful debate, I did stuff my high school curriculum with over 6 art courses.) After all these years of saying how wasteful, financially risky, a fine arts education would be, then finding out that dear father had this secret boyhood skill... It was a revelation to learn of this facet about my father, when I was in my mid-30's.

I don't think many moms told their daughters the facts of life in the small town where I grew up. I remember the day all the Girl Scouts in town went to the library basement to watch a film, "Susan Grows Up". Not many afterward said they all ready knew about that.
Anyone remember that film?

My mom didn't know I could cook.

She still says, when she visits, "wow. You can cook. I had no idea."

My mom didn't realize I would love to bake. She doesn't remember me baking cakes and cookies with my dad when I was little (she worked two jobs). Granted it was mix and now I am more creative with making things from scratch.

When I was little, a boy dog knocked me down and did that naughty thing boy dogs will do on my legs. Having just recently been told the fact of life, I thought I was going to have puppies soon:o:o:o.

shortly after the above mentioned incident, having had the facts of life clarified a bit further by a book at the book store, I proudly shared my new found knowledge to the crowd gathered at the zoo to watch a pair of chimpanzees mating: "The one on top is the boy", I said. I wondered why my mother quickly slid the sunglasses off the top of her head, hiding her eyes, and melted away into the crowd.

Did anyone ever read Judy Blume's books when they were younger? Are You There God It's Me Margaret or Deenie ???

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Did anyone ever read Judy Blume's books when they were younger? Are You There God It's Me Margaret or Deenie ???

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I haven't heard of Deenie, but I did read the Me Margaret! We used to hide in the bathroom stalls and read the highlighted pages and giggle and say "GROOOSS!"!

I just came across a new book named, "Are you there, Vodka, it's me Chelsie"! Ha... now that is funny.