SRM's (Sudden Realisation Moments)
Did you ever get one of those moments where you suddenly realise that something you've always known to be true is, in fact, wrong?
I call them Sudden Realisation Moments, or SRMs for short. You know how it goes: an old song comes on the radio and you realise that for the past twenty-five years you were wrong in thinking that John Travolta was singing about shoes that were made of plywood. You get SRMs a lot when watching movies and television - "Oh... He's the killer!" - but they're quite rare in real life.
I started wondering what else I might have been wrong about, but then a safety device attached to my ego kicked in and put a stop to it; thinking like that is the first step down the one-way cul-de-sac of madness.
So instead I decided to have a little think about other times in my life when I had SRMs. This I did, and now I'm going to share some of them with you, all from childhood.
SRM #1: Superman can fly because he's an alien - not because he wears a cape. Six years old, pillowcase, roof of shed - you can fill in the details yourself.
SRM #2: Adults sometimes forget that kids have a different frame of reference. For a long, long time my parents thought that I was interested in sub-aqua things. You know how parents are: you show an interest in something once, and forever after they can't get that out of their heads. So... I'm eight years old, and my mother says, "Oh, there's a programme on tonight on the Discovery Chanel about the Ocean and I announce that I desperately want to see that show. They relent and we watch it, and by the time we're half-way through I'm thinking, "Ah... So a frogman is not a man with the proportionate strength and leaping ability of a frog..."
SRM #3: In the real world, you're completely wrong if you think that you can wear a Robin mask and no one will be able to recognise you. Seven years old, home-made Robin mask, Grandma's purse, switch - need I say more?
SRM #4: Vampires and zombies do not have the ability to detect children hidden under blankets. There was, of course, a later SRM that went along the lines of "vampires and zombies don't exist" but this one was much more profound: at last, I had some protection! For the first time, I knew that I'd be able to make it through the night and greet the dawn in perfect health! It wasn't long before I even abandoned my morning ritual of checking my throat for bite marks.
SRM #5: Radioactive spiders are quite hard to find in suburban areas. And not only that: It's just not possible to obtain super-powers by experimenting with the chemicals you find in your friend's dad's shed. You can't even gain "power over electricity" by holding magnets in each hand and licking the contacts on a battery, dad-gumit!
What are your SRM moments?