The Lemonade Blind Spot

We all have blind spots in our knowledge.

I remember the day that I found out music isn’t played on a ‘jutebox’, it is played on a ‘jukebox’. (This was when I was ten. Okay fine, it was two years ago.)

Anyway, when I was pregnant with Crappy Boy we got a bag of lemons…

 

Crappy Papa’s parents have a lemon tree. One year, they brought us a bag of lemons.

A huge grocery bag full of lemons.

I can handle using one or two lemons. Lemon garlic chicken, lemon squeezed over seafood and cut up lemons in drinking water. A couple lemons are handy to have.

But an entire bag overflowing with lemons? What do I do with these?

Fortunately, Crappy Papa grew up having a lemon tree. The same exact one that his parents still have. He’ll know what to do to use them up.

crappy-lemonade-1

Lemonade! Of course! We’ll make lemonade.

So we start juicing the lemons. We only have one juicer so we take turns.

Turns out, lemons are small.

It takes a ton of lemons to make a tiny amount of juice.

crappy-lemonade-2

Look at us. We’ll be great parents. We’re literally making lemonade from lemons.

So we keep juicing. And juicing. And Juicing.

Okay, mostly Crappy Papa does. Hey, I’m pregnant. It is difficult to get close enough to the counter to have leverage.

Finally, we have an entire pitcher full of freshly squeezed lemon juice!

Pure lemon juice.

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Now we just add sugar!

We add a cup of sugar to the pitcher.

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We’ll start with that and then taste it. I hope a cup wasn’t too much.

I taste it.

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It is SO sour! It is horrible! More sugar.

So we add another cup.

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Then I taste again.

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Still, it is terribly sour. Not sweet at all! How can this be?

So we add yet another cup of sugar.

But there is so much sugar now that…

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The sugar has sunk to the bottom and it isn’t dissolving.

Heating it up will help the sugar dissolve fully.

So we pour the whole pitcher full into a large pot. And put it on the stove.

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Crappy Papa instructs me to stir it constantly. So I do.

Finally, all the sugar has dissolved!

It is perfect! Except it is hot.

So we pour it back into the pitcher and put it in the fridge to cool down.

Once it is cooled down, we fill two large glasses with our homemade lemonade.

crappy-lemonade-9

It’s good! It’s really good!

So we each have another glass.

crappy-lemonade-10

We are basically drinking lemon syrup. Two glasses each.

We start to feel funny.

In fact, we are totally high. Completely out of our minds and we don’t know why.

crappy-lemonade-11

Wow, doing lemonade is fun!

Wait…

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Not fun anymore.

We spent hours laying on the couch trying to feel normal again. We drank water to try to “wash it out” and we ate protein. We even went for a walk. But we still felt like crap.

Buzzy and nauseated.

(I’m sure someone will ask how the baby in my belly reacted. No significant reaction actually. He never seemed to care what I ate.)

Several hours later we talk about it.

crappy-lemonade-13

Wait. He doesn’t like lemonade now?

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Oh.

I thought he grew up making it. I thought he knew exactly how to make it.

Huh. Maybe we didn’t make it right….

It wasn’t until years later that we learned that the main ingredient in lemonade is actually WATER.

 

Have you ever had any blind spots?

—————-

I still make fun of his lemonade blind spot. How does someone who grew up with a lemon tree in their backyard not know how to make lemonade?

As for me, I grew up in the freezing midwest. No lemons there except the ones imported from the far away exotic lands of California and Florida. That’s luxury produce, people. You don’t make lemonade out of luxury produce. How was I supposed to know? 

We have our own lemon tree now. Now we’re lemonade making pros. I’m serious. We’re professionals. We get paid for it. We made a batch last week and the kids sold it from the driveway. They made six bucks! We’re getting the whole neighborhood high! WEEE!

BOOK STUFF. In addition to the seven I mentioned yesterday, here are a few more really nice and generous people writing about the book today:

REVIEWS. Thank you so much for getting reviews up on the retailer sites! Here are the links to easily add yours if you haven’t and are willing: (Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books A MillionWalmart, Indigo, Kobo, iBookstore & more.) Thanks! I owe you one.

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318 Responses to The Lemonade Blind Spot

  1. VR says:

    omg! I laughed so hard I cried!

  2. ammie says:

    I still believe in jackalopes and you can’t tell me otherwise 🙂

    • Woolies says:

      Jackalopes exist! I live in Arizona! I know! I’ve SEEN them! Seriously!

      • Zinna says:

        We rented the same house a couple of summers in a row and there was a bonafide jackalope mounted on the wall. It must be real.

    • Julie says:

      We went on a tour of the Grand Canyon, and the tour bus guy told us to keep our eyes open for Jackalopes. I spent the whole darn day ignoring all types of real Arizona ‘things to look at’ because I was glued to my bus window looking for jackalopes. Literally 9 hours later, at the end of the tour, I mentioned how disappointed I was that none surfaced during the trip. The guide was stunned silent that I was “that guy.” I was so pissed, I wanted my money back. or a tour do-over. I hate being ‘that guy.’

    • ranedae says:

      My aunt and uncle have a jackalope in their house. I’m working out so I can arm wrestle my 5 cousins for it.

    • Omg I believed in those for the longest time! My dad had a bad habit of not telling me when something was complete bullshit. When I saw them on postcards during our travels and asked him about them he just kinda shrugged. He did the same thing when I asked him if the animals on the Disneyland jungle ride were real (at the time I thought some were real and some weren’t).

    • Alison says:

      I was *just* trying to prove to somebody narwhales do exist and they wouldn’t believe me because the photos of jackalopes are every bot as realistic as the photos of narwhales!

  3. Liz says:

    I thought that a possum and an opossum were two different animals until recently. 🙂 So I hear ya on the blind spots!

  4. Anna says:

    I would still choose your lethal lemon-sugar concoction over my children’s lemonade attempt – when told we had no lemons or already made lemonade for them to sell at a lemonade stand they decided to sell water, marketed to passerby as water-flavored lemonade.

  5. mantramoon says:

    Wow, how rare – a Crappy post without any kids in it! (I don’t know how to make good lemonade either…)

  6. Amanda says:

    LMAO. I totally saw where that was going. I also grew up in the midwest, but I do know how to make lemonade. I read the directions on the RealLemon bottle. Duh. 🙂

  7. Daria says:

    Ha! I’m surprised you got through one glass of hot lemon syrup.

    When I was pregnant, I could not get enough lemonade. I still enjoy it now, but I was crazy for it then.

  8. Jessica says:

    I found myself talking to the computer screen as I read this “Add some water, add some water!!” lol

  9. Jenn says:

    Here I was thinking “That was a lot of lemons. Wonder how much water they added?? They probably added it before they put it on the stove”. HA! That last line make me laugh loud enough to startle to dog.

  10. Sarah says:

    HAHAHA! I was watching ‘Maisy’ with my son once and Maisy and her elephant pal were making lemonade…Lemons and sugar and yes….water. I had the greatest idea!! I try not to fill Dylan up on juice but hey…if it’s homemade lemonade well that’s a different story…I got out our lemon juice(conveniently pre-squeezed ), added some water and sugar to taste and happily said that magical word ‘JUICE’ to Dylan…He took it from me(he may even have been sick and I just wanted to get any liquid in him that I could) took a big swig AND…….burst into tears 🙁 I have always maintained that i CAN cook I just choose not too…Now I have to live with the truth…I can’t even make lemonade…

  11. Carlie says:

    When I saw your facebook post with “blind spots” and a drawing of a pregnant woman, I was convinced that the story was going to be relevant to LITERAL blind spots with a pregnant belly in the way. In fact, since I generally just skim down the blog and read the drawings, I had to actually go back and read the blog to figure out the blind spot. lol. Yup.

  12. gosia says:

    1. That got me laughing SO LOUD I PISSED MYSELF A BIT.
    2. Really craving lemonade now. Thanks.

  13. Julie says:

    I didn’t realize all you had to do was rotate the wheel on the deodorant in order to get that annoying cap to pop off!
    Still laughing about lemons!

    • Robyn says:

      OMG that is mine too! I’m 34 years old and seriously just figured that out a year ago. I cursed so many of those darn preservation covers!

    • rtleeb says:

      no kidding?! well, learn something new every day. :-O

      and i always spend 15 min and 2 broken nails trying to get those stupid tops off.

    • Morgan says:

      Aw man, why didn’t I think of that?!

    • amber says:

      I remember the day I figured that out too! I actually saw another woman doing it in the grocery store aisle so she could smell them all. I still do that.

      • Morgan says:

        I’ve spent SO much time at the store carefully prying those plastic shields off with my finger nails while trying not to scrape the deodorant underneath. Wasn’t there an old commercial where the punch line was “makes me wonder what else I don’t know”. I feel like that.

    • Sam says:

      Wow! Thanks for the tip. I’m embarrassed to say I never thought of that. You’ve saved me many finger nails!

    • Jerri Lyn says:

      This. This is *MY* lemonade blind spot! I had no idea until now!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      Holy….crap. Mind blown. I am laughing my head off. Just this morning, I was muttering curses to myself, trying to get my fingers to grasp that &$^$^ little cap. Yeah.

  14. Alex says:

    Seriously, no comments yet? Must be because we are all excited to comment on your book coming out.

    One of our funny parenting blind spots has been the stroller. We got a stroller from someone at church for baby #1. He was born in November in MN, so we didn’t use the stroller for several months (you know, freezing tundra and all). When we finally did, I proudly pushed the stroller on the sidewalk with my husband by my side. We looked like the picture perfect family, in my mind. That is, until we came to the curb, and it became evident that I didn’t know how to push a stroller over a curb. Do you push it over the edge and hope there is no damage to baby? Do you lift the front wheels, the back wheels, the whole thing? My husband was shocked and somewhat horrified at my lack of skills. He grew up with 3 younger brothers. There is a 10 year gap between him and his youngest brother. I grew up with 2 younger sisters, with a three year gap between me and the youngest. I was never old enough to help my mom with the baby, much less push a stroller with a really baby in it! So that was our blind spot. Feel free to crappify my story 🙂

    • Alex says:

      yeah, it took me so long to write there are now 19 comments. We love you Amber!

      • Priscilla says:

        I had a stroller for almost 2 years and thought it had the worst turning. You had to push back off the front wheels to turn. It was a really expensive stroller and I used to wonder how they could possibly charge so much for something that drove so bad. Then I realized there were locks on the front wheels. Duh!!! After that, it pushed like a dream. I still smack my head about that one!

  15. Hope says:

    I have got to quit reading this blog at work. Now I’m quietly laughing/crying/rolling on the floor at work. I think someone just offered me some seizure medication.

  16. Sue says:

    I told my brother he couldn’t eat “grilled cheese” because I thought it was “girl cheese.” lol

  17. Angela DeMeritt says:

    Last summer I made pitchers and pitchers of lemonade for my kids to sell at the end of our driveway. The neighborhood kids had apparently never had lemonade made with ACTUAL lemon juice, and thought that it was the best thing they’d ever tasted; you’d have thought my children were peddling crack. They still come to the house and ask me to make them my “special lemonade”.

    • Melinda says:

      LOL.

    • Nancy says:

      Same thing happened to me with popcorn. I made air-popped popcorn, with vegan “butter”, and salt. When I fed it to my son’s friends they thought it was the best popcorn they had ever had! I even had one mom ask me what kind it was because her kid was raving about it… they all had only ever had microwave popcorn. I haven’t thought of a blind spot yet, but the popcorn popped into my head when I read this comment… no pun intended 🙂

    • Chickenpig says:

      “Special Lemonade” has nothing to do with lemons in my house.

  18. Heather says:

    My husband had a grad student once that was new to cooking. Grad student was making chili and it called for 3 CLOVES of garlic. He put in 3 BULBS of garlic. It was pretty much inedible.

    • Christine N. says:

      I thought a clove was a bulb too, but in addition to being a bad cook I’m also a lazy one. By the time I got tired of squeezing garlic through the press it was usually the amount I was supposed to have, but I thought it wasn’t enough. Lol!

    • 12tequilas says:

      See now, if a recipe calls for 3 cloves I have been known to use 4 or 5…but WOW.

  19. Susan says:

    I was shopping at Target with a friend of mine and we found a pillow that looked just like a target. So I held it up and said “Look! It’s a target!” And my friend looked at me and, with all seriousness, said “THAT’S WHAT THEIR LOGO IS!”
    I’m pretty sure I died laughing that day.
    Also, every year, my husband finds yet another Christmas song that I’ve been singing wrong all my life. Example, they do not “pass around the turkey and the pumpkin pie…”

  20. andrea says:

    Unrelated to the post butttttt….

    I finally ordered my book! Couldn’t resist any longer. Now to stalk the mailbox for the next week…

    • Devan says:

      I ordered one to be sent to my BFF Tuesday and she got it yesterday (Thursday)! That was from Amazon though, they are ninjas.

  21. psychsarah says:

    OMG-I’m sitting at my desk laughing so hard that I have to stifle myself lest my colleauges realize I’m reading a blog instead of writing reports for a moment. Hilarious!

  22. Rachell says:

    Omg…. I did not know that. My life is changed forever

  23. Mendie says:

    My blind spot? I thought birds lined up on the telephone lines because they were trying to warm up their feet. I thought this UNTIL I WAS IN COLLEGE.

  24. Lisa says:

    I laughed so hard. I actually do know how to make lemonade, but most people probably think I make it like you since I like mine super tart/sweet. I never put enough water (for other people). I mean, when the cup is full of ice and it all melts, other people’s lemonade tastes watered down, mine tastes perfect. 🙂

  25. Rachel says:

    I’m always happy when once it “comes out” (and I’m corrected) that I’m ignorant about something that its around close family who I know won’t think I’m a complete idiot. Like the time I was talking about sewing an “apleek” onto a shirt. My mom is like, “uhh…a-pli-kay” (applique) and I was like, oooh.. wow, I’m so glad I didn’t say that in joanns at the cutting table, ya know? Haha!

    • amber says:

      I’m always doing that with words. Most of my vocabulary was from being a voracious reader as a kid. I’ve never heard any of the words spoken though so sometimes I’m quite off. “Apleek” is classic!

      • Karena says:

        This is my biggest problem. I read like crazy but never hear a lot of the vocabulary I pick up spoken so my husband just follows me around correcting my pronunciation. “Hey, at least I know what it means” is usually my retort.

    • Phaedra says:

      I love to read also, and I always think I know how to pronounce something, until I try to read it out loud, then all of a sudden, I realize, “Huh! I do NOT know how to say that!!!!” or, “That definitely didn’t come out the way I thought it would…”

  26. Katy says:

    Awesome!! My grandparents had a lemon tree in their backyard and my sister and I LOVED making lemonade anytime we visited. Delicious 🙂

  27. Gaylin says:

    We moved when I was in Grade 3. In my new school/classroom there were two teachers. I had a hard time learning all the kids names. The teachers kept calling one of the kids Boy. I thought that was so mean, he must have a real name, not just Boy. It wasn’t until I saw it written down that I realized his name was Boyd.

  28. Stacey says:

    Ha! I would have made it the same way! Try making lemon squares next time — that’ll take about ten lemons. Or do grown-up lemonade and make limoncello!

  29. Lyz says:

    Oh NO, lol – I saw where this was going once you had an entire pitcher full of lemon juice.

    A friend and I tried a similar thing with iced tea when we were kids, but still old enough to know better. More sugar = tastier, right? Even when there is so much sugar in the tea that the bottom third of the glass is nothing but sugar? This would be iced tea heaven!

    Two upset stomachs later… we never tried that again.

  30. Kristen says:

    We make lemoncello with the zest. That and lemon meringue! We freeze the juice to make apricot jam with the other tree in our yard. Never made any jam as family when I younger. It is way easier than I thought.

  31. When I taught in Japan, I once got asked if I knew how to peel eggs–as if there are certain basic human skills that are culturally specific. Needless to say, I just stared at the guy…

    My 8 y.o. keeps working on his illustrations. You’ll like this one, especially the picture of “peopel making paper”:

    http://www.momintwocultures.com/2013/03/things-that-make-me-curious-and.html

  32. Taylor says:

    My blind spot: I thought a praying mantis was “prang” mantis. Never understood why people said they looked like they were praying, and that’s why they’re called “prang” mantises.

  33. Dawn says:

    My mother, to this day, says PumpkinNickel Bread, instead of Pumpernickel…when I was growing up, I thought it was made with pumpkins.

    • Lana says:

      wow… I just learned something new… It isn’t?

      • Darbi says:

        It’s a German word, having nothing to do with pumpkins. I just looked it up, and may I just say: ew. Pumpen was a New High German synonym for being flatulent, and Nickel was a form of the name Nicholas, commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g. “Old Nick”, a familiar name for Satan), or more generally for a malevolent spirit or demon. Hence, pumpernickel is described as the “devil’s fart”, a definition accepted by the Stopes International Language Database,[2] the publisher Random House,[3] and by some English language dictionaries, including the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.[4] The American Heritage Dictionary adds “so named from being hard to digest”.

  34. Sara says:

    I’m sure I have my own blind spots, but can’t seem to think of one right now. What did come to mind was a story about my SIL. Apparently, when she was young, someone told her that a “Watch for Falling Rocks” sign she saw on the side of the road was a missing child sign for a Native American boy named “Falling Rocks.” I’m not sure if they were trying to save her from worrying about actual falling rocks or what. But she was a young adult in the car with some peers when she spotted a sign and exclaimed, “I can’t believe they’re still looking for that boy.” And then it dawned on her.

    • Genevieve says:

      That is really funny!

    • Courtney says:

      Hilarious.

      • Anne says:

        My Dad always made up long stories about the Indian Chief Falling Rock, you know the one that was like Jesus and they were all waiting for him to come back someday. He told my kids about him last summer. I don’t remember how long I believed in him but now I get to watch my kids get suckered in too!

    • A.J. says:

      OMG! My dad used to tell me that story too! It became a running joke with my family, we’d pass the sign (and there are a lot of them in Tennessee) and he’d say, “Did I ever tell you the story of Falling Rocks?” and I’d shriek, “Yes, stop it!” The bad part? My youngest thinks this is hilarious, and will say, “No, Grandad, tell me.”

  35. Tracie Osimanti says:

    I thought a pony was a baby horse until about ten years ago.

    • Mannie says:

      It’s not??? I still didn’t know that!

      • Leah says:

        Most people do. A foal is a baby horse. A pony is a small horse (under a certain size but I can’t remember what!). That’s why Shetland ponies are always ponies.

        • Phaedra says:

          I believe if it’s under 20 hands it is a pony. I could be wrong though… I don’t feel like looking it up.

          • Brenna says:

            Actually, a pony’s maximum height is 14.2 hands. Anything taller than that is a horse. Most riding horses are found in the 15-17 hand range. Then there are the draft horses, which are huge (think Clydesdales).

        • Heather C says:

          When my older son was 4 I gave him a quiz that asked questions about your mom..really cute, like What is your Mom’s favorite thing to do?(play with me) What was your Mom like as a child?(probably good) When I asked How tall is your Mom? He answered: “13” (He measured me in hands, lol) So it’s not just ponies and horses.

    • Robin Jingjit says:

      I remember the day I figured that out! I was in high school! Cringe!

  36. Lana says:

    Yeah.. I only found out last year after Madonna’s Super Bowl performance that “lip-singing” is actually lip syncing…

  37. Bridget says:

    I found out about a year ago that cantaloupes grow on vines, and not like a coconut in a tree.

  38. Arlee says:

    It is only recently (and thanks to my husband) that I have learned that they are “nun-chucks”, not “numb-chucks”.

    • Naomi says:

      Really!? Apparently that was a blind spot for me too!

    • amber says:

      Bingo. You just found another blind spot for me. 🙂

    • Kewlkiwi says:

      Actually, neither is right – they are called Nunchaku (no ‘s’ on the end) and is based on an Okinawan farmer’s tool used to flail rice. When the Japanese occupied Okinawa (approx’ 370 years ago) they forbade the use of weapons by ‘the peasants’ who cleverly used items they already had – that didn’t look like weapons – to protect themselves from the warlords.

      • Sara Myers says:

        Kewlkiwi – I learned the history & correct spelling & pronunciation yesterday in my martial arts class. I thought they were nun chucks. I also learned that they hurt, and I’m not very good at using them. My knuckles are still swollen from just trying to learn a basic figure 8. (My instructor suggested wrapping them in foam tennis racket tape. I’m going to stick with it.)

  39. Erica says:

    I laughed so hard right now, I just almost drooled on my pants. I kept wondering when they were going to add the water! That was perfection! I just purchased the book last night on my Kindle, and I am loving it already.

  40. Allie says:

    I thought George Harrison and George Hamilton were the same person…until I was in college. I just thought of George as the tan Beatle. When I realized me error I was pretty ashamed (because seriously?!) but now I just think it’s funny.

  41. Lauren says:

    ha! my in laws had a lemon tree, and mom in law taught me to make lemonade, woohoo! Only I don’t have a lemon tree 🙁 We planted one… but it’s shorter than I am. No lemons for awhile!

    Speaking of blind spots… I have a brother 12 years younger than me, and I was a nanny for years leading up to my son’s birth, so I totally thought I’d have this parenting thing down when my son was born. Only I had never bathed any of them! My husband and I brought our shiny new baby home, whom we eventually had to bath… we had no idea what to do! 2 professional degrees, and we could not figure out how to fill the baby bath tub (it wouldn’t fit under the sink), what the water temperature should be, how to get the soap on him (should we just smear it on him or put it on the washcloth first?), how to wash his hair (do we use the same soap?), how to get the soap off again (wait… but now the washcloth has soap in it!), and the biggest challenge, HOW DO WE GET HIM OUT OF THE WATER WITHOUT TOTALLY SOAKING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT??? The only reason we got through it was by calling my mother to teach us! and it took me 3 months before I realized I could put his towel over me and THEN pick up my wet son. Live and learn!

    • mb says:

      Me too! I was a nanny for four years, and cared for a couple newborns, so I thought I was so prepared! The baths were the worst. I still make my husband do it- my son is 5months old now, and I’ve maybe bathed him twice! He’s so wiggly and slippery. Terrifying!

  42. Brenna says:

    The only example I can think of in my life (though I’m sure there are many, many more that I’m not thinking of) was Tigger’s parting words. When he said, “TTFN, ta ta for now,” I was convinced that he was saying TTF*E*. It never made sense to me. I didn’t realize my mistake until after I was married, even though I’d learned what an acronym is years before that. Sigh.

    • amber says:

      Yes, acronyms are tricky!

      I thought Michael Jackson’s song P.Y.T. Pretty Young Thing’s lyrics were just nonsense. I thought it was “peewhytee pretty young thing” had no idea he was saying actual letters.

      • beth says:

        Letters in songs are very tricky. You know how they say to slow down the LMNOP in the alphabet song? Well I was singing ella-minnow-pee for longer than I care to admit. No one ever corrected me though. The day I figured it out I felt pretty ridiculous! Now some friends look at me weird when I sing the abcs to my kids bc I go very slowly over those letters.

        • Darbi says:

          There is a great book named after its main character “Ella Minnow Pea”. This reminded me of it. I’m sure most of us were trying to figure that part out as kids. It goes so fast and is quite smooshed together.

        • Ali says:

          My older daughter used to sing “I’m a little pea”. So cute!!!

  43. Allyson says:

    My friend’s mom thought that “lol” meant “lots of love”, which was finally corrected when she sent out a mass text: “Grandpa died this morning. LOL!” Oops.

  44. Chris B. says:

    Actually, once you heated up that lemon juice and sugar, you had the magical ingredient for perfect lemonade. Next time! (But maybe not for Crappy Daddy.)

  45. Charlie says:

    It took me until the age of 32 to realize it is Barbara Streisand not Barbara Streisland. Barbara Streisand still sounds odd to me 6 years later.

    • Kristin says:

      Actually, it’s “Barbra,” not “Barbara,” which always seems weird to me. Why no extra “a”? Why is she, out of all Barbaras, the exception (singing skills notwithstanding)?

  46. Kristi says:

    Up until a few years ago I did not understand the meaning of the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause.” I thought the mommy was kissing a real Santa, and she was kind of a whore 😉 My husband had to explain it to me that mommy was in fact kissing daddy dressed up as Santa… Woops.

    • Sara says:

      Ummmm… I just learned something new. Thanks!

      • Darbi says:

        Um, I think you had it right the first time. There’s a line that goes: “Oh what a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night.”

        • Jessica C says:

          Because the ‘kid’ singing the song doesn’t know that Daddy is playing Santa 🙂

        • Sara says:

          Actually, Darby, the song is from the kid’s point of view so he does not know it really is his daddy.

          • Darbi says:

            I see your point, absolutely. But, here’s another thought: if it was the middle of the night, and the kids were supposed to be asleep, why was the dad dressed up as Santa, with a beard and everything?

          • Dana says:

            Cause Mommy has a Santa fetish?

  47. Jimin says:

    Song lyrics! I thought “canary in a coal mine” was “canary in a coma” until just recently. Duh!

    • Robin Jingjit says:

      This reminds me of another one of mine!! I thought a coma was ‘acoma’. Like he’s in critical condition. He’s in acoma. It took a long time to figure our because you never hear it without the a.

    • 3J's mom says:

      My older sister thought Cat Stevens wanted everyone to take a ride on the “B string” (presumably some magical guitar string?) instead of PEACE TRAIN. I remember it vividly because for ONCE, I knew something she didn’t, lol!

  48. Toby says:

    Blindspot: When I was young, I thought that in the “olden days” everything was black and white, i.e., there was literally no color anywhere. After all, that’s how all the photos looked.

    By the way, I loved the phrase “doing lemonade.” It’s a drug after all!

    • Zoé says:

      H my god, my 8 year old only discovered this last year!! I thought it was the most hysterical thing I’d ever heard.. He asked me when colour was invented!! Bahahaha!!

  49. em says:

    My husband grew up with avocado trees in his back yard and never ate one (or guacamole) until he lived in Argentina and someone gave him some. Now he feels like he wasted all those prime guac years 🙂

  50. Diana says:

    We had a lemon tree when I was growing up. I remember the first time I filled my shirt with those beautiful lemons and ran up the hill to the house to make lemon aid. If it wasn’t for my mother’s wisdom I wouldn’t have added water either!

    I still don’t know…is it a “Lab Top” or “Lap Top”…anybody?

    • Alicia says:

      Laptop…because it was designed for you to be able to rest in on your lap to use it…not that it’s comfortable like that anyway and can actually overheat if not on a flat surface 🙂 *giggle*

      • Diana says:

        Yes of course that makes sense…but so does “labtop” because it fits on a lab top….and can go back into your bag…. so you see my confusion.

    • Jennifer says:

      I too always have to stop and remind myself if it is lab top or lap top….I think I’m confused b/c I was doing my science undergrad when lap tops became the “thing” and so to me it was oh now you can have your computer right there in the lab with you on top of the table. You’re in good company 🙂

  51. rtleeb says:

    Until I bought one, I had no idea that an umbrella stroller was so called because it folds up like an umbrella. I really thought it was going to have a little sun shade-like umbrella on top to protect the baby.

    This is a synopsis of the conversation between myself and my husband at the store:
    Me: I see a lot of strollers but none of them have umbrellas on them
    Husband: Whaaaat?
    Me: No umbrellas. Why don’t the umbrella strollers have umbrellas on them?
    Husband [gasping between fits of laughter]: HAHAHAHA No! HAHAHAHA They fold up like umbrellas! HAHAHAHAH

    Me: Oh. (duh, i knew that…..not)

    • Elsie says:

      I’ve been trying to figure out why they’re called umbrella strollers for years! There is nothing umbrella-like in how they fold up really. 😀

  52. Stacy says:

    “Jutebox” kills me!! I think I was 32 when I figured out that no one was in the kitchen with Dinah strumming on the old “man Joe”. Always thought that was odd and wondered what poor Joe did, but belted it out with my kids anyways!

    • Krys says:

      Love that!!! I always thought that the lyrics for Aerosmith’s “Love in an Elevator”, were actually “loving an alligator”. I still sing it like that now!

    • Devan says:

      OMG!!! I am crying laughing at the old man Joe…. LOL!!

  53. Sarah says:

    Back in my collage apartment with then boyfriend, now husband, I asked him to boil some frozen peas to help with dinner. A few minutes later I see him holding the bag looking confused. “What’s wrong?,” I ask. “I’m just looking for the directions”, he replies. I won’t even tell you what happened when I asked him to make scrambled eggs during my morning sickness with first baby.

  54. Parker says:

    If life gives you lemons, you better hope it gives you sugar too, otherwise your lemonade is going to taste like crap.

  55. Kristin says:

    I didn’t realize until a couple of years ago that it’s “wind chill factor” – NOT “wind shield factor.” Hey, that made sense to me – it’s colder when you’re moving, right? So, hypothetically, if you were lying on the wind shield while the car was moving, it would be even colder than just being outside?

    • amber says:

      I thought it was windshield factor too!

      • Robin Jingjit says:

        Oh!! I remember saying something about the windshield factor out loud in class in fifth grade and realizing it AS it was coming out of my mouth, but it was too late.

        That same year, a boy in my class thought there was a kind of flower called taco shells- you know: with silver bells, and taco shells, and pretty maids all in a row.

        • Brenna says:

          I just had to Google that line because reading “taco” completely erased the word “cockle” from my head. I knew it wasn’t taco, and I hated myself momentarily for suddenly not knowing the real word anymore. LOL

  56. Jen says:

    Song lyrics for me too! Here in New Zealand there is an old song called “April Sun in Cuba” until I was 20 I thought the lyrics were ‘take me to the emu farm in Cuba’ – always thought it was strange!

  57. tara says:

    Haha I used to work at a smoothie place and we made fresh lemonade so the whole time I was reading this I was thinking “ADD WATER!!!”

    Hilarious. Glad you guys figured it out! 🙂

  58. Paula says:

    My just married friend invited me over for dinner. She grew up in a very wealthy family, live in maid and all, never made herself a cup of tea….I arrived to her house to see two hamburguers floating in two inches of oil and in time to stop her from frying defrosted, watery fries and burning herself to pieces. It’s amazing how she went from that to an amazing cook! It did take some time……

    • Steph says:

      OMG!!! My best friend was “similar”. She wasn’t like rich or anything, but her parents owned a Chinese food restaurant. Her brother and her sister both cooked at home. And I assumed, at first, she did as well. I mean, who would’ve thought that someone who’s parents were cooks, wouldn’t know how to cook lol. So there were many situations that I remember involving her lack of cooking skills – and she’s gotten quick better now, not like professional, but a lot better lol. But here’s my favorite!

      While we were in University, she called me one Saturday afternooon to chat, and was all excited to tell me her news. She decided she was going to try and cook. I was like, ok, you can’t cook?? So she said she made her first dinner for herself. I asked her what she made. She said salad. I was kind of confused, but was thinking, okay maybe it was like a pasta salad or something. So she continued on and this is how that conversation went (F = friend; M = me):

      F – So I put lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, (and whatever else she listed) in it
      M – So you made a tossed salad? (Thinking to myself OMG, this ain’t hard at all lol)
      F – Yep.
      *and no word of a lie, in a high pitched shriek of excitement she said*
      F – AND DID YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN PUT TOMATOES IN IT????
      M – Ummm have you ever ATE a salad before???

      lmfao … I still bug her about this 😉 and told her husband when they were dating too lol

  59. Alicia says:

    I kept reading and thinking…”they did add water, right? They did add water, right?” Got to the end and “doh! They didn’t :(“. I laughed so hard. Awesome story!

  60. Steph says:

    lmfao – I couldn’t stop laughing … mind you, I wouldn’t know how to make lemonade either, altho I dislike lemonade anyways and if I wanted to make it now I’d probably just Pinterest search it lol. As for my blind spot … prepare for a laugh at how dumb I am. Keep in mind that I’ve never been the smartest when it comes to Science or Geography, weren’t really interesting areas to me in school. By the way, I still get made fun of for this conversation lol.

    So 1-2 years ago I was driving my husband to an appointment and I made a comment about how neat the moon looked (and the sun was still out as well). So to the West of us was the moon, and to the East of us was the sun. He was looking around behind and above us (through the moon roof), and I asked what he’s doing, he was trying to see the moon. I laughed and said it was where it always is, and pointed. He looked at me weirdly, and then said it’s not always there. Instinctively, I argued lol. I don’t remember all the details, but it then came out about my “understanding” of how the moon, sun, and Earth ‘operated’.

    I explained that the Earth was in the center, and that the moon was on the one side and the sun on the opposite side and they just continually moved around from East to West… so the sun rose in the East, as the moon was setting in the West; and the moon rose in the East, as the sun was setting in the West. Yep. I was certain of this. So my husband, while laughing, asked me … so how come the moon is sometimes in other places. Never had I focussed on that lol, hadn’t ever noticed. Yep …. I fought him on this, while he went on and on about boring facts lol. And during one of our drives shortly thereafter, I was definitely informed of how wrong I was lol. I never noticed … and honestly, it just made sense, since the sun rose and set in a certain way, that the moon (being the “opposite”) did the same thing just on the other side of the Earth lol.

    Ok … you can all have fun at my expense now 😛

    • amber says:

      Aristotle believed that earth was the center of the universe and people STILL talk about how cool and smart he was. So you’re good.

    • Devan says:

      Around a campfire, a few adult beverages in, we had a discussion about this…some of the women (you know, us dummies) thought this too, or very similar. The superior men put us in our place and gave us a lesson. :/ It was not a proud moment for the girl team, but I was not sure, I said I thought it was that way but I didn’t argue, which kinda saved me. I don’t think it is all that uncommon of a belief…. 🙂

  61. Jamie says:

    Did anyone else notice how big your boobs are in this post?

    Oh. Just me?

    • amber says:

      Oh pregnancy boobs, how I miss thee.

      • Jamie says:

        Yeah, my husband misses them, too.

        …Mine! Not yours. LOL

        PS. I also thought it was “jutebox” as a kid. It blew my mind when I learned it was “jukebox”.

        • Kelly says:

          I think it’s funny that both myself and my son called the song “juicebox hero” until corrected by my big brother (he is the uncle who corrected my boy too!)

  62. IHAQ says:

    For years I thought it was Jupebox. I’ve had many blinders…

    a few months ago I realized ICQ stood for, I seek you.

    I used to think the phrase was “Make ends-meat” instead of “Make ends meet” I thought ends-meat was a term for cheap meat. You needed to make enough money so you could at least buy the cheap meat.

    Spandex is an anagram for expands.

  63. Amanda says:

    Hey, I know I am a couple of days late, but our internet connection is terrible. SO EXCITED about your book release – we are living in Africa and were able to preorder on amazon as a gift for a friend (great way to maintain connection while overseas). Also, trying to download my own digital copy to help maintain sanity/sense of humor. Thanks for that.

  64. Andrea says:

    My blind spot is somewhat language, somewhat biology related. When I moved to Colorado I heard people talking about mountain lions and they sounded like they feared them a lot. Coming from Slovakia, where the biggest wild cat is a lynx, I assumed people in Colorado are sissies and are afraid of lynxes. Until about a year later I finally googled it. And learned I lived surrounded by freaking pumas!! I thought those were supposed to live in Africa or in a zoo!

  65. Laura says:

    Lemons are exotic here too. My kids sold powdered lemonade last summer and made $39. We even had drive up business and the kids handed cups through car windows! Can you imagine how rich we’d be with real lemon lemonade…

  66. Katie Mang says:

    This post brought back some preggo-memories. I CRAVED lemonade when I was pregnant, but the “county-fair” kind of lemonade with tons of sugar and fresh lemons. I had my hubs take me all around town until we found just the right kind. My literal blind spot was trying to make anything in the kitchen with a huge pregnant belly… if it dropped or needed to be retreived below the waist, it was gone.

  67. Krystle says:

    My lovely husband and I were watching The Chapelle Show years back with our friends. In one episode he says “some people like their cucumbers better pickled” and I could literally SEE the gears turning in my husband’s head and that lightbulb flick on over his head… Pickles are CUCUMBERS?!

    I just about peed my pants at that, our friends were dying too… our age? Like 23 or so.

    I never knew pickles could be a blind spot, but there it was!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      That. Is. HILARIOUS. What did he THINK they were, though?? I’m dying to know – did he – wait, no, I’m dying – did he think they GREW THAT WAY???

  68. Robin Jingjit says:

    My worst blind spot was that until 10th!!! Grade!!! I thought time zones were gradual. Like if it was 8 am in Washington state and 9 am Montana or wherever, that in between was 8:30 or something. I just never thought about it enough to realize that was nonsense.

    • Dee says:

      I had a friend that thought Alaska was an island with just a really straight edge.

    • Devan says:

      My BFF’s hubby was deployed to Afghanistan last year and they do have a half hour time zone. He was 9 1/2 hours ahead of us (or whatever, I don’t remember exactly). I thought he was messing with me at first…but it is truth!

  69. Priscilla says:

    My mom didn’t know what chili con carne was so she put in some corn. From then on we called it chili con corny.

  70. Jen says:

    this post made me salivate!

  71. Jess says:

    Once, as a late teen living at home after graduating highschool my mother charged me with making the St Paddy’s Day feast. Everything went along swimmingly until it came to my making of the soda bread. I apparently thought that when the recipe called for “buttermilk” it meant pancake mix. I didn’t realize buttermilk was an actual liquid product, nor did I realize we actually woul have this product in the fridge. It took many times more water than the recipe called for to get the bread into anything resembling dough form, and several hours to bake (still was a bit doughy in th middle.) Tasted great though!

  72. Alli says:

    When I was a kid, my mom made up a character (like Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa, etc) called Birthday Bear. All that time, I assumed everyone had Birthday Bear bring them gifts on their birthdays, since the Bunny et al brought stuff for the other kids too.
    Age 9, my parents break the news that Santa & friends are not real. No specific mention of the Bear, but I assume it is implied that he is also a mythological holiday being that everyone had.
    Fast forward to age 18…talking with my boyfriend (aka future husband!) about his birthday and I mentioned that “Maybe Birthday Bear will bring it for you!” ~~Needle-scratching-off-the-record-moment~~ He says, “BIRTHDAY BEAR?!?!” Clearly he has never heard of my mythical friend. “Yes, like Santa…Easter Bunny…Tooth Fairy…?” Not ringing any bells. That was the moment I realized my mom was WAY more creative than I’d ever given her credit for.

    He still (often) tells people that I *believed in* Birthday Bear until I was 18.

    • teagansmomma says:

      When we were little, whenever we lied, our grandma called us Fibber McGees. Fast-forward 20 years, and my sister called her boyfriend one. He looked at us like we were crazy. Apparently not everyone knows what that is. lol

  73. Amber says:

    Early in our marriage we had a short tail cat who hopped because of a backbone deformity. I told my husband a tale about cabbits, how rabbits and cats were cousins and once in a while the could mate and have offspring that resembled our cat with longer ears. Well fast forward 15 years, we are talking aith some friends about lions and tigers producing ligers and he says “kind of like cabbits, right?” I stared at him for a good two minutes before I mustered up the courage to tell him that I was pulling his leg and it had no basis in reality. 15 adult years of trusting me = cabbit blind spot.

  74. Priscilla says:

    My husband teaches COLLEGE and has some great stories. One student asked how islands stay in one place since they are floating in the ocean. She didn’t realize that islands are just the tops of underwater mountains. (We go a big laugh a couple years ago when a member of congress spoke about being concerned about Guam getting so overpopulated it could “tip over and capsize.”) Another student said she was helping her daughter with homework and when her daughter asked what is the stuff that comes out of volcanoes (lava), she only knew to tell her “juice.” And when looking at constellations outside one night, one student pointed to the red light on top of a nearby communications tower and said, “wow, Mars really is the red planet.”

    One great thing about my husband is that he always treats these little errors like serious comments and patiently explains the correct answer. I think he might be really good with his students from the experience he got correcting me over the years. 🙂

  75. Madeleine says:

    I have no blind spots- I know everything about everything, it’s awesome! Except that one time I made buttercream icing/frosting with granulated sugar. Mmmmm, crunchy!

    • E says:

      You can make buttercream frosting with granulated sugar.. you just have to melt it in 2x the milk as sugar with 2x the sugar as flour, whisk all together, bring to a rolling boil whisking frequently, turn down heat to low and whisk constantly 1 minute, and then remove from heat and let it cool completely.. then softened butter same amount butter as you used milk, whip it til it’s airy and then whip in the milk/sugar/flour mixture..then whip in vanilla extract or almond extract or whatever extract to taste and food color if desired… Creamy delicious deliciousness, not overly sweet, and you can make as little or as much as you need. Sorry for going off on a whipped buttercream tangent.. But. Mmmm.

      • Anne_Hedonia says:

        Today has opened my eyes, as the song goes. Am going to try this reh-seeep post haste. SMUHHHH.

  76. E says:

    lol

    When I was at a cook-out when I was 20, I proclaimed to all nearby “Oh, don’t use that ice in your drink.” “Why not?” “Because it’d been in my freezer for a while and got freezer-burnt.” Yeah. Freezer-burnt ice. I thought that freezer-burn was when extra ice crystals form on anything in the freezer, drying out the food.. But.. It doesn’t actually apply to plain ice.. because.. it’s just ICE.. Extra ice on ice is really just ice, not special icky ice.. Wooee, I felt brilliant.

    Also, for a long time I thought the “smh” acronym wasn’t an acronym but a grunty sound someone makes when exasperated, since that was generally the gist of the conversation when it was used.. (It stands for “shaking my head”).

    • Angela says:

      Just found a blind spot. Apparently, “smh” does not stand for “smack my head”, which I now feel compelled to do. LOL!

    • Devan says:

      Just uncovered one for me…I though it was the sound too. But it does make sense…that sound and ‘shaking my head’ would be used in the same places 99% of time…I would think….

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      YOU are SLAYING me. Not only because I shared your thing about “freezer burnt ice” – and right now, am slack-jawed thinking about the trays I have thrown in the sink, fed up with their… extra film.. of… frozen water??? I’m literally shake-and-pee laughing at myself right now. BONUS POINTS OF SHORT BUS: I am 46. Oh dear buttery god. I may have even done this last night.

      Plus which, the grunted sound of “Smh!!” is the best thing I’ve read like ever. I just. One post and so much laughing!

  77. Cody says:

    So glad that I read this while sipping a glass of lemonade! Love your blog, and I am looking forward to reading the “crappy” book!

  78. Gabrielle says:

    My little brother and I both wailed out, “Am-stel Light! Am-stel Light!” when singing along to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (exit light, enter night.) Our older brother deserves full credit for our knowing about either.

  79. Marina D-K says:

    Crying laughing here too!

  80. Melissa says:

    I have to share my sister’s most famous blind spot, because it is hilarious. She is the mother of 3 boys. When Boy #1 was a baby, she would just lay out 6 pairs of jammies every night because he would always wet through them. ALL OF THEM. She would take at least 4 outfits with her whenever she went somewhere. Finally, the first checkup came. The doc removed Boy #1’s diaper and asked if Boy was wetting all of his clothes. Flabbergasted and amazed, she said “YES! How did you know?” He said “you have to point his (thing) DOWN in the diaper.” Somehow my sister’s husband hadn’t realized this was happening. So that is my advice to all new mothers of boys. Point “it” down!

    • Priscilla says:

      My sister-in-law had to learn that lesson the hard way too. LOL! That was her first piece of advice to me a couple years ago when we found out we were expecting a boy. 🙂

  81. mb says:

    My mom brought brownies to a church potluck, and everyone loved them! One of her friends asked if she’d made them from scratch. When she afirmed that, yes, in fact they were from scratch the friend requested the recipe. My mom said, ‘It’s really easy. You just need an egg and oil and a box of Betty Crocker chocolate chunk mix…”

    Who knew there was even another way to make brownies?!

    My mom became kind of legendary at church for her cooking skills and knowledge…

  82. Rachel says:

    This actually made me LOL! Loudly, and sent two small children running. I was devastated as a child when I found out there was no city of rock and roll. I seriously was kid depressed the whole afternoon and to this day I’m a little sad. I’m sure I’ve had blind spots as an adult. thankfully I have a horrible memory though…

  83. The One True Josh says:

    I think it is significant that I DO know how to make lemonade, and noticed that you were not adding water, but rather than question you I spent the time trying to figure out how it could work to cook the juice into a syrup.

    I have faith! Unfortunately it is in you. You have power!

    Enjoy.

  84. Alyce says:

    I am sure I have heaps of blind spots, but I can’t recall any right now. This does bring to mind when my daughter was learning to read. One morning while eating her breakfast she read the cereal box and cried out “Wheat-bix! I have been calling them Week-bix!”. It was hilarious.

  85. Denise says:

    One of my many blind spots: We live in Massachusetts. Driving to the beach one day, we pass Revere High School, and my oldest says, “Mom, look! That school was named after Paul Revere!” I chuckled lovingly and said, “Actually we are driving through the town of Revere. The school is just named after the town.” She said, “Well the TOWN is named after Paul Revere!!” Oh. Right. Of course it is. I never, ever, had realized that before.

  86. Manda says:

    It took reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for me to realize the phrase is not “for all intensive purposes,” but rather “for all intents and purposes.” I was about 27, and when I told my boyfriend, he pretty much told me I was an idiot.

    • Robin Jingjit says:

      I have a friend who says “granite” instead of granted. As in, “Granite (granted) they do sort of sound the same, so I kind of understand.” Should I tell her?

    • Sara Myers says:

      I just found my blind spot! “For all intensive purposes;” I’ll have to remember that.

      • Darbi says:

        You aren’t alone in the intensive purposes. I know a lot of people who write that. I also heard someone say “taking it for granite” and did correct her gently, but the snarkier part of me wanted to say “why, is it limestone?”. My most peevish thing is when people say “tenants” when they mean “tenets”. I’ve made plenty over the years, however, and was halfway through my English degree before I stopped spelling “segue” as “segway”.

        • 3J's mom says:

          I chuckle whenever I hear people exclaim: “Walla!” Even the closed captioning people sometimes write it!
          It is “Voila!” With a “V”. (Actually Voilà. In French, means literally: See there?!)

        • Sarah says:

          I hate when people say “jury-rigged” – that’s my pet peeve. But I’ve certainly misunderstood enough in my life that I can’t judge. I still am mocked for my outburst during Austin Powers…the fluffy white cat gets replaced by a hairless cat at the end as a joke, and I burst out, “How many times did they have to shave that cat?!” *facepalm*

        • Anne_Hedonia says:

          Oh god. You just reminded me. For years I went around saying “seh-GOO”. As in, nice seh-goo into this:

          What drives me nuts is when people pronounce “foliage” as “foy-lage”. THE I IS CLEARLY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE L!! screams my anxious little mind.

  87. Elisabeth says:

    Ahhh hehehe … I was an English major in college – lots of lit classes. There was one guy who was in two classes with me, very cute, not very bright – he used the word epitome a lot … only he said ep-i-toe-m … no one ever corrected him … he said it so frequently, I was too embarrassed to say anything. Wish I would have – he was cute.

    • Elisabeth says:

      I mean, he might have rewarded me for rescuing him from pronounciation humiliation, right?

  88. neo says:

    Oh my God, that made me laugh so hard. I didn’t expect that at all. LOL!!!!

  89. Stacy says:

    Up until a couple of years ago I thought that the phrase was “make ends meat” instead of “make ends meet”. And I thought that “ends meat” was really bad fatty end parts of meat – that’s why it would be bad if that was all you could hope to make for dinner… Working hard all day just trying to make ends meat.

  90. Dee says:

    I had a roadrunner blind spot. Growing up watching Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons, I thought roadrunners were ostrich sized, or at least the size of a turkey. It wasn’t until I spent a few months at Ft. Huachuca in Arizona that I discovered roadrunners are actually really, really small… Haha.

    • Brenda says:

      Really? I’ve never seen a picture of an actual roadrunner. They look so big in the cartoons!

  91. Alisha says:

    My husband is a huge sports fan, and loves football. I CANNOT get him to understand that when the kicker kicks the ball through the goal posts for 3 points, it is called a “field goal” not a “field gold”. He always puts that ‘D’ on the end.
    I’m sure I have a bunch of blind spots, but I remember once when I was younger thinking that I could make hot chocolate with pure cocoa and milk. FYI-that doesn’t work, in case you were wondering.

    • E says:

      Yes it does. You just have to add sugar.. otherwise it is a very bitter drink indeed. (I thought the same thing as a kid and my mom tried to warn me… It smelled so good, like chocolatey coffee, I took a teaspoon and dipped it into the pure cocoa powder and then put that whole teaspoon in my mouth. I was horrified and disgusted! And, I choked a bit on it (but was obviously fine).) 🙂

  92. Zoé says:

    I just discovered my blind spot! Thinking that you could choose which day you hide the Easter eggs! It’s good Friday here and I was outside happily hiding all the Easter eggs, told the kids the Easter bunny has been, hubby says ” no he hasn’t, he comes on Sunday!” needless to say I had to tell the kids that I decided to hide some eater eggs and the bunny would be delivering his on Sunday.. Oops, hubby now has to go and buy some more eggs and I’ve almost ruined Easter for all our neighbours kids who were wondering why the bunny hasn’t visited them yet 😉

  93. Taylor D says:

    I thought you had to buy gas for the lawn mower at Lowes. My husband LOVED hearing that one, and hasn’t let me live it down. 😉

  94. I laughed so hard over here.
    Oh & when I was little, I wondered why some girls were named Erin because I thought the expression was “I need to run an Erin”

  95. Mara says:

    I loved this story! My blind spot was thinking that the songs from radios were played live, in the studio. I didn’t know how they did it, but I was amazed. I was 8 or 9 when I figured it out the truth.

  96. Too freaking funny, I was reading this and I was like “ok the water … ” it just never happened lol.

  97. Vicki says:

    That story – as all of yours – was hilarious! It made me think of a funny “blind spot” of my own. A bit of background info is required first…I live on the island of Newfoundland, in Canada. I have an Aunt who is from out around the bay. People from bay towns have a habit of adding H’s where they don’t belong & dropping them where they do…when I was little I heard her calling an ambulance a HAMbulance & thought that was how it was pronounced! Lol it wasn’t until I was a bit older (probably 7-ish) that my mother corrected me! Yep, for a few years there I was saying ” Look a hambulance!!” Thanks Aunt from the bay, thanks alot 😉

    • Devan says:

      I have a friend that says “UUGE” instead of huge. (pronounced like EW-ge) She does not say the H. Every time she says it I am just frozen, I can’t even pay attention to whatever it was that she was talking about, all I can focus on it UUGH. (EEEWWW-ge) LOL, cause usually it’s a very dramatic story and she draws it out.

    • Ashley B says:

      People in Massachusetts do the same thing with their R’s! Like, “Seafood is so good, I’d eat lobsta even if it was against the lawr.”

  98. Maren says:

    High on lemonade! Love it. Also wanted to say that I am about to have my second child and I got your book in the mail today as a bay gift from my sister. It is the best baby gift ever! In fact, I think I might start buying it as a shower gift for all the pregnant ladies I know.

  99. MamaBean says:

    When we were dating, my husband once told me that when he was growing up, he thought the song, “Secret Agent Man”, was actually “Secret Asian Man”. He grew up in NYC, just a few blocks away from Chinatown, and thought that’s where spies lived.

    • Tarmaie says:

      Lol, I guess a lot of people have made that mistake cause there is actually a song called Secret Asian Man by Da Vinci’s Notebook, which I guess is a parody. I’ve never actually heard the real song.

    • Brandon Campbell says:

      I thought that too! And it made sense at the time because I thought the Soviet Union was an Asian country.

  100. Alexy says:

    I totally did the same thing with some boys I babysat. I kept adding sugar but not so much that it didn’t devolve. By the time I realized that it needed water, the boys had decided that they loved the sweet/tart juice so I let them have it.

  101. Melissa says:

    Too funny! My sister used to think each state had just one state park, like the state bird or state flower. She also had a friend in college that thought the “oh $h¡t” handle was the “ocean” handle. Until one day she was riding with some friends and yelled out “ocean” while grabbing the handle.

  102. Nikki says:

    I thought the baby was inside the placenta, didnt learn that till my second pregnancy. I was confused when looking at an early ultra sound and they showed me the placenta on one side. I was trying to figure out how the placenta would eventually be around my baby and looked it up.

    • April says:

      Ha! I’m currently pregnant with my second and I didn’t know that. Had to look it up to make sure and you’re right. I thought the baby was inside the placenta, too.

  103. nickol says:

    Until we bought ELF on DVD i had never heard of a narwhal and thought they were made up. Im not even sure if I spelled that right. My husband laughed at me with the kids. Thanks guys!

  104. Robin says:

    really, it’s NOT Jutebox????

  105. Lindsay says:

    I know that I have had (and still have) many blind spots in my knowledge, but none come to mind at the moment. However, recently this conversation happened with a friend of mine:

    Friend: Where do I get fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice?
    Me: From a lemon or a lime that you buy in the store and squeeze, lol
    Friend: Okay. Can I just squeeze it myself?

    haha! I then explained the squeezing process.

  106. Birthbelle says:

    I thought for ages that “bowels” was another word for “buttocks”. When I was little I was in and out of hospital for a while and the doctors would ask whether my bowels had moved. So, of course, my 10 year old logic took the realization that this meant pooping, matched it with a mental image of buttocks parting to allow the, ahem, proceeds out, and put two and two together. You can imagine what I thought it meant for someone to be disembowelled… Yeah, it was really embarrassing when that one got corrected. At university. By a roomful of housemates including my future husband. Nearly 20 years later and I still haven’t quite lived it down…

  107. Stacy says:

    My partner thought sushi=eel. So out to dinner when we first met at the sushi bar and I order for us. A big tray of sushi comes out and she picks up a California roll and asks what part is the sushi in this one? I’m confused and say, um that is the sushi. She’s persistent and says no, I mean the actual sushi, where is that? I’m starting to question myself now so I just say, the part in your chopsticks is sushi. She starts to inspect it an says, but what piece? I say all of the pieces are sushi. That’s what we’re eating, it’s all sushi. Then she says, you didn’t get any without eel? Do they make these sushi free? I finally realized what she meant and could barely breathe I was laughing so hard. Somehow we’ve survived 9 years of me laughing at her silliness.

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      This is making me laugh SO HARD. I love those conversations with a bestie, when it all goes south and you’re staring at each other like “What PLANET are you from” but it’s both of you.

      I went out to dinner with a friend once. It was a really nice restaurant, and we were seated in a small side room – point being, it was very quiet, but you could hear someone whisper from across the room b/c of the acoustics.

      We’re chatting, and suddenly my friend (Amy)’s eyes widen at something behind me. “What?” I say. She shakes her head – she can’t say it out loud – so she starts mouthing something furiously at me. “What??” (mouthing). “Huh?? (mouthing harder, eyes bugging out, jerking head like: LOOK BEHIND YOU BUT BE DISCREET ABOUT IT.

      I look behind me. I see a couple, and the woman is facing Amy so I figure, that’s who she’s talking about. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about the woman. She’s wearing a skirt with no stockings.. could that be it? Is Amy a bare leg nazi??? I turn back around and shrug and make the “WTF???” face at Amy.

      Suddenly she is inspired. There is a gerbera daisy on the table in a little vase. She grabs it by the stem, and mouths, yet again, something that sounds like… “hairy??” I have NO idea. I turn around again and look. The woman’s legs are smooth. I just.. WHAT??

      Long story short, it turns out Amy was trying to tell me that the woman had on these absolutely FREAKISH, gigantic, day-glo-green earrings. The word she was so intently mouthing was “earrings. EARRINGS.” Because they were green, she thought maybe grabbing the green stem of a daisy.. would be a helpful clue.

      We were laughing by this point, so hard that tears were streaming down our faces and we were snorting and choking. We could NOT stop laughing. We were politely asked to leave and I totally get it. But oh my god, that was a hilarious evening. Thanks for your story reminding me of it!

  108. mrsmoutny says:

    My friend got a basket of fruit and cheese for a wedding gift. Her husband came home and found an unopened block of cheese in the garbage can and asked why she threw it out. “It had gone bad–it was hard as a rock,” she told him. It was parmesan cheese.

  109. Abbey says:

    …Aaaand it’s “manila” envelope not “vanilla” envelope. Learned that one in college.

  110. Blobette says:

    In France there’s a very popular cartoon series for small kids called l’âne Trotro (which means Trotro Donkey — as in Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse). My sis once asked in total seriousness: “what kind of animal is l’âne Trotro anyway? A rabbit?”

  111. Lucy says:

    My husband and I were in the car a few years ago and the song Hey Jealousy by Gin Blossoms came on. We were singing along loudly until I realized my husband was singing, “Tomorrow we can drive around this town and let the cats chase us around,”. Cats instead of cops! I still bring it up and laugh!

    • Ashley B says:

      Oh my gosh, my husband still teases me over that very song! We were also singing along loudly, except I always thought it was “Hey Chelsea”. It’s been years and he still won’t let me forget it. That song… is trouble.

  112. Phaedra says:

    Until I could read, I thought animals were amimals… I remember reading one of those children’s books with the gold spine. It was the story of Bambi, and all the “animals” in the forest came to visit the new baby. I was trying so hard to sound out animals, but it was soo hard because I thought they were amimals! When I finally realized what they were talking about, I shouted out, “Oh! Amimals!!” I finally did realize that I had been saying it wrong my whole life. I was about 7 years old… I’m sure there are more, but I can’t remember right now.

  113. Shiki says:

    I thought cedar trees were pronounced like Cheddar as in cheese. Called them cheddar trees while walking in a park with my then boyfriend and his mom until the bf (who finally couldn’t bear it) gently suggested that it’s called ceeedar. I was 24…but hey, English was my second language so I have sort of an excuse.
    Btw, congrats on your book! I’ve been wanting to tell you how much your blog has made my life so much brighter. Including one night when I had a blinding tension headache (my partner had left a month ago – and I have a 19 month old toddler) and after reading one of your posts, I laughed so much the headache went away. So awesome.

    • Brenna says:

      Hey, I turned 25 this year and only in the last few months realized how to say “cedar” correctly. And English isn’t my second language, so what’s my excuse? LOL

      I have a huge vocabulary from my book-loving personality, but since I never hear the words said out loud I often pronounce them hilariously wrong. Thankfully, my husband isn’t a jerk about it. (Though it really does amuse him. LOL)

      • Ali says:

        My 18 year old daughter does this, too. She reads a wide variety of things, yet comes up with a lot of strange mispronunciations. Thankfully, I, like your husband, am not a jerk about it either. I am probably more concerned than amused because I don’t want her to be mocked by other people! 🙂 (protective mom instinct!)

      • Brenda says:

        I’ve had the same problem! I was homeschooled K-8, so a lot of my knowledge was from books, not hearing things taught out loud. I clearly remember freshman year of high school in my world history class saying something about the “Eye-Rock-We” tribe. My teacher said, “Um, you mean Ear-Uh-Coy?” I was SO embarrassed. And I’m always afraid that I’m still saying Iroquois wrong, that I’ll tell this story and mix them up.

  114. Morgan says:

    When I was a in elementary school my best friend and I were obsessed with the movie Speed. Especially Keanu Reeves. But we were CONVINCED his name was pronounced “Canoe” Reeves. My brother still won’t let me forget it.

  115. Darbi says:

    My dad has a great one. His family went to Methodist church, where they often sang hymns. One stood out for him: “Gladly the Cross I’d Bear”. He listened to it several times and then asked my grandma what happened to the bear. You know, what happened to poor Gladly that made him cross-eyed? And why are we singing about bears in church?

  116. Candi says:

    This blind spot belongs to my husband. We’re in our 40s and have been together for 15 years, but we’ve been married less than two years (my second marriage, his first). I have a young adult daughter. They adore each other. I’m very lucky. BUT, when we got married, my husband started referring to my daughter as his “daughter-in-law.” I said no, she’s your stepdaughter. He honestly didn’t understand. “Your mom is my mother-in-law. Your brothers are my brothers-in-law. Why isn’t your daughter my daughter-in-law?” I had to draw a diagram. Months later, he introduced one of my brothers as his stepbrother. He will never get this down.

  117. Devan says:

    I love this post SO MUCH and had a BALL reading all the comments. What fun! I know I have alot of blind spots cause I am kinda ditzy, and a terrible speller, but I also have an awful memory so I can’t think of any right now. I will be back though when I do! Thanks Amber for this and I am so proud of you and your book! Awesome lady!

  118. Jennifer says:

    Wait, it is a jukebox? – Sh#%

  119. A.J. says:

    My blind spot was the book “The Princess Bride.” As a young teen, loved the book and the movie. In the book, there’s this whole story about how this is the “good parts” version of this long book written by S. Morgenstern that William Goldman’s father used to read to him as a kid. As you go along and read the book, there are sections, where he talks about ‘I cut this, I cut this, etc.’ This is my favorite book, I even get an anniversary edition for a birthday present when I’m in my 20s, and it talks about finding a chapter of the never-completed sequel by Morgenstern.

    Fast-forward to years later, when I’m in my late 20s, and I read an interview with Goldman and he talks about the book, and the fact that he wrote his whole book in this strange way, acting like he was abridging another author’s book, etc. There is no S. Morgenstern – there is only William Goldman.

    • Brenda says:

      I never knew this! When I was younger I tried to get the unabridged version from the library. Turns out there’s a soft-core romance titled The Princess Bride that has nothing to do with Buttercup and Westly.

  120. Meagan B. says:

    Until I was 12 or 13 I thought gun point was an actual place… Why do people keep going there, it’s obviously really dangerous!!?! And I’m sure this pretty common but ive been singing tiny dancer wrong for years! Apparently it’s not a song about tony danza, who knew? Seriously though, all of these stories made me snort laugh 🙂

    • tito_barf says:

      As a young child in the early 80s, I thought AIDS was “aides.” So when the news mentioned people dying due to AIDS, I was like, stupid adults, why do they keep hiring those people?
      Not unlike going to Gun Point!

  121. HS says:

    It never occurred to me the whole time I was reading that DUH they need to add water lol! I call those moments “blonde moments”.

  122. Jen says:

    One of my numerous blind spots was a lyrical one as well. Like “Twinkle twinkle little star” being about a kid named Michael Diamond….in the sky….

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      That is adorable, and I really wish it were true that there’s a Michael Diamond in the sky.

  123. Jennifer says:

    I used to think astigmatism was “a stigmatism.” And my husband’s favorite – instead of Jet Airliner (Steve Miller Band song), I thought it was “Big ol’ Jed had a rhino” Hahaha I’m so stupid…

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      No you’re not! I love these. I had this one for a long time:

      Sloooowwww motion Wallllter, fire engine guy…

      (smoke on the water, fire in the sky). Yeah.

  124. 3J's mom says:

    I’m over 50 and finally figured out how the seat covers in public bathrooms work! I had always used them of course, but years ago I began carefully tearing the center pre-cut portion totally off because otherwise the center part would flop down into the toilet water and in seconds, the whole slippery seat cover would be in the water. I even taught my kids.
    By some inspiration, as I was tearing off the flap recently, it occurred to me to try the seat cover w/the flap to the FRONT of the toilet. Wow, lightbulb!! It worked! And it covered up that odd gap in the toilet seat as if…as if it were DESIGNED that way! My husband laughed so hard when I shared this revelation, and even harder when I explained it to my kids (now middle schoolers).

    • Shiki says:

      Really? That’s how it’s supposed to be used?

    • tito_barf says:

      It’s also so that when you flush, the seat cover gets pulled down. That way you don’t have to kick or push it into the water!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      Hand up here; yet another person who did NOT know that. I’ve been mystified by those things for years (which, I have to tell you, my beloved departed brother used to refer to as: Ass Gaskets).

      The thing that (still, I’ll say it) baffles me is: You know how, most of the time, the middle flap isn’t cut most of the way around?? And there’s always that one little not-torn bit at the opposite end from the “hinge part”, if you will?? WHY??? Every time I try to free the flap, I end up ripping the Ass Gasket completely to shards. It’s the type of paper that just doesn’t rip in that grain direction. I futz and try, and I end up with confetti, and I mean EVERY TIME.

      Is it that I’m just getting the defective ones every time? How can this be so? What a weird curse to end up with, if it is!

  125. Michelle says:

    I was almost 20 when I realized the “lazy Susan” was a real name for the corner cupboard, and not my dad teasing my mom, whose name is Susan, of course. I likewise thought she was being snarky back by referring to his favorite chair as the lazy boy! Lol!

  126. RickCapezza says:

    For years, I was perplexed when my wife talked about the extreme heat of our shower water. Finally, I just said it, “If water boils at 100 degrees, how in the world do we not get burned by 110 degree water?”

    Yeah, apparently my four degrees didn’t empower me to understand the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

  127. West coast yogi says:

    I learned in my 30s that it’s “it as well” not “minus well”!!

  128. Debbye says:

    My husband makes fun of me often, but still just do not understand traffic jams! How is it that we were moving a minute ago, and now we are slowed, when there are no exits or on ramps, and same amount of lanes? It makes no sense! Bottle necking on the Fwy doesn’t make sense either. Do those count as blind spots that have not been resolved yet? Cause I am stumped!

  129. I just can’t deal with the idea that “opaque” is the OPPOSITE of “transparent”. Is it? I just can’t grip onto the meaning of the word, so I avoid using it. Or I check the meaning, every single time, and still feel uncomfortable. Mine is a difficult world to live in. . . .

    Incidentally, homemade lemonade is AMAZING if you add a little bit of baking soda to it. It takes a LOT of the acidic bite away (because it’s an alkaline – I know I know, cooking with REAL SCIENCE!!) and gives it a slightly bubbly feel too. About half a teaspoon per two lemons. When I first tried it, it blew my mind.

    Dammit. Now I want lemonade.

    Louise Curtis

  130. tito_barf says:

    I too suffered the reading-a-lot, never-speaking-it curse.

    In college, I remarked that something was very chick (chic). My friend stopped, and was like, you mean sheek, right? At that instant, it dawned on me that chic was French and was said “sheek.” So I responded, haha duh of course, that’s just how the stupid people in [the rural town I’m from] said it. How dumb were they?

    I took 4 years of French in high school, so WOW blind spot.

    My mother listened to my nephew sing “Baby Beluga.” I said it would be nice if they (sis and kid) could visit me in Chicago because there are young belugas in the aquarium. “A beluga is a whale?? I thought it was just a thing to call someone.” She thought “beluga” was a term of endearment.

    • Brandon Campbell says:

      I remember thinking beluga caviar came from whales!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      Oh god, this. 9 years old, a total bookworm. I spent every recess at the bookshelves, devouring all 10 volumes of a series for kids about Greek and Roman mythology.

      Came home every day, telling my mom how thrilling it was to read about the adventures of Yooreepydes (Euripedes), More Fooss (Morpheus), and, everyone’s favorite: Pussy-Don. (Poseidon). Hoo yeah.

  131. Ali says:

    So I just asked my husband, who grew up in FL, how to make lemonade from lemons…He said, “You squeeze the lemons and put in a BUNCH of sugar.” (OMG! Really! Those were his exact words!) I prompted him by asking if there were any more ingredients…He said, “I think you add a little water.” I am NOT making this up!

  132. Cyndi says:

    Im not sure I’d this is a blind spot, but my boyfriend of 2 years insists on pronouncing the word ‘ate’ as ‘ett’, as in “I ett cereal for breakfast.” I’m not sure if he thinks it’s actually pronounced like this, or just does it to annoy me!!!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      I think it may be a regional thing. I had a Southern BF once who regularly said ett, along with skillet, chiffarobe, crick (for creek), and other adorable things.

  133. Rachel says:

    I drive by a huge beautiful park quite regulary, and I always look out for weddings happening there cuz I love seeing brides! Sometimes I even see 2 or 3 brides on the same day, in different parts of the park. Well one day i discovered that a ‘hot spot’ for weddings was right in front of the conservatory, and every time I passed there, I’d see one! This went on for YEARS until one random night my husband and I were driving, and I yell out “Look, a bride!” and I realized as soon as the words were out of my mouth that something made no sense. It was 2 am!!! How was the bride still there?? My husband could not stop laughing and informed me it was a STATUE in front of the conservatory … He still teases me and asks if ‘my bride’ is there when we pass by! In my defence, the statue is white and the woman is leaning over to the side (as if talking to a bridesmaid lol) so I never saw her face, and there are always people (tourists) posing for pictures there! And there ARE lots of real weddings at that park 😉

  134. Elsie says:

    I honestly, truly, 100%, without a doubt, believed that Santa Claus was real and delivered all the Christmas presents until I was 15 years of age!!! So much so, that I would argue with my high school classmates about it. I was absolutely crushed when my mother finally decided to tell me the truth. To make matters worse, my 7 year old sister had figured it out a year or two before me and had been humouring me!!!

    I am hoping that my two little girls believe for just as long!

    • Anne_Hedonia says:

      Awwww!! This is sweet! I love sweet little befuddled but passionate-about-her-Santas-darn-it you!

  135. christy says:

    I was in college before I realized that “valedictorian” is not pronounced “valid-victorian”.

  136. Lyz says:

    I developed pregnancy scatterbrains with my first and have never fully recovered.

    While I was pregnant with boy #1, I frequently craved chicken strips from Chicken Express. We would usually go after church on Sunday.

    The scatterbrains developed like this:

    (Sunday #1) Me: “Hey look, they have a drive-thru!”
    (Sunday #2) Me: “Hey look, they have a drive thru!” Hubby started laughing and I cpuldn’t figure out why. He reminded me that I said this the week before.
    (Sunday #3) I almost repeated my drive-thru statement but caught myself. All the same, I could not figure out where hubby was going when he started driving around the rear of the building.

    Hubby has not let me live this down and my brain has not been the same since.

  137. DrL says:

    I never knew how to make mashed potatoes until I was 25. My mom had always made them from a box ::blushes::

  138. Brenda says:

    Oh my gosh! I can’t even imagine! It sort of floors me that neither one of you knew about water in lemonade. But more Crappy Papa, because you’re right about midwestern people not making lemonade from scratch. We’re a simple, frozen people.

  139. Lisa says:

    I’m 39. I just learned it’s “jukebox” and not “jutebox.”

  140. Anne_Hedonia says:

    This still shrivels me to a shameful crisp, but here goes:

    We were watching TV – my brother, mom, and five or six friends (both parents and kids). The newscaster came on to announce something about the President coming to Washington, and when was the last time he’d been to the West Coast.

    I started laughing and said: “That idiot! He actually thinks the White House is in that OTHER Washington! Washington DC!! Oh, this is rich! What a moron!!”.

    Stunned silence. Worried looks.

    Punchline: I was 21. See, we were hippie kids.. no TV… no SCHOOL for a long time.. never a single geography or history lesson… yeah, I got nothing.

  141. Hayley says:

    Oh my goodness, this is hilarious! Love it!