Ignorance is bliss

I learned something yesterday. Apparently ‘chock-a-block’ is a nautical term. For almost 23 years, I’d always assumed it had something to do with chocolate, and how it comes in blocks, and if you eat too much of it, you’re full, or ‘chock-a-block.’ It’s just logic, really.

Sadly, pieces of information such as this never come as a surprise to me. I have an extensive history of completely missing the point. So, in a spectacular celebration of shame, here are some of my greatest misunderstandings:

• I used to think Elvis was singing ‘I’m a sugar,’ despite the facts that a) this makes no sense, and b) the song was called All Shook Up.
• In early 2009 I finally realised that the title of blink-182’s 2001 album Take off Your Pants and Jacket was a pun. Yes, I thought it was an odd request, but hey, whatever floats your boat. Maybe they liked getting down with their shirts still on? I felt dirty. Dirty and betrayed. However, now I can enjoy the fact that it is both clever, and amusing. Kudos, boys. Kudos.
• ‘Feckless’ is a real word. I thought it was Irish slang.
• I thought Danke Schoen was sung by a woman.
• Towards the end of high school I found out the book is called To Kill a Mockingbird and not Tequila Mockingbird, and that it is about the racial divide, and not a drag queen (she sounds fun though, right? Yeah. You know she’d show you a good time). I still haven’t read the book, but I saw the movie. Shut up, that's not lazy. It's time efficient.
• It took me 14 hours to understand the bumper sticker ‘My Karma ran over your Dogma.’
• You know that scene in Grease where Rizzo and Kenickie are going at it in the back of his car, and he pulls out his ‘25cent insurance policy?' Up until the age of 16, I thought it was an actual insurance policy. I could never understand why they were so upset that it broke.
  

What worries me about all of this is the number of other things I’ve completely misunderstood, but still have no idea about, and will surely one day embarrass myself with.

Personally, I chose to believe that I’m not slow. Society is just impatient.