Things I Believed That Were Crazy

1.

In the 10th grade, I had a science teacher that informed us that when almonds go bad, they contain cyanide, and if you eat a bad almond it can kill you. And I thought, "I like almonds. I don't want to die. How do you know if an almond is going to kill you?" As far as I knew, I had never encountered a bad one, because I wasn't dead. But from then on, the act of eating almonds was almost like a rebellion.

I was a big worrywart. I have no idea if it's true or not that almonds contain cyanide, or if this is just the result of me thinking about it for years and skewing the story in my head. But the other day, I found a bad almond in my trail mix. And let me tell you: YOU KNOW. It TASTES like death. I spent a lot of years worrying about accidental death only to find out you'd have to be incredibly stupid to actually want to finish eating a bad almond once you'd bit into it.

2. 

When my sister and I were very young, my dad would tuck us into bed each night. Rachel and I shared a room and had twin mattresses on the floor next to each other, and as young children do, we had a tendency to roll out of our beds and wind up on the floor. In order to trick us into not rolling off our beds, my dad would tell us to put our arms by our sides, and he would tuck our blankets around us, wrapping us into cocoons so only our heads and our toes were visible out the ends of the blankets. He told us that if we stayed in our cocoons all night, we'd wake up as butterflies. We REALLY wanted to be butterflies. But every morning we would wake up, disappointed to find we'd wriggled our way out of the cocoons in our sleep, and were still just us.

Human Allie, Age 4

3.

When I first moved to College Station five years ago, I believed that I was never going to let Texas A&M get to me. People here say "Howdy!" a lot. I refused to say "howdy" back, instead dispensing a "hey" or a "hi" whenever people greeted me. And Matt would just shake his head and kind of laugh, as if he knew that someday I would break and that it was funny that I fought so hard against it.

I went to a charity event on Saturday night (which I'll tell you about another time), and to get everyone's attention, the emcee shouted "Howdy!" into the microphone — a common occurrence at events, because everyone shouts "Howdy!" back in response and then the room is quiet enough for the emcee or host to speak. Without thinking, I shouted a hearty howdy right back. It was a big room, a big event, and the emcee had to shout "Howdy!" a few times before everyone settled down. And I just kept answering that call and response until about the third time in a row when I realized what the heck I was doing and my Sooner spirit died of shame.

Congratulations, Aggieland. You have finally broken me. 

What weird things did you believe when you were younger? Anything you still carry with you?