disillusioned.

Don't ask me why, but today I started thinking about about how the stories and books I'd heard, read, seen, or had read to me in my completely overactive imagination as a child have made me realize and even un-learn some of the most basic truths growing up.
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Steam shovels (or tractors) do not make great furnaces to grow old next to after a single day's hard work. In fact, to use the engine of a tractor to warm a public building would be more than irresponsible. It would almost immediately, within minutes, hospitalize every occupant in the room quite possibly killing many of the people attending the Town Hall event.
Firemen do not leave the scene of flames "too early" and it is not realistic to think that the oldest member of the fire fighting team should remain for hours upon hours to stare at a field waiting for that one ember to burst out and re-burn everything again, negating all previous valiant efforts to save the forest.
Mice, beavers, badgers, squirrels, otters and birds are not good, and stoats, weasels, snakes and foxes are not bad. Nor is it the opposite. They are neither good or bad, they're animals and none of them talk or train to fight battles against each other.
Bullies aren't conquered by solving mysteries, you call their Mothers and they lie about beating up on you then grow up to be the mayor of New York or pro wrestlers.

Lions in the zoo don't have the personality of Jesus and haven't ever met a White Witch. They have no personality at all and spend most of their day either sleeping in the sun or pacing back and forth talking about sports with each other or complaining about politics.
The flooding in the Midwest right now isn't the fault of a little boy who got bored or quit keeping his finger in a little hole in the dam because it hurt. This isn't Holland.
Parents don't usually understand if you've had a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day. You get disciplined for lashing out in anger to your sisters and if you mention Australia they smile at the reference and still ground you from playing outside after church for being incredibly disrespectful, but you still have to go to soccer practice.
Old jalopies that backfire and are driven by fat funny kids aren't that cool, nor is it cool to get kidnapped or knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head and wake up tied to your brother in a lighthouse while felonies are being committed.
It isn't possible to turn the air conditioner in your house down to 32 degrees so it starts snowing and makes your Mom wear gloves when she plays the piano, and if you did own a penguin, much less a dozen of them, the State would take them away, arrest you, and you'd be on the news so everyone could hate you.
The same goes for a pet alligator. A fat lady who walked down the street with one on a leash would be spending most of her future money paying off tickets, bail, court fees and PETA.
Slithertongue doesn't exist and if you try to speak it to a snake in a glass tank at the zoo they won't even give you the small victory of a blink.
Nothing in the world can make you invisible. Not even rings.
There's no point in treating your stuffed animals kindly or making sure they always face up on the bed and are arranged comfortably, because when you leave the room they won't come alive.
A cat would not sleep on top of a dog that was on top of a kid that was on top of an old lady. Ever.
Grasshoppers are not evil and ladybugs aren't little men.

Children can't live in a museum and take baths in the water fountain picking up all the change everyone threw in there to pay for their future meals.
If you smoke a cigar as a child, fall off the edge of a ship and no one notices, you do not have any further adventures. You die.
Children do not go to schools in buildings with a deceitful number of floors and spend the rest of their lives attending classes and going in between levels, never going home again. If you manage to escape somewhere like that you need to skip writing the book and tell the police and CNN so that many, many adults can spend the rest of their lives in jail.
Dogs that wear party hats make people sad, not happy, and they do not drive around town.
A bunch of children that skip school to fish and swim down by a creek who end up drinking from the same tin cup that had always been down there by the creek end up in the hospital, not solving crimes.
Living in a boxcar would not mean that you had clean purple and light blue clothing each day.