Things that you've thought that were in fact absurd

[Pacificplaza]

Inspired by another current thread: what things have you thought to yourself, and accepted as true, which on telling someone else have quickly transpired to be completely ridiculous?

E.g: I always thought that when drinking a hot beverage, that the misty effect observed should you happen to glance down into the cup was your EYEBALLS getting STEAMED UP in the manner of a pair of glasses. When I casually mentioned this at work everyone kindly pointed out that I was just... seeing the steam.

My car is an old banger with no air con, just the air blower. For my entire life until my ExDP corrected me, I thought you had to 'run' the hot air until it turned from cold to hot eventually in the same way you do the tap. Rather than just turn it on once the car's warmed up. The hours I must have spent grimly tolerating a stream of freezing air in winter .

I'm not normally a simpleton by the way, I've got degrees and stuff and mostly manage to function.

So please tell me I'm not alone!

Another one.. not me but my DSIS

Both in our 20's sharing a house together. I put on an astronomy documentary. She says "I don't know why you watch all these silly sci-fi programmes". I explain its not fiction, its a documentary. She scoffs and laughs "Of course its fiction, we already know what the universe consists of - a sun, a moon and 9 planets. I mean I just don't get the point of NASA. Why keep wasting millions and billions sending rockets and telescopes into space when we already know whats out there?! Not much!"

I'm flabbergasted. She can't be serious.... but she is.

It blew her mind when I explained that we are just one small solar system, within one galaxy amidst a colossal amount of other galaxies containing incomprehensible amounts of other solar systems in a universe. She thought all the documentaries about space and the universe on tv were just make-believe science fiction.

Talk to me about asbestos then? I thought it was fibres in the wood/plasterboard. I think that might be right but why is there so much asbestos everywhere?

Short answer, it's a good insulator and very fireproof.

Just slightly slowly kills you.

Davidoff and The Hoff 😆 That has really tickled me!

I struggle with peanuts. I recently found out that they grow in the ground, a bit like root vegetables. I'd presumed they grew above ground like peas or beans, or even on trees like nuts. For some reason this root/soil business does not sit right with my brain and it really bothers me every time I see a packet in a shop. It's like a tiny little rent in the fabric of my universe of understanding. I mean what else is out there that I have got so wrong?

I don't even really like peanuts!!!

What an entertaining thread!

I can relate to thinking BP meant better petrol, as my dad told me that a GB sticker on a car meant it had been into a garage to be fixed but was 'getting better'. Mind you, he also told me that the wooden markers (usually crosses) used by surveyors in road making marked the graves of fallen navvies.... And that all fire engines are called Dennis.
As a child I believed that your eyeball would fall out if you touched a certain place on your face. I just didn't know where this particular place was; I distinctly remember lying in bed trying to find it so I didn't accidentally release my eyeball...
My sister thought a bird she'd heard in the garden was calling 'oo-cuck, Oo-cuck'. My dad called her Oocuck for years.

It was only following this year's general election that I found out Sinn Fein isn't a man and that, in fact, the man I thought was Sinn Fein is actually Gerry Adams.

I'm in my 30s, a senior lecturer at a top university where I teach social sciences which touches heavily on politics

Re the rectal exam controversy. My friend trained at Simpsons in Edinburgh as a midwife in 1980. Only doctors were allowed to do vaginal exams. Midwives did rectal exams. Amazing but true. When she came to work in London, her colleagues were

Asbestos is a really old building material - I think it's been used at least since the Roman era. It took off in popularity when cheap, strong, light building materials were needed in the late C19/C20 - it's ability to insulate against heat meant it was used a lot industrially, as well as domestically. The tiny fibres come from a range of minerals that are mined and then refined into two main types of material: a bonded one, where the fibres are relatively inert unless you wallop it, and friable ones, where they are open and get released - not in a black cloud, mind - they're invisible, but travel as part of the dust that is released when something is broken down. Unfortunately, though people noted that there were loads of deaths from asbestos from the late 1800s and the link was pretty much proven by the 1930s, it took until the mid C20 to legislate against its use on the grounds that inhalation of the fibres causes lung cancer and mesothelioma and other cancers. As in so many of these cases, there was a massive coverup by the companies involved.

Gameoldbirdz - you too eh? Come and grab a seat with me in the dunce corner 😂

One day while he was in the bath, my dad showed me a bottle of "Aloe Vera" body wash or something and told me it was his friend who worked in the factory pulling an April Fools joke on their mum, Vera.

I believed it and genuinely worried for the next few years that this man might get into trouble as he seemed to have done it on nearly every bottle of body products I saw.

I think it was my dad's revenge for insisting on having a poo while he was in the bath

I was out of uni and in my first job when a colleague patiently explained to me how the staggered start in track athletics works. Up to that point, I genuinely believed that they drew straws or something to decide who got to do the shortest distances.

Yep, me too Proverbial

I've just seen your post on another page! I'm glad I'm not alone.

I find that genuinely concerning GameOldBirdz!

When I was about 6, my dad used to read the newspaper with/to me every night so I was quite knowledgeable about politics for a 6 year old (this is relevant).

Same time, my mum's friend was pregnant and it was arranged that my mum would drive her to the hospital when the time came as they had no car.

One day we got a call off on the house phone to say she'd "gone into labour". My mum jumped up, grabbed her car keys and rushed me out of the house.

I was completely confused as to why there was such a panic and why this woman had called my mum to tell her she'd joined the Labour party

It was, genuinely, years before I knew that pregancy-related labour was called labour.

My mum has been a midwife for over 40 years. I'm going to have to ask her if she learned the rectal exam when she was training. This is completely blowing my mind!!

I thought Davidoff Cool Water aftershave was a celebrity aftershave by David Hasselhoff - combining the David and the off!

This is actually amazing

Restless Me too! I died a bit when I found out and did wonder how many lectures I've given where I talk about Sinn Fein as a bloke. Luckily, we don't cover too much Irish politics in my course but still...

Someone casually said once ' should brighten up soon, it's really windy' which I had to have explained. Apparently the wind blows the clouds away. I was 31.

"I thought Davidoff Cool Water aftershave was a celebrity aftershave by David Hasselhoff - combining the David and the off!"

This should totally be their marketing strategy.

Years ago when our children were small and we were going to Eurodisney I told 7 year old DD2 that the Eurostar trains crossed the Channel by racing up to the White Cliffs of Dover, diving off, sprouting paddles and swimming. She believed me and freaked out a bit. I snuck off and left her sitting with DH while I was with DD1 and DD3.

To pps who seem to think planes reverse, no they don't. If they are nose to stand they have to be pushed back by a tractor like vehicle which attaches itself just under the nose. It is called pushback.

I thought right hand drive cars' pedals were the opposite/mirrored position from left hand drive cars. It made learning to drive here much easier though!

GameOldBirdz that's really worrying, I am glad my offspring aren't doing politics at your university.

I am now wondering what things people are thinking I am stupid for not knowing as there are bound to be many things

guilty100 The silly thing is I've seen that movie and I love it, but I didn't think of it as being petrol! Gasoline just sounds like it would be light coloured and petrol sounds dark, even though my brain quietly knows they're the same thing. Ridiculous, I know.

GhoulsFold I think that's my favourite one so far!

Ooh just thought of another one!

When we used to record an LP onto a cassette, I used to think that once you pressed the 'record' button and the LP was playing/recording onto the cassette, that you had to be silent, because otherwise your voice would also be recorded!!!

Have asked for this to be moved to classics before the Unreasonable AIBU crew come n and rip our naivety to shreds

My friend genuinely thought all humans could see under water and that she and her family had some sort of weird disability that meant only they couldn't and that's why they had to wear goggles 😂

It truly blew her mind when she found out (about age 24!) that her family were just more into swimming so had got her goggles and a proper swimming costume, whereas the rest of us in the friendship group just made do with squinting under water as we just played rather than swimming proper lengths!