Things you used to think and now can't quite believe you did

It's taken this thread for me to learn about prunes being plums!!

I thought if you drowned it happened by somehow turning around and around very fast in the water and getting sucked under, or going under somehow. But it definitely involved swimming in circles.

I thought 'Egypt' was pronounced 'Eggy-putt' (I was a very early reader).

YYYYYYY to Aspiring and sarinka.

:(

On a related note, I didn't even consider claiming disability benefits for years because I thought you only qualified if you were chair-bound (a misconception shared by too many benefit-bashers.)

I also didn't know working people could get benefits if they're on low wages, but suspect that's a generation thing - tax credits didn't exist through most of my working life, and council housing was readily available.

"Washington DC and Washington State are two completely different places!"

I didnt know this either!

Also, until recently i thought NY was the capitol of the US.

I thought helicopters were baby airplanes

I thought that I wasn't real occasionally. Still do, when I am having a sanity holiday

I asked my parents what "homosexual" meant and they looked shifty and said it meant "preferring your sex to the opposite sex".

So for years I thought it was another word for "chauvinist".

Oh, and there's a whole thread on here about the lies & misinformation we are fed about the menopause & ageing! You think you know what to expect, then all this weird shit happens and you're like Then you have to come on the internet to ask other women if this is also happening to them!

(The answer, by the way, is Yes.)

My best friend in high school fervently believed that the contraceptive pill worked by inserting it, and tried to convince us all that she was right. Her boyfriend believed her right up to the moment she found out she was pregnant!

I used to think that if you worked hard, tried your best and didn't deliberately hurt people things would be ok and people wouldn't be disgusted by you, despise you or expect you to apologise for existing. I'm ashamed at how naive I was.

As a seven year old watching Juliet Bravo (80s tv show about coppers) I was very confused as to how this lady had so many sons. Some who appeared to be very close in age to her. How was this possible? A huge family of coppers?

Took a good few years to get that they were saying "ma'm". Not "mum".

Why didn't I just ask someone to clarify instead of thinking about it, all on my own, through numerous episodes??

In the seventies my mum and dad went to a freezer shop wearing big coats because they explained to me that the whole of the shop was a freezer and you had to go into the cold to get your food shopping.

I thought it was an enormous great white building-sized chest freezer that you somehow had to climb up the side of to get to the top and lift the lid to get in

I used to think that people bf toddlers was icky, then my baby grew into a toddler and guess what - to me he was still my baby. Yup. Still bf.

I also got fooled by the guerilla/gorilla thing. I thought the Wombles were common as in there were lots of them. I thought you stopped breathing when you were asleep so I used to hold my breath when I was pretending to my parents that I was sleeping.

In my teens, I thought getting pissed up was an accident that could happen during sex, and was very upset when my friend told me she'd got pissed up at the weekend. Mortified when the other girls realised what I was thinking!

Aged 36 - Not all men hit women. Am still grateful to my boyfriend at the time for hiding his shock, when he put me straight.

Aged 48 - Marital rape had already been made illegal. It's a shame, I could have reported XH2 if I'd known.

Aged 55 - Washington DC and Washington State are two completely different places!

I'm awaiting the next shocking revelation but, for now, am ROARING at mrsrochester's sprouting seeds of death

I thought Cliff Richard was a tiny little man who lived in the radiogram and sang songs. I thought if I looked into the radiogram I would see him. I might even catch him dressing...I was definitely four and a half at the time. Quite shocking what I had on my mind. Clearly the doubts about his inclinations hadn't reached reception class in 1962.

There was a tv show called the adventure game, i really thought that contestants were vaporised if they lost. I thought it was a really cruel game and couldn't understand why they weren't allowed to go ho,e

That the Wombles of Wimbledon were 'common', as in dodgy tracksuits and screaming at your kids in the street sort of common. In the song they pause in the wrong place (sing it to yourself and you'll see).

Oh my goodness, I thought that too, I've never met another one!!

What?!? Sainsburys doesn't have a factory?

I used to think that when the contestants on the Crystal maze got locked in the room they were actually not allowed to go home.
On hearing that camels have humps because they live in the desert with nk food etc i wondered how the camel got the food out of it's hump and into it's mouth. I imagined a stash of mars bars in there!
Overheard mum and dad talking about speed guns and thought the police shot you if you did something wrong.

With everyone else who heard 'guerrilla war' and imagined hordes of giant silverbacks causing chaos and ruin....

I was afraid to do the splits, in case I ...well, split

Oops. Now thanks to me the pools of the UK are going to be a lot warmer.

I thought it was a cloud of purple dye that would appear if you peed in the pool I am stunned that this isn't true, I still believed it to be

That my Mum had an actual eye in the back of her head.

I used to think all supermarkets had factories, so Sainsbury own brand foods were all made in Sainsbury factory,.,

Oh, and that planes kind of flew like balls- they'd be launched into the air by a big machine, literally throwing it.

I, when I was about four or five, I think, thought our neighbour was Jesus. He looked pretty similar to the depictions- long dark hair (it wasn't actually long, it was quite short, but it was curly) a beard and so on, and he was a Christian and would read us Bible stories when he looked after us, so it obviously meant he was Jesus.