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Misunderstandings you had as a child

206 replies

NoEffingWay · 01/08/2025 20:15

When I was little, there was a florist near my house. It had beautiful displays of flowers, and I used to spend ages looking in the window. What I really wanted to do was save my 20p a week pocket money and buy my Mum some flowers. Not just any flowers but the ones that said ‘Mum’ on them. I was in my teens before I realised these were for funeral cars Blush. Luckily for my mum, there was a sweet shop next door where I spent my 20p on sweets every week so I never even asked!

OP posts:
Usernameunavailableagain12 · 03/12/2025 16:26

When I was really young I thought actors died for real in films

YelramBob · 03/12/2025 16:40

I always felt sorry for librarians as I thought they only got paid from the fines from books being returned late. I deliberately took my books three days late and paid the 6p fine so the librarian could feed her children 😂

BreadstickBurglar · 03/12/2025 22:25

MillieMollyMandi · 02/08/2025 05:28

In old children’s songs like Puff the Magic dragon and Alice in Wonderland the Walrus & Carpenter I always thought they were singing about ceiling wax. I thought old houses used to have waxed ceilings or something like that… it was only a few years ago I realised it was sealing wax :) Completely different!

I’ve only just strung this together thanks to you. I knew what it WAS but somehow still thought it was called ceiling wax.

Mine was that I thought there was a vitamin supplement called codlivroil. Imagine my absolute shock when I realised it was actually oil from cod livers 🤢

Taytocrisps · 03/12/2025 22:59

YelramBob · 03/12/2025 16:40

I always felt sorry for librarians as I thought they only got paid from the fines from books being returned late. I deliberately took my books three days late and paid the 6p fine so the librarian could feed her children 😂

Edited

That's made me laugh 😂. Those impoverished librarians!

Serenity45 · 03/12/2025 23:40

My mum was always really open about body 'stuff' and we'd have chats at bedtime from when I was quite young. I thought for AGES that if you didn't take the contraceptive pill you'd have a baby every month Blush

scalt · 04/12/2025 08:10

@MillieMollyMandi Even when I learned that it was "sealing wax", I didn't know what it was used for until much later, when I saw somebody using it in a TV period drama.

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