I'm much smarter now (stop laughing)

I've been having flashbacks to weird childhood thoughts and actions of mine. Is it just me, or were we all this dumb as children? Observe.

1. I had a very specific idea of how cartoons were made, and this was it: Cartoons were people dressed up in animal costumes that were smeared with butter. Yeah, I don't know either.

2. After reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I asked my dad if you needed to pay money to get a good job. I couldn't figure out why anyone would take a job that kept you in the poorhouse when you could just get a better-paying job. Duh.

3. Once, when I was about 7(?) 8(?) my mom was having the carpets cleaned. She told me to stay outside and play while they dried. I took this so literally that when nature called, I decided to squat in the (front!) yard rather than go inside and disobey. The next day, my dad, exasperated with what he thought was a rude neighbor, came into the house and said, "Sheesh, some dog took the biggest shit in the front yard!"

4. I once wrote a diary entry about how it was the worst day of my life because my parents had put salt on my watermelon.

5. I had a grand idea to get a pen pal in another state (or country!) by writing a letter with my name and address in it and attaching it to a kite. I got the thing flying and somehow shook it till the letter fell off. It ended up two houses down the block.

6. In fourth grade, I decided I wanted to be the girl everyone came to when they needed to know the name of a song or band that sang it. I was determined to keep a three-ring binder full of this information. I think I wrote down three or four songs in one of those blue canvas folders before abandoning the whole operation.

7. I thought that color wasn't invented until the 60s. Not color photographs, mind you, but color in general. Hey, there were no pictures of color before then, right?

8. I wanted to be a waitress when I grew up, so I could taste the food I was serving all day long (yes, my food issues rooted themselves early!).