Musinex Frogs and Other Myths

It was recently called to my attention that (dun, dun, dun) there is no Musinex frog. That's right. Commercials for the cough suppressant actually feature a talking ball of phlegm clothed in a wife-beater and suspenders. Lame! I mean, what kind of mascot is that? Flem doesn't talk nor does it wear clothes because a) that is just so unrealistic and b) it would be very messy and sticky.
So this little misunderstanding got me thinking: What other concepts have I mistaken for entirely different concepts (like say, lung-dwelling reptiles) that apparently are strikingly obvious to anyone else.

My childhood dreams ruined sugar cereals. When I was little, I was never allowed to have an unhealthy breakfast. While I was taunted with commercials of smiling little shits stuffing their happy faces with colorful puffs and chocolaty flakes as their obesity-pushing mom's looked on with blissfully ignorant approval (News Flash: Adding a glass of orange juice and a banana to a bowl of sugar does not make it a complete breakfast.) I was forcing the senior citizen special of Grape Nuts and Raisin Bran softened with non-fat milk down my little six-year-old throat. By the way, Honey Smacks - a cereal that, contrary to it's name is not heroine - actually does feature a cartoon talking frog. Yay.

Anyway, I grew up with the impression that I was missing out on these little morning meals of heaven. In my early teens I was finally given the opportunity to try some of these illusive cereals. So. Disappointed. First of all, Lucky Charms does not consist entirely of wonderful, delicious marshmallows. No. I would say the ratio of wonderful, delicious marshmallows to crappy, little cardboard crap-morsels is probably only 1 to 20. And don't get me started on Cookie Crisp. Those aren't cookies! For the first 13 years of my life I envisioned Mini Chips Ahoy floating gloriously in a bowl of milk. But disk-shaped corn flakes with brown spots do not equal chocolate chip cookies.

Now I know I may be going up against a whole movement of sugar cereal lovers everywhere, but look where I'm coming from. Imagine being a kid and thinking Candyland was an actual place. You get a little older and finally venture out there, only to find that Candyland is actually just a bunch cafeteria desserts.

Huey Lewis is not ordering me to hit the B square. When I was younger (again, another childhood misconception - a statistic causing me to believe that perhaps I was a very stupid child), my parents would often play a tape of Huey Lewis and the News on road trips. Ah, dorky white families in the '80s. Being a very stupid child, I would gaze out the window from the backseat with absolutely no intelligent thoughts of my own and let whatever images the lyrics produced play numbly in my head. One might argue that this was not a sign of stupidity, but it is important to note that this is all I did. No matter how long the road trip, no matter how many times I had heard the song before, no new or independent thought ever stemmed from this exercise. What made it worse is that I often had the lyrics wrong.

Lewis's hit It's Hip to Be Square was Hit the B Square in my world. Forget the fact that this statement, or command rather, made absolutely no sense. There I would sit, swinging my dumb little legs, imaging someone hitting a cement square with an engraved B with a stick. And get this. Every time this "B Square" was hit, it would light up like the sidewalk Michael Jackson walks on in Billie Jean. I don't even remember when I realized my mistake, but I don't think I ever told anyone. That is until now, my beloved Internet universe of strangers.

I was going to provide an (embarrassingly long) list of misconceptions, but it's now 2pm and I'm still in my robe and this post is already turning out to be a lot longer than expected. Feel free to save me from drowning in stupidity by outing your own and share a misconception. Please?