Things you hardly dared use, because they were "dangerous" (lighthearted)

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Children are always being told things are dangerous, such as fire, escalators, roads, and so on. Were there any things which you hesitated to use as you got older, because "danger" had been drummed into you? (Lighthearted, obviously: otherwise this thread is too dangerous!)

Matches were one of mine. I could hardly bring myself to light them, in case I got burnt.

My grandmother emphasised how dangerous her appliances were, such as her ancient twin tub, and her electric lawn mower, and I almost forbade her from operating them, on this basis. (I was six at the time.)

In my first year at secondary school, I was astounded when we were made to use methylated spirit (to erase permanent marker), from a bottle prominently marked "poison".

To this day, I'm scared of pressure cookers.

Our 'good' knives 🤣

Sparklers - those warning adverts really did a number on me.

Elastic bands! For some reason my mum told me when I was about six that every year hundreds of postmen go blind by flicking them at each other in the sorting office. I have never ever flicked one at anyone and even get a bit anxious seeing anyone start to stretch one out.

Yes, me too!!

Sparklers, I was terrified by the public safety advert where the kid burns her hand.

Frying chips in a chip pan. Now we have an air fryer.

My mum's gas oven which you had to reach inside with a match to light. I have an electric oven.

I’m terrified of pressure cookers, too!

Chip pans. I wouldn’t ever own or use one as I find them too scary.

My family think my cautious behaviour around plug sockets is OTT, but they didn’t have my Mum’s terrifying and long winded ‘electrical safety’ talks as kids

Chip pans. I wouldn’t even go near one and used to fret whenever my mum used ours due to the fear they all put into me. Throw in the fire ads too and I was traumatised for life 🤯

I have an expensive Japanese knife, it sits in a jug on the windowsill and I never use it. I don't know why I bought it as I'm so clumsy I could injure myself with a spoon.

I use my pressure cooker with extreme care and concentration. Sometimes when it's coming up to pressure and making that terrifying hissing sound I have to leave the kitchen, such is my state of anxiety.

Sorry but this has made me howl with laughter - the idea of all these postmen flicking elastic bands at each other … hundreds, your mum wasn’t prone to exaggeration was she!

Chip pans for me, never owned one. And I am still very nervous crossing roads, I always wait for the green man.

Bleach. My Mum almost made it seem our hands would melt off if we went near the sink where she was soaking the dish cloths.

My mum bought me a silver marker pen from the pound shop as a treat when I was about 7. Very excited about trying it until I saw the warning about the fumes and became so terrified I wouldn’t go near it. I’m still massively cautious about anything like this!

Not putting a seatbelt on. There was a horrendous safety advert back in the 90s when I was an impressionable child where a teenage boy didn't put his seatbelt on in the back seat of a car. His mum was driving and they had a crash, he was thrown forward onto her and crushed her to death!! It was awful! Ever since I've got into a panic if any car starts moving now before I've put my seatbelt on.

Nothing. Danger was never spelled out to us. I learned the hard way. My mom was the scariest thing ever 😂

She could and still can dip her fingers into boiling sauce to taste, and hold hot plates that I would need a cloth to hold

Chip pans, Electric blankets, literally anything electrical or water-related during a thunder storm, toasters.

Ok maybe chainsaws, but i think that's quite sensible!

Home fireworks. Absolutely petrified. I also thought quicksand was going to be a lot bigger deal in my life than it has been so far.

This is a bit off topic but I can remember running around in the dark with sparklers on bonfire night. How we didn't set each other alight I don't know. I was scared of shell suits. Not because of the people wearing them but the fire risk.
I don't remember being told not to touch knives and I cut my own hair with massive scissors when I was about 6. Skateboards was another. I was told never to go down the hill on one in case I went under a lorry and got my head chopped off.

I used to teach science getting new year 7s to light a Bunsen burner always took an entire lesson many were scared of fire. Those that were confident were often campers / scouts / bushcrafters that had learnt to light fires from an early age.
Similarly using a kettle for hot water I had several tell me they weren't allowed to touch them - which also meant they didn't know how to use them safely and more than once I caught a student wandering around with a full one instead of using it at the workbench (despite having safety instructions first).

The gas fire! Still convinced I’ll somehow not light it properly and blow the house up - I’m 40 and quite capable un most areas of life 🤣

Home fireworks for me too.
I watched an episode of 999 where a family had done fireworks at home, were stood the correct distance away and a child got a splinter of metal in their eye as it fell back to earth. That was quite enough for me and watched indoors ever since.

It doest help that my dad is an eejit and used to sellotape them together. I'm astounded he's never been injured. Did cause the tree to catch alight when he banged the Catherine wheels in too much and it couldn't spin.

@MerelyPlaying I remember somebody on the radio show Just a Minute saying "postmen have a disease that causes them to emit red rubber bands", referring to how they are often dropped by postmen.

Earrings: I didn't have my ears pierced until I was 29. The fearsome headmistress at my primary school warned us of the danger of getting a torn ear. "Do you want a torn ear???" (Now I have to give the same warning to netball players who turn up with a shop's worth of earrings.)

You reminded me of my late nan who wouldn't use a toaster even in normal weather because she knew of one that blew up in the 50's or whatever 🤣 I mean no amount of telling her they are far safer now ever changed her mind

Beetroot. Things that might stain my clothes scare me. Which is absolutely ridiculous, because I'm not at all a clean freak, nor a smart or elegant person.

But matches, knives, sparklers, gas ovens, toxic plants...nope, none of these things bother me.

I was brought up by Pakistani’s, danger is not a concept, my husband however has a fear that I have noted is very common in white people, reheated rice.