Childhood Starter Pack

As children, we had imaginations that seemed endless; from creating new worlds in our heads to making up our own imaginary friends, we had immense abilities to be creative. However, despite the infinite possibilities of imagination—and the mind itself—there were times when our many minds aligned.

For example, there are things we did as children that we didn’t plan, but still managed to do similarly. Whether we did these things as a coincidence or not is unknown; however, the Rebellion has compiled a list of five frivolous things that most of us did as a child, but that none of us talk about.

Summoning our inner cooking skills

One item on this list is making “soup” and not the kind with chicken and noodles. Rather this soup consisted of rocks, leaves, dirt, sticks—and any other random outdoor items that could be found—all thrown into a bucket and mixed up with a stick.

This was typically a “game within a game,” and the concept of the “soup” changed based on the game that it was being played within.

For example, if we were pretending to be a chef, we would make the “soup” replicate an actual soup, but if we were pretending to be a witch, we would make the “soup” with the same ingredients, but it would be a potion instead.

Going outside on a cold day for a ‘smoke break’

Although vaping has stolen a lot of smoking’s hype, smoking was the “cool” thing to do while we were growing up. It seemed like all the teenagers and adults who we looked up to were doing it. which made us want to do it so we could be just like them.

So when it started to get cold outside each year, we couldn’t resist pretending to light, taking a puff of an imaginary cigarette, and then exhaling into the cold air. In our heads, this created the impression that we were smoking and made us feel so grown up.

Running in the dark from the Boogie Man

All the times that we took the pacer test in gym class really paid off when it came to leaving a room after turning the lights off. We would sprint as fast as we could back to our bedrooms to avoid any ghosts or monsters hiding in the depths of the dark.

Although it may have seemed way more practical to just use a flashlight, we went in for the sprint anyway. This was such a common habit among us as children that it has still stuck with many of us now.

Discovering our hidden superpowers

The final item on this list is convincing ourselves that we were superheroes while in the shower. By letting the water hit the bottom of our palms and letting it drip down our fingers, it created the illusion that water was shooting out of our fingertips.

We would aim the water at the walls and sometimes even pretend to hit imaginary targets.

Although this may not be as cool as being able to fly or telepathically talk to people, this still convinced many of us that we were the next Percy Jackson.

Turning into a spy at the department store

The next item on this list is hiding in clothing racks at department stores.

Whether it was to play hide and seek, to hide from our parents, or to spy on random customers, we would crawl under the clothing racks and hide in them.

We would crawl from clothing rack to clothing rack while pretending to be undercover, secret agents.

With the combination of the clothes hanging from all sides and our imaginations, the inside of clothing racks were a wonderland.

Although all of these things may seem absurd when looking back on them, the combination of imagination and our friends doing all of these things made them a key part of our childhoods.

As we are slowly growing up, it can be easy to lose touch with the imaginative parts of our childhood selves, so reflecting on the places our imaginations would take us can almost bring us back to the depths of the department store clothing racks.