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Original poster

What stupid thing did you believe?

357 replies

Soubriquet · 13/09/2021 16:23

For a long time, I honestly believed money laundering was literally washing money in a washing machine and I wondered why it was so bad Blush

OP posts:
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5
Tempusfudgeit · 14/09/2021 21:22

@Wrennie24

It's a child I thought the teams in University Challenge were actually seated in two tier rows one on top of the other. I was lots of years old when I found out it was the camera splitting the screen. 🤣
'Guys, guys, I'm going to wee on Lord Snot's head!'
73kittycat73 · 14/09/2021 21:25

I used to think the black market was a physical place, like a real market, but it was probably at night as it was dark.

Stuckandinamess · 14/09/2021 21:33

I am not originally from the area where I live now and listening to the radio on my drive to work, I used to wonder what awful things must have happened to call a place Sinister Island.... some sort of natural disaster which couldn't be explained maybe?

Turns out it is actually called Simister Island and is just a bad junction on the M60Blush.

BigRedDuck · 14/09/2021 22:09

I've only just found out that "cream teas" are in fact tea and a scone with cream and jam. Not tea with cream in it.

All this time.. I am 30.

AutistGoth · 14/09/2021 22:16

My Ddad told me that it was illegal to break wind in public. I believed that for an embarrassingly long time! Blush

I also didn't really know about the vagina until later than I should have done. I spent an inordinate amount of time wondering how a tampon or a penis would ever go up inside my tiny urethra!

Don't feel too sorry for me: I had discovered the clitoris "by hand" many years earlier! Smile

AutistGoth · 14/09/2021 22:22

Gosh! Trust me to bring down the tone of the thread... Blush

ErrolTheDragon · 14/09/2021 22:22

Google says that it is. Red from red/black grapes and white from green.

A bit more Google will explain that the colour is from the skins (the inside of all grapes is pale) - so a white wine can be made from dark grapes so long as the juice doesn't have much contact with the skins.
Rosé wine can be made by letting the juice have a limited period of contact with the skins.

Green grapes can only make white wine... unless it's blended with a red which is used for some rosés I think.

SerenShine · 14/09/2021 22:26

@Rocketpants50

As a teenager I could never understand why they couldn't catch the criminals featured on Crimewatch when they had been there and filmed them doing the crime. Obviously didn't understand the word reconstruction.
Hehe this made me actually laugh out loud 😊
honeylulu · 14/09/2021 22:33

DH was from a family of brothers, and although they all discussed sex, they didn't know a thing about periods. When I first discussed it with him, he said he knew girls had bleeding once a month - but he thought they sat on the loo when it started, and it all gushed out, then that was it - over! He was quite shocked when I told him it lasted for days

I don't think it's that unusual. I read something about a debate about providing free or subsidised sanitary products to those who need them and a man seemed baffled about why it was necessary and if they weren't so lazy they could just hold it in, like urine, until they next went to the toilet.

Anyway my own admissions...

We went on holiday to Scotland when I was 6 or 7 and our parents told us that haggises were real creatures. They bought us some fluffy toy haggises from a toy shop and we assumed that was what they looked like. When we were walking in a forest next day I was sure I had seen a furry haggis run across the path! Many years later when I was mid teens we went to Scotland again. One day my parents were laughing uproariously about how we'd once believed in real live haggises as small children. I laughed along, only realising with horror at that moment that I'd still believed it.

Also when I was first told the facts of life around the age of 9ish it was only the very basics about PIV. Nothing about erections or ejaculation. I thought the man just stuffed his floppy willy in and the couple then just rolled around kissing for a couple of minutes (that's what you saw on programmes like Dynasty etc. ) It seemed incredibly dull and I couldn't understand the attraction!

Also - air strikes - I thought it meant no planes were flying because the pilots were on strike.

Oh and when I bought my first property in my early 20s and the heating element must have gone kaput, I had no idea about such things and I rang Thames Water to complain that the water coming out of the hot tap wasn't ... hot. I'm mortified to remember that.

I'm actually quite clever believe it or not.

Warrickdaviesasplates · 14/09/2021 22:35

@Cheeseycheeseycheesecheese thank you, I'm glad I'm not the only one who missed the memo about "after birth".

SerenShine · 14/09/2021 22:36

@Wrennie24

It's a child I thought the teams in University Challenge were actually seated in two tier rows one on top of the other. I was lots of years old when I found out it was the camera splitting the screen. 🤣
Yes this, but I also blame the Young Ones 🤣
Konyeshno · 14/09/2021 23:12

That satellite tv shows were made in space. On a satellite Blush

That local anaesthetic varied by geographical region, whereas general was used internationally.

FelicityBeedle · 14/09/2021 23:34

@Phyllis321

I assumed that until just now tbh. Obviously excepting islands, do all roads join or are there very remote places which aren’t joined at any point?

ThirtyCharacterUsernamesOnly30 · 14/09/2021 23:56

@ErrolTheDragon

So the guide dog has the veto and can decide not to cross the road.

I thought of this thread today when I saw a lorry laden with lots of sheds (stacked panels thereof). Can you imagine the headline if it had had an accieent... 'a lorry shed a shedload of its load of sheds.'

Brilliant! GrinGrinGrin
ThirtyCharacterUsernamesOnly30 · 15/09/2021 00:02

That dual carriageway ways were called jewel carriageways. I thought it was because the cats eyes were so pretty and that they looked like jewels, especially the green and red ones!

Anordinarymum · 15/09/2021 00:20

My dad lost a leg in WW2. He told us (his children) he was on a camel in the desert and a crocodile bit his leg off.
I believed that for years.

I thought elbow grease was something you put on your elbow to help you work better
I thought holy water stopped you from getting struck by lightning
I thought if you picked dandelions you would wee the bed
I thought carrots helped you see in the dark
I used to suck my thumb a lot and was really scared when I was told it would be turned into toffee by some dodgy man and I would suck it off

frerecoler · 15/09/2021 00:28

I believed that one testicle produced XY sperm and one produced XX sperm.

I genuinely thought elephants ate currant buns.

I thought Bognor Regis was in Spain.

And I was too scared to push for a poo whilst pregnant with DC1 as I was worried the baby would 'pop' out.

frerecoler · 15/09/2021 00:31

I also thought an oxymoron was someone who wasnt worth the oxygen they consumed.

SometimesRavenSometimesParrot · 15/09/2021 00:41

I grew up catholic and the tabernacle at the back of church was covered with a cloth and roughly bird cage shaped, so I assumed there was a Holy Canary in it and we’d learn about it during confirmation or something. I was about 10 before I found out.

In my defence, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing you find in Catholicism.

Flingingmelon · 15/09/2021 00:53

@UnitedRoad

you've changed the way I think about New Years!

Flingingmelon · 15/09/2021 00:56

@PivotPivotPivottt

My mum explained away condoms at the chemist counter by telling me they were pills you took if you wanted to have a baby.

Our parents must have been going to the same chemist!

Anordinarymum · 15/09/2021 00:59

@SometimesRavenSometimesParrot

I grew up catholic and the tabernacle at the back of church was covered with a cloth and roughly bird cage shaped, so I assumed there was a Holy Canary in it and we’d learn about it during confirmation or something. I was about 10 before I found out.

In my defence, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing you find in Catholicism.

When I was a child and we went to church on Sundays the priest would talk about euthanasia and say how wrong it was. i hadn't a clue what he was talking about !

A local politician who was trying to get votes visited one of the Irish families and the mammy came to the door and listened to his drivel and then asked him what is he going to do about all this euthanasia :)

wandawaves · 15/09/2021 02:06

Throughout my childhood I would have nightmares of being out and about and the ground suddenly opening up into a big hole, with roads, cars, buildings etc falling in. I used to be so relieved when I woke up as I knew this was just a weird nightmare thing, not actually a real thing that could ever happen.
So you can imagine my terror when I was a young adult and saw footage of sinkholes on the news!!!

wandawaves · 15/09/2021 02:13

Oh I thought of more. These are embarrassing looking back... I fell pregnant (unplanned) when I was 19. I didn't know anyone who had had a baby, so was fairly clueless. I remember a work colleague asking me if I was going to breastfeed or formula feed, and she warned me that formula feeding was expensive. I told her that's ok, because the baby will just eat normal food from 4 months old. I thought babies switched instantly from only milk to only solids!
She also asked me about what pram I was going to get, I told her just a cheapie because once the baby is 1yo it will just walk everywhere and you don't need a pram after that!
She never corrected me on either things. She must have been laughing on the inside.

Guineapigbridge · 15/09/2021 02:44

Thanks to the poster who linked the Channel Tunnel diagram. It absolutely freaks me out now thinking about travelling in a tunnel under the mud under the sea {shudder}. I don't think I can ever do it.