What weird stuff did you believe as a kid?

[NamelessGem]

When I was younger my over active imagination and my comedic parents led me to believe a series of bizarre things ....

For example -

Sequins gathered in dark corners would fly off to parties in the night.

Yorkshire puddings grew in mines and naughty kids had to go down to mine for them.

Old photos were taken from the ‘black and white days’ where everything really was just black and white, until the first colour was invented (red) which is why postboxes, telephone boxes buses etc are red. Also why some Tudor houses are black and white - they were accidentally missed !

• mum and dad were born during the dinosaur ages

• a cupboard in my room turned me invisible

And I read one on Facebook (which prompted this thread) a boy was adopted as a baby but was black, his adoptive family were white. They told him the other kids were born in the day, and he at night !
This lad then began telling the other black kids at his school that they were simply born at night, and white kids in the day .... ahahaha

I’m sure there’s more !

What weird stuff did you believe ?!

I used to think that other people could see out of my eyes. I couldn't understand why my mum so frequently asked "what did you do at school today?"; she must know!

I convinced myself that I could see through things (of course, I only tested myself when I knew what was on the other side). While waiting for my turn to pin the tail, I watched the other children having their turns, and I knew for certain that a mere scarf would not stop me getting my tail in the right place: I knew what the donkey looked like. Then it was my turn, and the smiling party mum put the tail in my hand, blindfolded me and spun me round - and I found I could not see a thing, not even the pattern on the scarf! Mind blown! And I didn't win! Even on subsequent occasions, I told myself "I'll be able to see this time".

@MarieToulouseBerlioz It's not sheep it's haggis that have the 2 legs shorter!

That Polo mints were made of bones before they went vegetarian.... I'm guessing there was maybe something in it re gelatine??

How did I know if a fairy tale was made up? If it had talking animals, or magic; any others must be true stories.

Because of this, stories such as Hansel and Gretel seemed more "real", and gave me all sorts of weird ideas: that all stepmothers were wicked, that being "poor" meant not being able to feed your family at all, and that children who were too skinny would find themselves locked in a cage, like Hansel. That part didn't scare me though - I would much rather have been caged than made to do the housework, like Gretel!

You know on maps where the name of the place is written on the place? I genuinely thought that there were large letters on the ground / in the sea and wondered why I never saw any.

That witches would steal boiled eggshells for boats unless you turned the empty eggshell over and smashed the bottom of it.
And also if you swallowed chewing gum you'd die.

When I was little and in the car, I didn’t realise we were moving and used to think the trees were running alongside us.
I also thought my dad invented eggy bread so when I heard someone mention having eggy bread for breakfast at school, I spun around in my chair to ask them how they knew about it not sure why people called me weird at school.....

I used to think that there were little people in the TV and I used to try and look for then in the back of the TV.

I also thought that cats were female and dogs were the males 😂

That teachers lived at school.

That cemetery's would already have our gravestones with date of death on them. I used to absolutely shit myself incase I seen my name and found out when I was going to die.

I thought that when there was a war both sides started with the same amount of soldiers and at the end they counted how many each side had left, and whichever side had killed the most of the opponent's army won the war.

I also thought that battles started at a pre-arranged time and place. Although apparently sometimes that did happen back in the distant past.

That eating paper gave you worms.
That there was a ghost on our staircase that chased me from halfway down.
That if you ate apple pips a tree would grow in your stomach.
That eating bonio dog shapes would give me shiny hair.

I thought everywhere abroad was by the seaside and would insist on bringing a bucket and spade whatever the destination.

That belly-buttons hold your layers of skin, fat muscle and internal organs together like a staple and if you poked it everything would come undone and splat on the floor. I still believe that on some level tbf.

I love the black cat one 😂

@LennyBelardo I don't blame you for believing mermaids were real; it's hard to tell when adults tell you so many confusing things! Here are a few things I was surprised to learn were real, because they appear in so many fairy tales:
Wolves
Rainbows: I remember the amazement when I saw one.
Scarecrows (not talking ones!)
Pirates
Birds that talk (still not convinced about that one!).
Prisons: loads of fairy tales have them.
Ghosts: I know, their existence is highly questionable, and often derided on MN, but I was astounded to learn later that many adults do seriously believe in them.

I thought you got fat because of water going in through your bellybutton in the bath ... pity it's not that simple! Also thought that people who wore glasses slept in them, and that old ladies with hatpins stuck them right through their heads.

peachsquish I was always told the witches/eggshells one by the adults in my family (Cornwall?) and to this day I still have to break the bottoms of boiled eggs when i’m finished with them. Amusingly, I have now trained DH to do this too, even though every fibre of his rational scientific soul objects - he knows i’ll glare disbelievingly at him until he does...

Cracks in the earth meant that crocodiles would come through & get you!
Mum used to tell us she was going to catch a toad up the garden for toad in the hole & I believed her!
At our leisure centre, they had a vending machine where you couldn’t see what was inside & I was convinced that the one packet of crisps visible at the top was the only packet so I had to be quick
If I didn’t get back to my room before the loo stopped flushing, something would get me!

The birds standing on telephone lines were cold and were warming their feet up!

Love this!

I thought several things only existed in story books, and some films.
The things were

Deep snow
Cuckoo clocks
Rocking chairs
Thatched roof

If you paid money into your bank account the cash went into your own little wooden drawer in the branch, and when you drew money out it would be the same fiver you had paid in, taken out of your drawer!

The front Dublin buses have little button things upstairs that I think if you press them it opens, my Dad told me that if I pressed them gremlins would jump out. Still haven't tried pressing them!

That if I stayed on the toilet too long a monster would bite my bum. Also used to flush the toilet and leg it, don't even really know why?

I too thought that if you ate pips a tree would grow inside you

I remember going to the travel agents at about 7 and my parents booking a fly drive holiday I assumed that meant our car would be on the plane or carried in a fancy net under the plane and then we would drive off the other end!

My grandparents also took me to London to see Big Ben we had a lovely day till we got the train home and I got very upset we forgot to see Ben! 5 year old me had pictured a big jolly giant so a big clock was a let down!

When I was little, approaching a toilet with the seat up was the scariest thing ever! With the rubber supports, it looked like a big open mouth with teeth, which would be right at my eye level. In my dreams they would make noises as I approached: I called them "tooper toilets".

If I needed to go, I would ask one of the grown ups to put the seat down for me, only to be sent back to do it myself. Big grown ups didn't understand how big a toilet seat is to a small child, that I'd have to get really close to the "big open mouth" to put it down, and that it might fall with quite a bang. (No soft close seats in the 1980s!) Also, in our house it was a high-level cistern, and although my parents generously extended the chain so I could reach it, the thunderous sound of it flushing was terrifying.

I once heard a story of a woman wearing shoes which she couldn't take off, which would make her dance even when she didn't want to; she had to keep dancing until she ended up in mud, where the shoes got stuck, and she was able to pull her feet out.

From then on, I was uneasy about wearing shoes I couldn't take off myself. Velcro ones ("scrapers" to me) were OK, but not a certain pair of jelly sandals I had, which I had no hope of removing when my mum did them up on my bare feet really tight! My feet were locked in because I couldn't undo the buckles myself, and they might start dancing at any moment...