Going Steady and other phrases I didn't understand as a kid.

A serious 5 o' clock shadow, amirite?

When I was a kid there were a lot of phrases I didn't understand or that didn't make sense to me. Sometimes I'd pretend to understand with a simple nod. This entry will go over a few of those phrases, explain what I thought was being said and then explain what was actually meant.

First on the list is "Gong steady" it was never used when I was growing up by people in reality but I'd see on old sitcoms like "Brady Bunch" the use of the phrase "Going Steady" and I'd say "Why does Jan want to go steady with a boy? She can easily do that with her sisters or ask her dad or mom to steady with her?" Because I thought she was saying "Go study"

What does going steady mean for our younger audience?  Basically its just being boyfriend and girlfriend.  Making it "official" you're no longer just going to a couple movies to get to know each other you're now "a thing" I guess.
 But anyway I didn't understand the idea and thought anyone could go steady with anyone else because I thought that meant the same as go study which is just reading books together to prepare for a test. Ha!

My parents would say "Oh so you think you can have your cake and eat it too?" I would say "No?" because I was sure, by their tone, that the correct answer was no. But I'd think to myself "Well whats the point of having a slice of cake if you can't also eat it?"

Have your cake and eat it to means you can't have the best of both worlds. The way the phrase used to be said was you can't eat your cake and have it too. Which really makes more sense. You cannot EAT your cake and yet keep it. If you want to eat it you cannot still have it. Haha that's a smarter way to say it. But parents don't like to make things easy on kids, I sometimes think thats why we do it. We like to confuse kids? :P Its a punishment? I don't know haha.

Sometimes my parents would say stuff like "This cost me an arm and a leg" Or "No we're not buying that! It will cost an arm and a leg" I used to picture that if something cost an arm and a leg that you'd go into the store and have to have your arm or leg removed to buy said item so I was afraid of my parents having to get anything that cost and arm and a leg.
I later found out that "an arm and a leg" were just phrases that meant "A ton of cash"

And finally when my parents would say they were going to go out and paint the town red I thought they were literally going to take my dad's striping machine and use red paint on all the streets or something.

And I didn't understand what a man's five o clock shadow was. I thought a man was like a groundhog but instead  he had a shadow at like 5 oclock that was special.
Now I know that means he needs to freshen up his shave because of stubble.

That's it...I was a goofy kid. There were other phrases adults used around us kids that we didn't get but those were the top ones.