One thing about me is that I accept weird things without really questioning them.
For instance, my friend Amber and I were driving in my truck one night. Earlier that day, I had gummy worms while driving and one of them had fallen out, but I was a bit too preoccupied at the moment to pick it up. As we were getting out of the car, Amber goes "hey, look! A gummy worm!" and she ate it. I thought it was pretty weird and frankly a little gross, but I thought hey, to each his own! I continued on with my conversation when Amber interrupts, "you didn't really believe that I ate that gummy worm, did you? Because I was joking and I really just threw it on the ground." I was so relieved when I heard this because that's just a little too unsanitary for my taste! ;)
The other night, Shelby, Amber, Mimi, and I were at Sonic enjoying delicious limeades on a hot Arizonian night. We were exchanging stories and the topic of me accepting weird things got brought up, and so I brought up Mimi's favorite story to tell about me.
When I was little, I read a lot of books. If there was a word I didn't know how to pronounce, I would make up a pronunciation for it (In Harry Potter (before the movies) I would pronounce Gryffindor like Gry-find-door, Hermione like Her-me-own, and Slytherin like Sly-there-in). And I didn't know the meaning of a word I would try and figure it out based on how it was used or just skip that word entirely.
Now, when I was young and reading Roald Dahl's Danny the Champion of the World, I was confusing a word with another word that was crucial to the story.
Here's a plot summary:
"Danny the Champion of the World is a creative novel by Roald Dahl about the life of a boy named Danny. Danny is raised by his father because his mother died when he was young. They live in an old gypsy caravan at the filling station that his father owns. His father is a mechanic who teaches Danny everything that he knows. His father has a dark secret, however. One night, Danny wakes up to find that his father is not in bed. He learns that his father is a pheasant poacher. Danny knows this is stealing, but does not mind so much because his father is stealing from the mean rich man, Mr. Hazell.
Another night Danny’s father does not return from a poaching expedition, so Danny drives a car to go find him. Danny finds his father in a pit on Mr. Hazell’s land. His father got caught by the keepers, who keep watch over the pheasants and dug that pit to catch poachers. Danny rescues his father using a rope from the car, but his father’s leg has been broken by the fall into the pit. They get home and call the doctor, who puts a cast on his father’s leg.
Shortly after that, Danny comes up with a brilliant idea for catching pheasants. Their favorite food is raisins so Danny suggests to his father that they put powder from the sleeping pills given to his father for his leg into the raisins so that the pheasants would fall asleep after they eat the raisins. His father thinks it’s a brilliant plan and takes Danny poaching with him to try it out. They carry it out the day before Mr. Hazell’s big pheasant shooting party, and capture 120 pheasants. Danny’s father calls him the “Champion of the World”. Unfortunately, when they finally get the pheasants back to their caravan, all of the pheasants wake up. Mr. Hazell sees all the pheasants around the caravan, but is unable to do anything about, making this the ultimate victory for Danny and his father."
Throughout the entire book, I was reading the word peasants instead of pheasants. I mean, I thought it was a little weird that people lived in trees and I also didn't understand what the big deal was with the peasant hunting parties and drugging those peasants with raisins and making them fall out of their trees, but whatever...and the gypsy caravans didn't help either :) It was weird and not my cup of tea! So, I finished the book and never thought anything of it.
It wasn't until a year or two ago when I was talking with my sister about Roald Dahl books. She said that one of her favorites was Danny the Champion of the World, and I told her that I thought it was really weird. Then she got confused and asked me what the book was about. So I summarized it for her, peasants and all. She goes, "Brittany, pheasants not peasants! They're birds, not people!"
I was quite ashamed that I had gone all those years with a serious misconception of the book! But hey, it makes for a good story!
I guess that my accepting weird things can be good because I don't judge people for being who they are or wearing what they wear, I just accept it. But it can be a bad thing, because obviously miscommunications and misunderstandings can and will happen! :)
