This is not going to be an expose on how shit my parents are. In actual fact, they are supremely ace. I was just thinking the other day that I learnt some pretty important stuff, many years after I should have. It’s stupid to think your parents will teach you all the important stuff (who has the time for that?) but here’s a few things I learnt from other people.
Raw chicken is basically poison
I had my cousin over for dinner one night years ago and she was watching me cut up raw chicken for dinner. I sliced my finger and immediately put my finger in my mouth. She shrieked ‘No! Bad life choice!’ and spent the next 20 minutes explaining to me how raw chicken is basically made of salmonella. At the time I would have 25 and it was the first time I ever heard this information. I really feel like my parents dropped the ball on this one.
Mum’s name isn’t mum
This one came to light in the first few days of primary school. A girl at school told me her mum’s name was Sue and I was like ‘Your mum’s name isn’t mum? That’s weird.’
She then informed me that MY mum had a name that wasn’t mum. I was outraged and marched home to mum (otherwise known as mum) and asked if she in fact had another name.
‘Yep. Sally. And dad has another name too, it’s Don.’
Out-fucking-rageous.
How to pronounce words correctly
To be fair, I read A LOT so I was constantly saying things before I’d heard real people say them. Here are some fun examples. These are actually things I said OUT LOUD to actual people.
Determined
Det-er-my-n-ed
Adhesive
Ah-head-sive
Anal
An-arl
Paradigm
Par-rah-dig-um
Thankfully people laugh at you when you say things like ‘an-arl’ when you mean ‘anal’ (before anyone calls child protective services I was 7 years old and read a Cosmo magazine my aunty left at our house and there was diary of a prostitute in it) so you learn these things SUPER quickly.
That the word ‘fuck’ does not mean ‘punch’
Spent a lot of time on the playground threatening to fuck the boys. Classy. My year 6 neighbour cleared that one up for me.
That dugongs are real
Legit thought they were made up. Like trolls or bunyips. I was actually quite to delighted to find out I was wrong about this one.
Also today is podcast day! Here’s today’s episode. Today is a lucky dip – we just answer a lot of random questions we’ve been asked. It’s a goody I reckon…
What things were you just totally wrong about and found out as an adult?