Comments (118)

1. Does this count? I was not raised to believe in Santa Claus. As a result, I couldn’t grasp the fact that anyone COULD believe in Santa Claus. (Consider it in the fashion that we understand the non-thinking man’s bipartisan politics or religious differences — it Just Didn’t Make Sense.) That made my first Christmas in the public school system one that ultimately ruined the Santa Claus myth for more than a couple of kids.

   posted by NoCo on 10-16-2008 at 10:02 pm

2. I feel like that about every day. A prime example is the post I did about pop culture ducks. There were dozens of comments about why didn’t I include Darkwing Duck. I had never heard of him. Pretty embarrassing, but I’ll admit it for a t-shirt.

   posted by Miss Cellania on 10-16-2008 at 10:19 pm

3. I once mixed up “Paradise Lost” with “Almost Paradise” in conversation at a dinner party…that was smooth.

   posted by Marie Dysangco on 10-16-2008 at 10:23 pm

4. I once confused “Paradise Lost” with “Almost Paradise” in conversation at a dinner party…that was smooth.

   posted by Marie Dysangco on 10-16-2008 at 10:25 pm

5. I don’t know that it’s an actual story, but I didn’t watch any of those awesome 80s movies till college or later. My roomies introduced me to The Breakfast club when we were college juniors, and I saw Weird Science a few weeks ago for the first time.

   posted by nutmeag on 10-16-2008 at 10:36 pm

6. So, I listened to an alternative rock/ adult alternative station on occasion a few years back. Unbeknownst to me it had change formats to a rap/hip-hop station. Instead of turning the dial, I listened to a few songs, one of which was “In Da Club” by 50 Cent. I had never heard it before and found it pretty catchy. So I tell my friends about this new song “In the Club” by Fifty Cents . I didn’t know that the song had been out for about a year and was already incredibly popular. I still get mocked about this. I know, I’m lame. Hyperbole XL

   posted by Chuck Seiders on 10-16-2008 at 10:38 pm

7. So…I actually have two….one about me, one about a friend of mine. One – I just watched the Goonies all the way through last week – I’m 28 years old. Second, I had a friend in high school (who was somewhat sheltered) who was eating those mellow cream pumpkins that come out during Halloween, she smashed one between her fingers and said, “look, smashing pumpkins!” I laughed and asked her if she knew who that was…she just kind of laughed and said, “No, why?”

   posted by Shannon on 10-16-2008 at 10:52 pm

8. Thought I’d mention this one too…I didn’t eat a Twinkie until I was 17 years old…lol.

   posted by Shannon on 10-16-2008 at 10:53 pm

9. My sister and I and a couple of friends were at a concert. We were looking through a brochure of upcoming concerts and events before the show started. My friend noticed that George Carlin was going to be doing a show. He asked my sister if she and her friend wanted to go see Carlin. Her response “what type of music does he play.” We still laugh about that today.

   posted by Steve on 10-16-2008 at 10:54 pm

10. Okay, so in elementary school we took an incredibly long trip to quebec – about 8 or 9 hours by bus. I was one of a few kids who still had a walkman, and had made quite a few mix tapes off of cds by that time. the problem was that my cd collection had been mostly achieved secondhand, or in the discount bin. I was nodding my head when someone happened to hear the tune I was listening to through the earphones, and got very very excited indeed. They waxed on and on about how wonderful Kurt Cobain was, and how deep the album was, and wasn’t that single just amazing.. (This was perhaps a month just before he died). I nodded my head in agreement, smiling and pretending I knew all about it, agreed with every damn word out of the girl’s mouth.

    The thing was, I wasn’t listening to Smells like Teen Spirit. I was listening to Smells like Nirvan.

    By Weird Al Yankovich.

    They never found out, and all of a sudden my musical knowledge actually mattered.

    (To be fair, I had at least heard of the original…)

    posted by Lerren on 10-16-2008 at 10:56 pm

11. I work for an airline, and I calculate the weight and balance of the airplanes. I give my calculations to the pilots just before they take off. One day, I go to give my work to a Captain and he says “talk to me goose.” I replied, “who’s goose?” The captain and the first officer looked at each other as if I had killed their hero right in front of them. He snatched the sheet out of my hand and just shook his head. I later found out it was from Top Gun… which I was made to watch that night.

    posted by Cass on 10-16-2008 at 11:09 pm

12. I’d say my husband came close to living under a rock. He spent his high school years listening to talk shows and reruns of Old Time Radio. He even taught himself about sports by listening to the games on the radio and never seeing them played. So now I teach him about all the blockbuster movies he missed out on and he teaches me about all the episodes of Lone Ranger, Johnny Dollar, and Dragnet that my grandparents probably missed out on when they were rebellious teens.

    posted by Samantha on 10-16-2008 at 11:34 pm

13. I was raised on art history, literature, NPR and classical music. When I was 12 most of the kids at school were into sports and baseball cards. During recess one afternoon, the other kids were trading baseball cards. “Hey Ian. Do you have a Beckett?” My schoolmate was of course asking if I had a baseball card price list published by the company “Beckett”. Thinking he meant Samuel Beckett, i replied “my mom has a copy of “endgame”. But it’s totally weird”

    posted by Ian on 10-16-2008 at 11:37 pm

14. I am a senior in college who was pretty pop-culturally clueless during my grade school years, so I find myself in these kind of situations on a regular basis. My usual method is just to smile and nod and look up whatever it is on the Internet later (thank goodness for Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary) or to ask my fiancé, who usually shakes his head in disbelief at my ignorance. Awkward I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about moments were much more frequent (and embarrassing) during high school, but I think I’ve blocked them all from my memory because none are coming to mind. Anyway, I’m somewhat better informed now and don’t really mind being the weirdo.

    By the way, NoCo, my parents never really encouraged or discouraged a belief in Santa Claus, but I can never remember a time when I even thought he might possibly exist. Stories about friends who believed in him for years just baffle me.

    posted by Kelsey on 10-17-2008 at 12:00 am

15. After reviewing my post I realized I may not have been 100% clear that all my husband had was radio. I guess it’s not all bad though, he listened to Dave Ramsey a lot so he’s very good with our finances!

    posted by Samantha on 10-17-2008 at 12:03 am

16. It would seem I was raised a little sheltered. I was absolutely certain that under our skin was a layer of hamburger. It never occurred to me until years later that it’s ground up muscle tissue, not that we just have hamburger under our skin. I pictured it along side the muscles and bones and fat…just another layer.

    posted by Tiffany on 10-17-2008 at 12:06 am

17. The first time I took a cab ride alone in Chicago was the day after I moved there from Ohio and I was still bruised from falling off the turnip truck. I needed to get my poor sick boyfriend cold medicine in the middle of the night. Being poor we were staying at a vile flop house of a hotel. When the cab driver picked me up in front of this dive I told him “I am new in town. My boyfriend needs medicine, do you know a place I can get medicine this late”. The cab driver asked if I was a “working girl”. Having just gotten a job, my second day in Chicago (waitress in a diner) I proudly said “I sure am!”The cab driver drove me to a dark alley and demanded a sexual favor in exchange for drugs. When I started crying he threw me out of his cab and I had to walk back to the hotel. My boyfriend upon hearing what had happened gave me a crash course in urban survival.

    posted by Cynthia on 10-17-2008 at 12:31 am

18. When I was in eighth grade, I went on a trip organized by my teacher over spring break. On the way back, we got stuck in NYC on Easter, so we decided to explore the city. There was a parade going on, with these women dressed up in awesome traditional Easter stuff, with bonnets and all, so I took their pictures and posed with them.

    …..my dad pointed out they were drag queens when my pictures were developed. He laughed really hard at me.

    posted by lizzie on 10-17-2008 at 1:01 am

19. I never believed in Santa Claus BECAUSE I watched a lot of television.

    posted by Aileen on 10-17-2008 at 1:09 am

20. A cute girl that I had a crush on in high school once asked me what I thought about Led Zeppelin. “Oh, Led Zeppelin? Yeah, he’s good…”

    That was embarassing.

    posted by Taylor on 10-17-2008 at 1:24 am

21. I grew up in a very conservative Christian family. The first sex-joke I ever heard involved what I heard as “come”. Thinking I had misheard her I made her say it several times until she was yelling it at me. I did not find out what she was talking about until I was in college.

    posted by Joanna on 10-17-2008 at 2:33 am

22. In high school, AFI (as in American Film Institute) renovated and opened a theater in my area. I loved the place enough to get a membership. Included in the membership is a red card that says “AFI”. I was going through my wallet at school lunch one day and a friend of mine saw it. She asked, “You like AFI as well?” I said, “Yeah, it’s great!” I didn’t know she was talking about the band.

    To put this in perspective, I was friends with the goths, band geeks, and computer geeks. I beat out the nerds in nerd-dom.

    posted by NicoNico on 10-17-2008 at 3:44 am

23. My family moved to Australia for several years when I was a child, where music and tv was either 6 months behind or just completely different. Upon moving back to the US about age 12, I made friends with a girl who was listening to Green Day. I had never heard of them and said as much. Incredulous, she asked “You’ve never heard of Billy Joe?!” And I replied “Oh Billy Joel, I saw him in concert! Does he have a band?”

    We didn’t remain friends after that.

    posted by Sarah Leidy on 10-17-2008 at 5:37 am

24. I can’t think of any stories that beat these. I always thought I grew up somewhat sheltered having come from a Catholic family and going to a Catholic school until 7th grade. I just wanted everyone to know that you all were no doubt bigger dorks that I was! :-)

    posted by Aimee on 10-17-2008 at 5:53 am

25. I feel I live a pretty sheltered life as I didn’t even have Captain Crunch until I went to college but this story is about my dad.

    This happened when Yahoo was first coming out and doing a lot of commercials (do you Yahoo?). My dad and I were talking one day and he wanted to know if he could ask me a question. I said sure. He said it was kind of personal and I hesitatingly said okay. His question: “What does Yahoo mean?” When I explained, he said. “Ohhhhh. I thought it had to do with sex”.

    Really liked Cynthia’s story too. Poor girl.

    posted by Michelle on 10-17-2008 at 7:08 am

26. I, too, grew up on PBS and classical music (it whisked me away to dreamland often). Not only that, but I also went to a predominately white school (I’m a light-skinned African-American plus about three-four other races). Most of the kids in school talked about PBS, classical music, or music their parents listened to, like Jazz, classic rock, etc. I went to that school from Kindergarten to the fourth grade. When I switched schools for the fifth grade the school was predominately black. They were all about Rap, HipHop, and RnB. I had some exposure to Rap (my mom likes the Sugar Hill Gang) but never anything like TuPac or Biggie Smalls or the other big names in Rap. So when I was asked what kind of music I listened to, no one had any idea who I was talking about!! Chopin? Mozart? I was speaking a whole different language! It was pretty embarrassing. Luckily I was drafted into Challenge and met a few nerds who knew what I was talking about, but they weren’t in my class so I had no one to speak with for a while. Things didn’t get better for me on the Nerdy Friend Find until High School, which had a large Latino population! Talk about a lifetime of Culture Shock! To this day I listen to a blend of music from JRock/JPop to Rap and a bit of Country. I like just about everything thanks to my odd childhood.

    posted by Taryn on 10-17-2008 at 7:43 am

27. My story is somewhat the reverse. In high school a lot of the bands I listened to were demed “too indy” by my friends. Then in college all my friends were listening to bands like The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse and when I hadn’t heard of them they assured me “It’s because they’re an indy band”.

    posted by Angeline on 10-17-2008 at 8:00 am

28. Well I grew up in an isolated community up north (north for Canada even) I live in the city now and some friends were talking about the first concerts they went to. There was Green Day, Metallica, Tragically Hip. Mine ws Gowan. There were quite a few snickers.

    posted by Laura on 10-17-2008 at 8:22 am

29. My sister and I grew up in a small Midwestern town sadly lacking in anything different from the norm. We went to a mall in a larger city one day and we saw a young man with a spiked lime green mohawk, at least ten visible piercings, dressed all in black. Needless to say, we had never seen anything like that.

    I shouted excitedly to my parents and my sister, “Look! Look at the clown!”

    posted by Kieran on 10-17-2008 at 8:47 am

30. I’m in my 50’s now and I was lucky to be raised an Air Force “brat”, spending most of my teen years in Turkey, Italy and Germany, with no TV and listening to AFN Radio. To this day I can sing along with Gogi Grant on The Wayward Wind and know what radio show’s opening begins…”who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man”. I’m clueless about Captain Kangaroo, the original Mickey Mouse Club, and Howdy Doody, but I can tell you all about hearing the Beatles for the first time on Radio Luxembourg!

    posted by Comfortable1 on 10-17-2008 at 8:51 am

31. I grew up in a small town, and I guess I must have watched a lot of reruns of the Flintstones, because I thought Hollywood was really called “Hollyrock” until I was about 10 years old.

    posted by Elise on 10-17-2008 at 9:04 am

32. That story about hamburger being another layer of the body killed me.

    I don’t know if I lived under a rock per se, but one time in highschool some friends and I were at a store in the mall. One of my friends told me to come over and read something on a shirt out loud. It said “I AM SOFA KING WE TOD ED”. I had never seen this joke and read it out very loudly. All my friends were laughing and I still didn’t get it, so they told me to read it outloud again, slower. I still didn’t get it and by this time the employees came over and got me to read it AGAIN, even slower. Needless to say, when I finally realized what I was saying, I nearly died. Everyone practically rolling on the floor laughing didn’t help.

    posted by Brittany on 10-17-2008 at 9:16 am

33. In a college english/documentary class, I mixed up Grace Slick with Grace Jones while discussing the Woodstock movie.

    posted by Eric Y. on 10-17-2008 at 9:19 am

34. Oh yeah, Cynthia’s crawling-out-from-under-the-rock story is definitely one for the books, poor thing.

    posted by Brittany on 10-17-2008 at 9:19 am

35. I think I may be the opposite of this discussion. Living over a rock, as it were.
    I’m 38, and was recently having a discussion on sushi with several friends when I jokingly wondered if any of the local sushi restaurants had created a “Rick Roll.”
    Not one of my friends knew what I was talking about.

    posted by 8rustystaples on 10-17-2008 at 9:25 am

36. This is definitely one of the best posts of recent memory. I’m sorry (kind of) that I have nothing significant to add to it. I was fairly sheltered, but apparently hid my pop culture ignorance well, because I don’t remember any huge gaffes.

    Cynthia, I’m glad you made it out of that situation ok! How terrifying.

    Kieran’s clown story is also pretty great. Probably because I also grew up in a small Midwestern town and could easily see this happening. :)

    posted by kate on 10-17-2008 at 9:26 am

37. in college (in the u.s.) to a lab-mate – ‘Do you have a rubber’…I know!!!!

    I know this has happened to others…a guest on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me(my fav. NPR program) told a similar story…he said it in (high?)school..standing up and asking the teacher no less.

    Btw, rubber = eraser where I grew up.

    recaptcha: “his TRAFFIC”

    posted by s on 10-17-2008 at 9:27 am

38. I have two of them for you.

    The first is a story often passed down in my family of my two older brothers as young children. We were raised in a totally closed-loop type family. We had our home life with our parents and siblings, our church life and the Southern Baptist private school we attended.

    The first time my older brothers ever saw a black person, they asked the question most logical to them: “Are we in Africa?” See, according to everything they had been taught in school and in church, Africa had lots of black people. It was never mentioned anywhere that the the North American continent or that the United States had blacks there as well. (Dunno, maybe they thought it was obvious- to everyone except those of us living under the rocks)

    The next story is my own. As I was working my way through those same conditions through my formative years I knew nothing of inter-personal relationships. As a matter of fact, though my first kiss was in second grade, it was done under the pretext of if I want to hang out with the guys I had to do this. (I never did get a good answer as to why they never let me play with the cars in the dirt, though) But I digress. In fourth grade I entered public school and coasted through that year mostly by living life with my nose in a book and ignoring EVERYTHING else. When fifth grade came along the next year, though, I had to quit ignoring, especially when one of my friends came up and asked me if I wanted to go steady with a boy from another class. I actually had to ask her what that meant and get clarification periodically throughout the conversation before I knew what she was talking about.

    posted by Jennifer on 10-17-2008 at 9:30 am

39. I have never seen ET! (i just turned 29)

    I also had a VERY different idea how people had sex until i was about 19 and saw my first porn! I was very surprised and didnt want to turn it off and was asking way too many questions i ruined it for everyone.

    posted by Jen on 10-17-2008 at 9:57 am

40. btw, i am a girl…makes the incident even more disturbing…a therapist one day will point to the incident as the cause of unraveling of my life!

    posted by s on 10-17-2008 at 9:58 am

41. My parents were pretty hardcore hippies (they met and got married in a commune in San Francisco). I grew up in the 80s listening to Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, and above all the Grateful Dead. I can’t even count the number of Dead concerts I went to before I was 10.

    So to say I’m clueless about 80s (and plenty of 90s) music and culture would be an understatement.

    When the Bangles song, “Walk Like an Egyptian” came out, and everyone started doing the egyptian walk and singing the song, I just stood there, wondering what on earth people were doing. I think it was about 6 months before I actually heard the song and figured it out.

    And a bit of an odd reverse “under the rock”: I once got detention for singing the Grateful Dead song “Casey Jones.” It starts, “Driving that train, high on cocaine…” Not exactly an appropirate song for a 2nd grader to be singing at the top of her lungs on the playground!

    posted by Jenny on 10-17-2008 at 10:04 am

42. I moved out to Philadelphia from the Michigan suburbs about three years ago. Apparently I had never paid attention in geography class, because after a few months of students talking about traveling to the Pocono’s for the weekend, and it being mid-February, I blurted out,”So, these Pocono’s islands; are they like the Jersey version of the Hamptons?” Needless to say I have never been able to live that down. I swear I had no idea what the hell the Pocono’s were until I moved to the east coast. Mountains — who’d a thunk it?

    posted by Stacey on 10-17-2008 at 10:09 am

43. Ah yes, the classical music/NPR/no TV except public broadcast upbringing. I remember it well.

    I was a sophomore in high school, playing in the jazz band. Our director told us to start again from measure 69 and everyone started giggling. Except me, because I had no clue what was so funny. One of the guys (a furiously blushing redhead) tried to explain it to me without actually, you know, explaining. He wrote the number 69 and drew little smiley faces inside the circles, and I still didn’t get it. I finally had to pretend that it made sense, although at least my embarrassment about not understanding it probably looked like I was embarrassed because I finally understood what he meant. Took me until I was in college to realize what was so funny.

    posted by R on 10-17-2008 at 10:26 am

44. I’m sure I have many of my own but this one about my sister is still funny after probably 15 years.

    According to my mom, growing up we weren’t even allowed to say “dumb” or “hate” much less any of the more colorful cuss words. I guess this story took place right after Christmas because “A Christmas Story” was fresh in my 7 year old sister’s mind. She was doing something down in the playroom when my mom went down the stairs to tell her something. All of a sudden my mom hears my sister yelling at the top of her lungs “THE MOTHER OF ALL CUSS WORDS!!! THE MOTHER OF ALL CUSS WORDS!!!” Mom said it took her a full 5 minutes of laughing on the stairs before she even remembered why she was going down there in the first place. Now whenever I see little Ralphie, I think of this story and giggle. :)

    posted by CB on 10-17-2008 at 11:05 am

45. I grew up in a 300 population town in East Texas that was so small and country that even other Texans made fun of my accent. My mom made our clothes and we watched cartoons my grandma taped for us because we didn’t have cable or a vcr. The first song I knew by heart was a country song I learned from the jukebox in the local truck stop cafe we’d go to for dinner occasionally (also the only restaurant in town). So when we moved to an actual town (still a couple years behind the rest of the world), I didn’t know who the dead guy was on everyone’s T-shirts (Kurt Cobain). In a lame attempt to blend in on the first day of school, my mom made me a pair of Hammer pants out of purple polka-dot fabric. Worst of all, I innocently described a rhino as “horny” in Biology, not knowing what that could also mean. That simple mistake followed me for months! My obvious confusion, odd wardrobe and country accent provided a “hick” label I didn’t get rid of until senior year.

    posted by Kande on 10-17-2008 at 11:12 am

46. Mine definitely won’t win, but I didn’t see the movie THe Princess Bride until I was 18.

    I also thought that the electrical boxes near railroads and traffic lights were control boxes for the traffic lights and dwarves from Snow White [or similar] sat in there with periscopes and controlled the traffic. I didn’t realise that they were just electrical boxes until I was fourteen.

    I know, weird, right?

    (Side note-I like refreshing the reCaptcha to see what silly combinations it will cough up at me, and on the first refresh, I got the combination “large issues”. Haha!)

    posted by Myleti on 10-17-2008 at 11:15 am

47. Ha ha! That was my childhood to the tee! Tschaikovsky-pumping, if-it’s-not-on-PBS-haven’t-seen-it homeschooler! It wasn’t until “School of Rock” came out that I feel I really discovered classic rock music. Also, when car commercials started using classic rock tunes. I remember during one superbowl, trying desperately to sound like I actually had a wealth of knowledge on the topic, and made some comment during a commercial about how much I really liked the Aerosmith tune they’d used for this commercial…and someone quickly corrected me that it was Led Zepplin. Whoops.

    Funny thing about reading this post today, is that a friend and I have agreed to do an iPod swap this weekend, with the intention of properly educating me in the ways of classic rock.

    posted by Luz Galusha-Luna on 10-17-2008 at 11:20 am

48. I thought of a story for myself, it kind of has more to do with my lack of interest in the college party scene. I went home for a break after a few months of being away at college for my first year. I went to my high school to visit with some of the people there, and while I was talking to my old math teacher the new principal came in to talk with us. I guess he was familiar with the area I was going to school in and asked me a few questions. He said, “So, do you hang out at the post office much?” I gave him a confused look and said, “Why would I hang out at the post office?” He gave me a smile as if he knew my answer. I was confused by his smile because I wondered what could he be reading into my answer. Did I look like someone that liked to hang out in post offices and try poorly to deny it? Well, yet another few months later, and partly into my second semester I heard some kids in class talking about going to the post office. I kept listening in and realized they were talking about a bar. Apparently someone turned the old town post office into a bar and named it the Post Office. If he’d been principal while I was in high school, he would have known how silly of a question that was – I was probably the only person about 9th grade that didn’t get smashed every weekend. I was totally into school and extracurricular activities.

    Also, the other day I thought it was 2006 for a while. Maybe I’ve literally been living under a rock and didn’t know it. When I realized it was actually 2008 I made a comment to my husband about how dumb I was. He replied “Yeah, but at least you’re entertaining.” It doesn’t take much to amuse a person that grew up with only the radio and would prefer listening to the Lone Ranger than watching tv.

    posted by Samantha on 10-17-2008 at 11:30 am

49. I am 23 years old. My parents were not ever well off as I was growing up ( or maybe poor is more accurate. ) So while all my friends were playing games like Super Mario on their console, and getting Gameboys to school, I would go to the computer lab and just hack around on an old machine with QBasic.
    Nowadays this manifests itself in me being a software developer, and having a recently acquired GameBoy! =)

    Also all my friends would speak of Jurrasic Park, and Jaws, while I would stay quiet, or pretend to know what they are talking about. (What?! Jaws is not about dogs? Damn!)

    Also my class mates would go bowling and invite each other to play with each other’s new games. I would stay home and read book. This today makes me love sites like this =)

    Now I am slowly gaining on unlived childhood rituals. So if you see a big guy playing with an old gameboy, and wearing a super mario tshirt, and speaking about the recent movie he has just seen ( Jaws ) that might just be me.

    To make it worse I live in a very religious island (Malta), and I only had access to the internet the first time when I was something like 16 years old, and it was at school.

    So although I live on top of this rock, and not under it, both places can be quite dark.

    posted by Reuben on 10-17-2008 at 11:33 am

50. I am still under the rock – I have never seen the movie ‘Dirty Dancing’ and I’m almost 30!!

    posted by Jamie on 10-17-2008 at 11:37 am

51. I guess I am the bizarro version of you, Terri. I was the youngest of four so I think my parents had given up on teaching and I wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. So I meandered through life without really a thirst for knowledge. That changed in college so I have caught up on quite a bit, but I still run into the “Oh my god, how did I not know that?!” The most recent for me was learning about Patty Hearst and SLA. How they heck did I not know about that?

    posted by Marty on 10-17-2008 at 11:46 am

52. I grew up with my stay at home Mom and was raised on NPR, classical music, musicals and Nick at Night. My tastes have expanded thanks to exposure to pop culture over time, but by the age of ten I had a killer Steve Martin impression, a narrative dissertation on why Eleanor Powell was WAY better than Ginger Rogers (with a compilation of film clips to prove it), and would frequently ask for “Just the facts Ma’am.” I suppose the dorkitude was most explosively revealed when Tori Amos came to town. Instead of going to see her with my friends, (aka the people who tolerated my correcting their grammar) I went with my mother to see a concert of my favorite movie star ever-Debbie Reynolds. Some of my friend’s PARENTS hadn’t ever heard of her!

    posted by Karen on 10-17-2008 at 11:56 am

53. not sure if I should admit this but being from a very strict Chrisitian home I wasn’t allowed to listen to what my parents called secular music. when I entered middle school I rebeled a little and started borrowing music from friends and listened to them in secret at home. I immediately fell in love with the popular artists of the time I completely fell for Nirvana and Mr. Kurt Cobain. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know he had died 2 years prior to my discovery. I thought he was still alive for a good 1/2 year, before a very kind friend had to break the news to me. I felt like an idiot. Then I was angry and in then in denial… I blame my parents that my first rockstar love was with a dead guy.

    posted by downchez on 10-17-2008 at 11:56 am

54. Growing up, I never saw some of the classic movies…Star Wars (any and all, yes, seriously), Animal House, Clerks, Pretty Woman, or even Gone w/ the Wind. In college, my friends nicknamed me “Hermie” because they said I was a hermit and lived under a rock my whole live. They couldn’t understand how I missed such classics movies. I myself am still not sure.

    posted by Kelly Jones on 10-17-2008 at 11:57 am

55. I never saw any movie that wasn’t a Disney feature until I was a teenager. I still, to this day (at age 43) have never seen a modern horror movie (made after 1960). But this story is about my dear little mom.

    Back in the 80s, we were sitting around the dinner table, when my future sister-in-law mentioned The Pet Shop Boys. To which my mother answered brightly, “You mean Manny, Moe and Jack?”

    posted by loripop on 10-17-2008 at 12:02 pm

56. I sang in the choir throughout middle school. My last year, 1977, I was standing on the risers getting ready to sing a new song – Elinor Rigby – when I asked my friend who sang the song. She said The Beatles and I asked loudy “Who are the Beatles?” 25 of my classmates were either staring at me with total disbelief or pointing at me and laughing. So, I said, “Are they as famous as The Monkees?” My sisters listened to the Monkees. It soon spread throughout my school and led to the placing of my foot in my mouth several times a day. Somehow, while wearng a Star Trek t-shirt, I admitted seeing Star Wars over 100 times. Then came the admission that I owned all the MODELS from Star Wars and Star Trek (back when they let anyone buy airplane glue).

    I faked being sick for 3 days and ended up starting high school with the reputation as the science fiction nerd which immediately led everyone to think that I was super smart for some reason and I’m not. So, I did what any self respecting geekette would do – I started a Science Fiction Club. The only person who showed up for our first and only meeting was the odd genius guy who walked up and down the halls cussing to himself and carrying a book called The Fossils Say No.

    posted by Lisa on 10-17-2008 at 12:02 pm

57. As someone who actually huddled under that rock with Terri during high school and then crawled out from under it with her during college, I can vouch for the painful process. She did a good job adapting, however. :-)

    My short example: I once called a hip-hop music radio station while at a birthday party for a friend in order to request “Birthday” by the Beatles. I did not comprehend that they would not – of course – have any Beatles on their playlist. Ugh…

    posted by Kinoh on 10-17-2008 at 12:08 pm

58. Well, I don’t think any of us can compete with Cynthia, unless someone is former Amish, but:

    I showed up for for my first day of my new school – in a new, smaller, redneck town – in the clothes I wore to my old school, an outfit consisting of a home-made turquoise polyester jumper and a lace-trimmed blouse. Talk about a sheep among wolves! Yes, I never had a pair of jeans until I was 12 years old.
    No jeans. Plenty of beatings.

    I’m still under a rock sometimes. I recently thought that UNA SHA MED was some kind of Iranian Christian singer that the bible camp kids liked. It took me two days to figure out it was “Unashamed”. Now my friends and family ask me if I am Una Sha Med when I do something moronic.

    BTW My childhood nicknames growing up were:
    Mrs. Scientist
    and Marion Webster Dictionary.

    yep. plenty of beatings.

    posted by Marion on 10-17-2008 at 12:09 pm

59. Unfortunately, the only concert I ever attended until I graduated from college was…Amy Grant.

    posted by ErinHM on 10-17-2008 at 12:11 pm

60. Not something I did but about a small, hick town my husband and I lived in years ago. Our pastor was also the high school principle for the town. One Sunday morning he actually announced from the pulpit “I learned a new word this week! Tsunami!” That was the day we decided to home school our children.

    posted by Jules on 10-17-2008 at 12:22 pm

61. This one is about my mother, who grew up a farm girl in the depression – and who has always been rather naive about “worldly” things.

    I was at home for the summer while attending university, and my friend Joyce came over to visit. Joyce was a cat owner. While sitting in the kitchen, Mom came into the room with our family dog “Mandy” and the dog jumped up on Joyce’s lap and started sniffing like crazy. Mom, very innocently, said “oh Joyce, she must smell your pussy”. Well, we waited until Mom left the room and then we totally lost it and must have laughed hysterically for 20 minutes. Mom came back in the room and asked what was so funny, but I never had the heart to explain it to her.

    posted by Sheila on 10-17-2008 at 12:26 pm

62. When I was about 15 I was completely in love with a boy called Kevin, and we were hanging out one night at a local AAA baseball game (obviously the epitome of cool things to do with your evenings) and some music came on and he, who was a big music buff, said “Guess who this is!”

    Obviously,being that this is an ‘under the rock’ competition, I had absolutely no idea.

    I had recently heard of the monkees, though, so I guessed them.

    “No,” he said, “The Who.”
    “Erm,” I said, thinking on my feet, “The Beatles?”
    “Uh, no, The Who. It’s a band.”

    And the love of my life walked away from me shaking his head.

    posted by missjoules on 10-17-2008 at 12:28 pm

63. When I was in 6th grade my friends and I were watching a movie very quietly so my parents wouldn’t over hear any of the bad language (I think it was only PG 13, as you can tell we were very daring).

    Anyways, at one point in the movie a bell boy knocks on the door of the leading man and women and offers them a condom and says “It’s strawberry flavored”

    I turn to my friends and ask, “What’s a condom?”

    They all begin to ridicule me and make fun of me and one finally says, “It’s for sex idiot”

    Then I reply, “That’s what I thought, but then why is it strawberry flavored?”

    The laughter stopped, and we were all confused. Nobody could figure it out.

    posted by Nate-J on 10-17-2008 at 12:38 pm

64. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness.

    How’s that for living under a rock*?

    For those not in the know-how of the religion, one of the basic ideas is that members don’t celebrate any holidays. None. No Christmas, no Easter, not even your birthday.

    While I stopped attending church when I was about 14-15 years old, it took me a few years to learn the traditions, and get that holiday know-how (believe me, I’m still learning).

    My first time going trick-or-treating was when I was 18 years old. When people criticized me for being too old, I told them about my 18 years of candy deprivation…and while giving me a weird look, most people would give me more candy. :)

    I got to hand out candy to children for the first time last year—-before, we were living in an apartment; which isn’t so trick-or-treater-friendly.

    My first actual birthday cake with candles was for my 22nd birthday (but I did celebrate my 21st birthday with a bang!).

    My first experience with decorating a tree was when I was 20 and visiting my future in-laws. They asked me to decorate the tree, so I, as excited as a five-year-old on Christmas morning, proceeded to decorate the tree with every ornament in the family’s collection. As I looked back at my masterpiece, I realized the tree (placed in the corner of the room) had started to lean toward the room. No one had told me that you’re not supposed to put all the ornaments on the tree!

    I received my first Easter basket when I was 22. I was so excited to receive a Hello Kitty basket, complete with the first season of Robot Chicken.

    I’m still trying to learn the ins and outs of each holiday. Some of them have been corrected by my husband.

    For instance: “Here comes Santa Claus” does not contain the lyrics, “Right down Cinnamon Lane,” as I thought.

    Christmas cards should only be sent out during the month of December, and not during November in my excitement to actually have made cards for our friends and families.

    Painting Easter eggs is fun but then you eat nothing but eggs for the next week.

    The list could go on. Sometimes it feels silly indulging in things geared toward children, but I see it as I’ve had an entire childhood deprived of holidays, so I’m just making up for lost time.

    *This is nothing against the people of the religion nor the religion itself.

    posted by Holly on 10-17-2008 at 12:43 pm

65. I spent 13 years in Catholic school and was a complete outcast. One of the few extracurricular activities I joined (besides band and math club) was Christian Clown Class. It is exactly as it sounds. We learned the fine art of clowning (makeup, balloon animals, juggling, etc) and performed at school functions and old folks’ homes. It was actually a pretty popular club even among the cool kids, but I digress.

    Every one of us had to decide what kind of clown we wanted to be and pick a name and persona to go with it. I don’t remember my clown name, but part of my routine involved a cute little stuffed cat. When my mom and aunt asked me what I intended to name her, I answered innocently, “Pussy.” (I was eleven or twelve years old.) They started laughing hysterically and told me that I couldn’t name her that, and I remember being angry and insisting on knowing why not. I don’t remember if they ever told me.

    I also remember pressuring my aunt at the age of 13 to tell me what the hell “beef” (as in, Where’s the beef?) is. She told me, but I actually didn’t believe her and forced her to repeat it to me several times.

    ReCAPTCHA: naivete Anna

    posted by August on 10-17-2008 at 12:45 pm

66. I can’t compete — (ohhhh, Cynthia, ouch) but I still remember looking at my older neighbor’s posters of Boy George and asking politely what kind of music she played.

    Yeah.

    I was listening to Amy Grant then, too.

    This is great, reading all of this. I don’t feel… quite so geekily alone under my no-TV-but-PBS-if-that, conservative Christian little rock.

    posted by tea on 10-17-2008 at 12:50 pm

67. We were assigned “To Kill a Mockingbird” in my freshman English class. During discussion of the book one day the teacher mentioned the character Dill (Scout’s friend that drenches his meal in syrup) and one of the “cool” kids said “doe,” in an attempted sotto voce that the the teacher overheard. Rather than overlook the remark, the teacher turned to him and asked, repeatedly and in and increasingly angry voice each time, if he would care to explain to the class what a dildo was.

    I just sat there thinking please, please explain the word so I’ll know why the teacher is so upset. The student, his face throbbing red with humiliation, just stared at his desk. Because this incident preceded the internet, and because I did not wish to bring such wrath down upon myself by asking about the word, I didn’t get an answer.

    I can’t recall if the foregoing incident preceded or followed the incident on the bus when I was asked whether I liked REO Speedwagon and I, having no clue about rock bands, assumed it was a race car and answered yes, only to be exposed for my ignorance when quizzed about my favorite song.

    posted by jamian on 10-17-2008 at 12:54 pm

68. You know those little ant hills you get all over your yard? Until about 2 years ago (& I’m in my early 40’s), I thought the ants brought the piles of dirt in from afar like little construction workers instead of it being the dirt that comes out of the hole they made. Not exactly living under a rock, just stupid of me!

    posted by TC on 10-17-2008 at 1:37 pm

69. Cynthia is the best
    Holly is pretty good too

    Thank you all for posting these stories. I worry that I have sheltered my older daughter a bit too much, but you all have given me hope that she can grow into a happy and intelligent (if maybe dorky) adult.

    posted by Dwayne on 10-17-2008 at 1:41 pm

70. I was dating a guy who was about 10 years older than me. One day he brought his guitar over and said “I’m going to play a song by the Band.” I said, in complete honesty, “What band?”

    He nearly left.

    posted by Jennifer on 10-17-2008 at 1:43 pm

71. My girlfiend was recently in Italy studying International Buisness. While preparing for a group project, they were trying to come up with a global company to do their project on. Someone came up with the idea of doing their project on Philips. She quickly chimed in to say “Who cares about a company that makes screwdrivers”. Gotta love her.

    posted by Phunk on 10-17-2008 at 1:51 pm

72. I thought I had gotten out from under the rock but reading some of these stories I realize that despite my best efforts I am still kind of clueless. (REO Speedway? Thank goodness for Google)
    Anyway, I remember being in a math class and the teacher doing a story problem invovling two islands which he named Abercrombie and Fitch. It got a smile from everyone in the class except me because I had no idea what that even meant. I don’t think I figured it out for a few years when an A&F finally came to town. I was also really confused about why everybody was so excited that a Macy’s was being built, since the local grocery store was called Macey’s.
    And it was only recently that I discovered that the phrase was “to make ends meet” as in come together, and not “to make end’s meat” which I had logically determined must be the worst cut of meat and therefore if you were making it you weren’t doing too well. The fact that I had never come across a recipe for “end’s meat” did nothing to disuade me from thinking that was the real meaning of the phrase.
    Don’t even get me started on figuring out what rotating your tires actually meant!

    posted by Lindsey on 10-17-2008 at 2:07 pm

73. The most telling moment in my tween life (and this will date me) was my cool new (older) friend asking me if I had heard “Brickhouse.” My answer was geeky and so unhip: “What, is that a place?” Fortunately (and somewhat sadly as well), my days watching Donny and Marie were over, and . . . the Commodores, et al, were it!!!
    Disco, baby, Disco!

    posted by JANE on 10-17-2008 at 2:42 pm

74. In high school, senior year, the group I was with one night decided to go to Taco Bell. I had never been to one and proceeded to order french fries. The clerk didn’t understand what I was talking about and I didn’t understand that fries weren’t offered. “you want what?” fries. you want what? fries.” Over and over….and over. Embarassing at the time.

    posted by DW on 10-17-2008 at 2:44 pm

75. I grew up in a very rural area of alabama where we did not have access to public water but had an electric well. So during power outages water could not be pumped into the house.

    During my soph. year of college I was at some friends house when the power went off. I was adament they not flush the toliets because they would be no water to refill them. They were amazed that I thought electricity was required to refill a toliet. Yeah, I was stupid.

    posted by James on 10-17-2008 at 3:06 pm

76. Apparently I’m still living under a rock since I’ve never once seen a Star Wars movie, an Indiana Jones movie, or a Batman movie. Needless to say, a lot of jokes and references made by my friends fly right over my head. I’ve gotten used to it at this point, but anytime it’s brought up, someone undoubtedly says something to the effect of, “NO WAY! How can you never have seen…”. Friends always tell me that they’re going to make me watch the movies with them, and then it never happens. There are many other “classics” I’ve never seen (my parents were never big movie buffs, and I just never got around to them) but those three tend to bring about the most reaction. *sigh* perhaps I’ll never crawl out from under a rock.

    posted by Kolja on 10-17-2008 at 3:07 pm

77. Kolja, I feel your pain. I haven’t seen any of those movies either. I’ve only had one or two ‘under the rock’ moments since everyone I know mainly uses the overused and overparodied parts. A lot of my moments have to do with the more obscure and weird movies I’ve seen like Brazil and the famous scene from the Battleship Potempkin.

    posted by heather on 10-17-2008 at 3:33 pm

78. I was raised in a very strict church that I’ll describe here as “Amish-lite”. I wasn’t allowed to wear pants (only long skirts) no makeup, couldn’t cut my hair, etc.

    For some unknown reason the popular girls had invited me to sit at their table during lunch one day (I realize now that they probably got a kick out of my ignorance). They were going on and on about how they had to hide their “thongs” because their mothers would flip if they found them. “Oh…thongs?” I asked. “I’m allowed to have thongs! My dad helped me pick them out! He has a pair too…but he only wears them at the beach.” Naturally, they were talking about thong underware and not thongs of the flip-flop variety. I couldn’t show my face at school without someone asking if I had worn my thong after that.

    posted by Mandragora on 10-17-2008 at 3:34 pm

79. As of now, and 27 years of living, I still have not seen a single episode of.. oh gosh, I can’t even remember the name now.. oh! Gilligan’s Island.

    One time we were playing a game and my partner had to whistle the tune to Gilligan’s Island to me and I was supposed to guess what show it was from. I had no idea.

    posted by CK on 10-17-2008 at 3:38 pm

80. Oh yeah… Cynthia should be the clear winner! Poor thing!

    posted by GTT on 10-17-2008 at 3:42 pm

81. I grew up in a similar family environment on PBS, classical music, and Star Trek. Our only non-classical music was a record of children’s songs that included hits like “The Postman Must Get Through”.

    In high school when my classmates were talking about New Kids on the Block and 21 Jump Street, one of my friends started gushing about the crush she had on Johnny Depp and I asked her what class of ours he was in.

    Another awkward point was when one of my friends asked if I liked Nirvana since it was weird that it was what her dad was into. I said nirvana was good and it didn’t seem weird, thinking that she was talking about achieving nirvana. Later she played some for me, I asked her, “What is this noise?” and she told me, “I thought you liked Nirvana!” It was a very confusing conversation.

    Maybe the worst one for me was because I got forced into doing Chinese dance during the weekends while I was growing up, complete with props like big silver plates and ribbons. In high school when my friends started going to high school dances and talking about who could dance etc, I remember saying I didn’t think it was that hard, did they use ribbons?

    The Star Trek was from my mother, it was the only sanctioned non-PBS show we could watch since she was a huge fan and we watched it every night after dinner. This led to the obligatory being the only kid in school trying to “Live Long And Prosper” other kids. I’m surprised I didn’t get beat up.

    posted by Hypatia on 10-17-2008 at 4:08 pm

82. When I started college, I thought I was great–yeah, right. One of my early assignments in biology class was to research euthanasia and be prepared to come to class and defend my feelings about it. Trouble is, I thought the teacher wanted to know opinions about ‘youth in Asia.’ Thankfully, I DID find out my mistake before class.

    posted by cmk on 10-17-2008 at 5:50 pm

83. I was not into any popular music in elementary school. I remember the NKOTB craze going completely over my head. My mom listened to new age and so I did too and I was blissfully ignorant of the fact that this was not normal for a fourth grader. I remember the incredibly look of confusion on the face of a girl who asked me about some pop band I said “Oh, I like Yanni”. Then, a year or so later, my dad took me to a Pink Floyd laser show. The rest is history…

    posted by Sara on 10-17-2008 at 6:17 pm

84. when I was about 4, my brother and I had a map/puzzle of the United States. I had heard of other countries and wondered where they were located since they were not on my puzzle. I figured they were in the large Western states (Montana, North & South Dakota, etc. I lived in Massachusetts.), stacked like blocks. There was enough room, in my opinion. I asked my Mom. She got us a globe.

    posted by steph on 10-17-2008 at 7:30 pm

85. I was raised in a ultra conservative pentecostal environment, in the 1960’s, by a mother who had been raised 7th Day Adventist. When I was very young, our youth were not allowed to have mixed groups of boys and girls at swimming parties. Bowling was forbidden, as it involved smoking and gambling. I was not allowed to wear pants at church, and only “pants suits” to school, since my mother considered them more formal. My mom consented to a TV so we would not be tempted to sneak off to the movies and be exposed to who knows what kind of “worldly” ideas. We were not allowed to watch “worldly shows” featuring alcohol, smoking, violence, or “loose behaviour”. But we were allowed to watch Gunsmoke, which had a bit of all of the above, but they had morals. We were taught that Santa was not real, but to keep it under our hats, so as not to upset less enlightened families. After mom died, I ended up in foster care with a family from our church that was even stricter than my mom had been. I was not allowed to watch “Donny and Marie” as being too worldly! Well, hey, they had DANCING, and ROCK AND ROLL, after all! The only time I got to listen to any rock or disco was when I was with friends who’s families were more liberal. (I did NOT tell my foster mom.) ;-)The first theatrical release I saw was Star Wars, and that was okay because it was shown at a drive-in, and we didn’t have to go into the evil atmosphere of the movie house. I seldom knew what the kids at school were talking about, but since they seldom talked to me, they never knew the level of my ignorance, so it wasn’t a problem.

    posted by Pam on 10-17-2008 at 7:43 pm

86. These are all great, but somebody give Cynthia a t-shirt already. No one is going to top that.

    posted by hullnoates on 10-17-2008 at 7:54 pm

87. A quick post script to my post: My mother’s sister is in her 60’s. One time she was describing to me the African children’s choir that she had recently seen (this was 30 years ago), and in all innocence, she told me they were so talented because “they all have natural rhythm, you know”. (cringe, blush) She really thought it was a compliment!. She once tried to tell me all about my brother’s new motorcycle, a “Zuccikki” while trying to say Suzuki. And just a few months ago, asked me if I had ever heard of an “arcade”? A friend of hers took her to one that gives tickets to redeem for prizes. She’d never heard of such a thing, and said it was the most fun she’d ever had, and I believed her.

    posted by Pam on 10-17-2008 at 8:03 pm

88. Cynthia wins, hands down!

    posted by Lola on 10-17-2008 at 9:42 pm

89. I’m 27 and I’ve never been trick-or-treating, never believed in Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, etc. (I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, but my parents didn’t want to lie to us…they said that if my brother and I found out they lied to us about Santa Claus and everything, we wouldn’t trust anything they told us.) Until I was a junior in high school the only movie I ever saw in a theater was The Jetsons Movie because we went for my friend’s birthday party, I wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music either and as a result, have developed a secret love for 80’s hair bands…and I just got laughed at because my ringtone is High Enough by Damn Yankees. I also binged on 80’s movies in college, Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, The Princess Bride…I had years of catching up to do!

    posted by Rachel on 10-17-2008 at 10:01 pm

90. So, I was at my aunt’s house one day, and I saw a news clipping on her fridge. It was about how this woman named Lorena cut her husband John’s penis off. I was immensely amused being a teenager. My humor was turned to horror, however, when my parents told me that Mr. Bobbitt was my friend Josh’s older brother! Yeah, I knew the guy, and didn’t even know he was the one who got his weenie whacked off.

    RECAPTCHA: No Attraction

    posted by Lisa on 10-17-2008 at 10:49 pm

91. There was a made-for-TV movie about the Jackson family when I was around 10 years old. We started to watch it, when I was said “Whoa, whoa, whoa…wrong Michael Jackson…he’s white!” My parents had a field day with that for a long time! Give me a break, I hadn’t been around for that long! :)

    posted by Chrissy on 10-17-2008 at 11:01 pm

92. During my senior year of college, my good friend and I drove from Missouri to our hometown of Boulder, CO. Somewhere in Kansas we were filling up at a gas station when we saw a car with the bumper sticker: My boss is a Jewish carpenter.

    My friend admitted she didn’t know what that meant, and I simply said, “It’s Jesus.” She looked at me with complete (and sincere) disbelief and said, “Jesus was Jewish?”

    Ba-dum-bum.

    posted by JavaLuv on 10-17-2008 at 11:29 pm

93. I think the “working girl” wins.

    But that won’t stop me from sharing a story, even though it’s the opposite of what was asked for. Many years ago I lived in a community in Arlington, VA that was celebrating its 50th anniversary. I was on the committee that was planning various events to mark the occassion, along with several people who apparently shared the PBS and classical music background. For the events, one of the committee members suggested that we wear nametags or badges that identified us as committee members. To which I replied in my stupidest bandito accent “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” I expected some chuckles or at least recognition of my dumb joke. But everyone in the room just stared at me like I was from Mars, then politely continued the discussion.

    posted by Jean on 10-18-2008 at 3:04 am

94. I caused this one! My little sister, having been born in 1967, spent her Jr. High (not Middle School) years during the Disco age. I, however, by not allowing Disco in our house sent her to college with no knowledge of this abomination. All her friends had favorite Disco “songs”, yet she knew none. She did know Skynard and still carries a flame for Greg Allman! Her four year old daughter now throws her fist sky ward and yells “Skynard” upon hearing their music. I hope this counts!!

    Any shirt in large, sometimes I like surpries.

    posted by gus on 10-18-2008 at 6:19 am

95. Heres a couple not done by me personally but:
    My girlfriend in high schoool was a big Beatles fan and got asked by some other girl if she had heard the new song by Aerosmith, Come Together, and how it was the best song Aerosmith had written.

    Had a coworker that only had lived in Florida, and came up to Minnesota to live/work. We got her to go get cold air for her tires. Fortunately for her she asked her brother before going to the gas station.
    Last one. Had a buddy in high school, one the smartest kids in the class. No street smarts though. Couldn’t figure out what we were talking about when we used the phrase pink taco..

    posted by dbus on 10-18-2008 at 11:39 am

96. All of us who were in the military and spent time overseas have definite gaps in our “pop culture” knowledge.

    posted by PartiallyDeflected on 10-18-2008 at 12:21 pm

97. Living under a rock is the story of my life. I grew up in a VERY small town in Vermont. The only radio stations we got were an Oldies station, a new age station, and NPR. The only place to buy music was the little rack on the checkout counter of the True Value hardware store.

    Anyway, one weekend my cousin was visiting from the big city, a slightly larger town in New Hampshire. He asked me if I liked Vanilla Ice and I said yes, assuming this was some delicious frozen treat. My older brother knew I had no idea who Vanilla Ice was and called me on it, much to my embarrassment.

    Looking back now, I feel proud that I didn’t know who Vanilla Ice was. In fact, they should be more embarrassed for having been fans at the time.

    posted by SusieQ on 10-18-2008 at 12:41 pm

98. My fiance didn’t have cable as a kid (he spent his childhood playing outside….weirdo), so whenever a Nickelodeon show becomes the topic of conversation, he’s just totally clueless. No Rugrats, All That, Clarissa Explains it All….he knows none of it.

    posted by Kate on 10-18-2008 at 1:07 pm

99. One of my friends from freshman year of college had to ask her roommate what a tampon was. She also had no idea who David Bowie was when we went to see Zoolander. The crazy thing is, she grew up in New York City but somehow missed all sorts of vital information.

    posted by L on 10-18-2008 at 1:28 pm

100. I once asked my dad what the difference between a republican and a democrat was. He replied that republicans believe life is too precious to be controlled by the government and that democrats believed life was too precious to be in the hands of the people. Nonetheless, I thought i was a republican till i went to college.

     posted by tallulah on 10-18-2008 at 9:35 pm

101. I had been moved to a new ’smartest kids’ class in third grade having tested out of the ‘dumbest kids’ class at my new school and was already pretty clearly a low-rung child based on my appearance and constant not-yet-believable lying. (Telling the truth only resulted in ridicule so why not at least throw something out there that I could at least tell myself wasn’t true as I was being pilloried for it? I am a better liar now, but it has become less necessary.)

     Smart kids are awesome to know, but they are mean as f*ck, all Lord of the Flies with your mind.

     At my old school, we had done a second grade class play about dinosaurs. I loved music, still do, but wasn’t into pop music, never really heard any at home. Mine wasn’t a radio family, just a sing-as-you-work family. So, my favorite song was “Stanley Stegosaurus.”

     This did not go over well when someone asked what my favorite song was. I could even tell you the cruelty that followed as I realized there was a world of recording artists and performing artists and that other people routinely listened to their radios in their cars and watched MTV.

     I am glad to say that what I remember most about the aftermath of that was the sweet girl who asked me trying so hard to cover up her bafflement and asking, “Who is that by?” and still talking to me after I didn’t understand how to answer the question.

     posted by JoyZ on 10-18-2008 at 10:39 pm

102. Why is it that the same stuff that made you popular in your time is the stuff that makes me unpopular in my time?

     posted by Rohit on 10-18-2008 at 11:58 pm

103. My coming out from under a rock story still haunts me to this day. It was even brought up at my year high school reunion, and I dread the next reunion because I know it will be brought up then, too.

     I grew up in Madison, TN which was (back in the 70s and 80s) considered the middle class suburbs of Nashville. I grew up listening to the radio of my grandmothers where Hank Williams and Patsy Cline would sing to me every day. My mom was not a big music person, and my older sister only listened to the bands that had big hair, a lot of makeup, and were considered “heavy metal” at the time.

     When I was in high school, we moved from Madison, TN to the other side of Nashville where things were more eclectic and urban. I changed schools, and naturally, I wanted to fit in.

     I was in art class and sat down at the only seat left in the room. Every morning the kids at my table in this first period art class would talk about the “Quiet Storm” that had been on the night before on a local urban radio show. Every day they would talk about the requests that their friends had made, how someone they knew had actually been on the program, and how “cool and smooth” the music was.

     Finally, one day, I decided to join them in the conversation. They were mentioning how the “Quiet Storm” had played a lot of Al Green music the night before. Here’s my chance! I thought.

     I said, “I love Al Green. His music is really good.”

     They looked at me like I had three heads. Collectively, they said, “You know Al Green?”

     “Yes,” I replied, positive that finally I was on level ground and these kids were actually going to talk to me.

     “Really,” one of them said, eying me suspiciously. “What song of his do you like?”

     It embarrasses me even now to write this, but I smiled and bolted out with a clear musical clarity and certainty with “I’M PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN, WHERE AT LEAST I KNOW I’M FREE . . .”

     Needless to say, it was probably five minutes before they could pick themselves off of the floor for laughing so hard.

     One of the girls, between laughing, catching her breath, and crying said, “Girl!! That’s Lee Greenwood!!!”

     Humiliating.

     However, the boy who sat with us came in the next day with a “mix tape” that had all of Motown’s greatest, along with some classics from Teddy Pendergrass, Gerald Levert, and yes, even Al Green.

     I know my music now, but when I think back to that day I still get red in the cheeks.

     posted by Laura on 10-19-2008 at 9:58 am

104. I had never been to a 7-11 until my 2nd or 3rd year of college. I grew up in a small town, so 7-11s were not on every corner…or any corner.

     posted by Joanna on 10-19-2008 at 10:01 am

105. I’ve still never seen The Goonies.

     posted by Marta on 10-19-2008 at 10:05 am

106. Here’s another “small town in the Midwest” story:

     My parents were neither religious zealots, anti-pop culture, nor idiots themselves. They just liked the “standards” — Benny Goodman, Doris Day, et al. So that’s what I grew up listening to, and liking. I was aware of the Beatles (”those long-haired freaks,” as my dad would say), but simply preferred Tony Bennett.

     Freshman year of high school .. English class .. teacher brings in a Simon and Garfunkel record as part of lesson plan on poetry-as-lyrics. Plays a portion of “I Am a Rock.” Asks class, what does such-and-such a phrase mean?

     Calls on me.

     “I couldn’t really understand the words, ’cause I don’t listen to that kind of music.”

     “Oh? What kind of music do you listen to, Bill?”

     “Mostly, like, Liberace and Lawrence Welk.”

     My redemption didn’t come until senior year when I got a job as a disc jockey at our local radio station (which opened up whole new under-the-rock possibilities, as I introduced a song by that “new singer Betty Midler”).

     posted by Bill on 10-19-2008 at 11:43 am

107. I was raised on a sailboat and at age 14, moved to Houston, Texas. Having been home-schooled on the boat up till this point, I was not at all familiar with the going-ons of an 8th grade city girls life…fashion, music etc. In gym class one day, all us girls were sitting on the floor waiting for the teacher to come out, and one of the girls asked me if I was a virgin. I replied “No, I’m a Gemini”. The resulting sound of laughter from every girl in that row was long and loud. It was not explained to me what was so funny, until much, much later.

     posted by Janice on 10-19-2008 at 1:44 pm

108. I haven’t been too sheltered, but when I was around five I thought the “F” word was Fern… Yeah, Needless to say I was highly offended when my brother brought home “Where the Red Fern Grows”.

     posted by Josiah on 10-19-2008 at 2:02 pm

109. When I was in middle school, there was a great commotion when we were told we were going to have a DJ at our next dance. He said that we could bring in any music we wanted played at the dance. Most kids brought in Snoop Dawg and Eminem. I brought in ABBA. When he was playing through the pike of CD’s at the dance, he got to mine, laughed heartily, and set it to the side.

     posted by Josh on 10-19-2008 at 3:25 pm

110. HEY YOU GUYS! It’s 4:15 pm CST on Sunday and I’m officially calling the contest. Watch for the official winner(s?) in a post tomorrow.

     Your homework assignment in the meantime is to go watch that dang movie already!

     posted by terri on 10-19-2008 at 4:23 pm

111. I think we need to have a sheltered kids conference or something

     posted by Doug on 10-20-2008 at 4:05 am

112. I know the contest is over but…one of my friends in college was quite naive. She went to a new doctor one day (at age 22) and thought he was going to examine her toes… .

     She also worked at a high school and saw kids tossing balloons in the lunchroom. She joined in the fun, even though the balloons looked a little strange… .

     posted by leann on 10-20-2008 at 9:33 am

113. When we were first married, we kep getting phone calls (at our new phone number) regarding the “ad.” I told the callers the ad must have been placed by whoever had our phone number before. After the 15th or 1th call I finally asked what the ad was about. After much hesitation, the caller said “Ummm, it was for, ummm, couples that wanted to go hot tubbing with other couples.” When I told my husband, he thought that might be fun! Until I explained.

     posted by Anne on 10-20-2008 at 9:36 am

114. To this day, never seen one second of Titanic. (31 yo)

     posted by Jay on 10-20-2008 at 1:31 pm

115. Not under-the-rock exactly, but Northern-Southern culture clash:

     My New Jersey-bred boyfriend (now husband) mentioned going to the Watchung Reservation to hang out. I asked, “What kind of Indians live there?”

     I got my revenge, though. Our bed in college was a mattress on the floor. One morning I said I woke up with a cow lick. He asked, “How did a cow get down low enough to lick your hair?” I said, “You do know they eat grass, right?”

     posted by Southern Buddhist on 10-20-2008 at 2:48 pm

116. This makes me feel a little bit like I might still be living under a rock but here goes…

     I’ve been a vegetarian for over 15 years and I don’t really think about meat a lot. When I read the post from the person who thought hamburger was a layer in their own body, I realized for the first time that ground beef is made from muscles. Duh.

     posted by Capn Squint on 10-20-2008 at 4:41 pm

117. I didn’t think I lived under a rock until I started reading these comments :-(

     Sarah, who’s Billy Joe?????

     posted by Jeff on 10-20-2008 at 5:47 pm

118. I know this may be hard to believe, but I got lost after the first 200 pages of Gravity’s Rainbow and had to start over before being able to finish it.

     posted by Larry on 10-21-2008 at 6:41 am

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