Fungi
My parents had a "classic car" and used to go to owners' club meetings and drives at the weekends. One of the Club activities was a treasure hunt - get a list of locations, drive to each place, answer a question about the place, re-group at a pub to tally scores, that sort of thing. They used to enjoy it and they'd sometimes take me along for the ride. This was the late 70s / early 80s so 'going for a drive in the country' might have been an enjoyable activity back then, rather than an exercise in impotent fury and traffic congestion.

I remember as a five-year old sitting in the bucket seat in the back of the car, barely able to see up out of the window, as my mum read a clue about "look out for fungi" to my dad as he drove. The thought occurred to me that I didn't know what fungi was - what if the word meant poisonous gas? I decided that holding my breath was the only option.

Of course, a few seconds later I needed to breathe. But what if I breathed in the poisonous fungi? Obviously I had to breathe the air from inside my T-shirt, that couldn't possibly be poisonous. So I pulled the neck of my T-shirt up over my mouth and nose and tried to breathe as little as I could, until my parents had passed this next clue.

It took them about ten minutes, I'd guess, to wonder why their chatterbox son had been uncharacteristically quiet. And probably about another five minutes for me to sheepishly reveal why I was trying to hide inside my T-shirt...
( sanityclause is waiting until, Wed 18 Jan 2012, 16:59, Reply)