Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Things that you've thought that were in fact absurd

915 replies

Pacificplaza · 19/09/2017 09:00

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 Blush.

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!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
8
Nazdarovye · 19/09/2017 19:50

Looks like I am not the only one who used to think Sinn Fein was like the prime minister of Ireland. It sounds like a nice Irish name.
I thought he must have a couple of siblings too, named Sean, Siobhan and Sinead.

chopper23 · 19/09/2017 19:54

Until about 20, I thought Africa was a country Sad

bookworm14 · 19/09/2017 19:55

Well, I've learned two new things today: what sweatbands are for, and that planes don't reverse. Thanks for reducing my ignorance slightly!

PollyDipsia · 19/09/2017 19:56

I believed (until fairly recently 😳) Tang was powdered real oranges, developed by NASA for astronauts to not get scurvy in space.

Magicnumbers · 19/09/2017 19:57

I thought that Benelux was a single country until my twenties.

My mate thought that reindeers were fictitious (only existed in Christmas tales and were deer dressed up in headbands if on display) until about the same age. She was genuinely shocked to find out that they were real.

Somehow, we have managed to lead normal lives.

safariboot · 19/09/2017 20:01

To be fair, if somebody randomly asked me "Who's Prince Phillip", I'd probably get it wrong. I have little knowledge of who's who in the royal family.

BackieJerkhart · 19/09/2017 20:13

"If you cannot resist scratching an itchy nose, being an astronaut is not for you."

Damn!

Magicnumbers · 19/09/2017 20:13

Oh! Oh! Oh! Forgot this one!

My niece thought the Churchill dog was real
until she was 16. She's really bright in all other respects.

Magicnumbers · 19/09/2017 20:13

This is an epic thread, thank you OP

NotEnglish · 19/09/2017 20:25

I also thought Davidoff = David Hasselhoff

MrsJamesAspey · 19/09/2017 20:25

I thought adverts were made by real families and asked my mum when I was 6/7 if we could make an advert for Kellogg's cornflakes 😂

Aridane · 19/09/2017 20:26

My mother told me when I was a child that the blood speck that one often sees in the white of an egg is there because the chicken got a fright when she was laying the egg.Somehow this came up in conversation when I was a twenty something and I divulged my information to the group.Everyone just stared at me and burst out laughing.I honestly had believed it.

Shit - I have hens and thought this was true

BeeFarseer · 19/09/2017 20:26

When I was little, I used to watch the Andrex advert and dance around to the piano theme. I was learning to play piano at the time, so I learned the theme.

It was going to be my job when I grew up - I would play the music for adverts!

It bothered me slightly what would happen if I needed to go to the toilet and it was time for the advert to go out. It would be silent. I hoped I wouldn't get in trouble. I also didn't much fancy having to stay up really late to play the music when the advert showed at night.

It took me years to realise everything was pre-recorded, even - yes! - the music. Blush

notacooldad · 19/09/2017 20:28

My sister is the queen of getting things wrong.
My favourite one was when it was the Grand National and her office was running a sweepstake. She was asked if she would like to get each way.
She replied (seriously) ' What? They have to race back to the start?" She couldn't get why everyone howled laughing!!

Aridane · 19/09/2017 20:30

Hey - hold on a moment- blood specks in hens eggs can be cos they had a fright!

LyannaStarktheWolfMaid · 19/09/2017 20:35

Arkansas, channel tunnel, car lights - mind blown. I didn't know that narwhals were real animals until about three years ago. I thought they were the unicorns of the sea. 😳

user327854831 · 19/09/2017 20:41

No surprise about the Americans and brown cows/chocolate milk - they are the people who elected DT after all apologies to any Americans who didn't

AmberNectarine · 19/09/2017 20:56

I was struggling to think of anything and then I remembered....

Until I was in my late teens I thought Stephen Hawking's electronic voice just read his thoughts. I remember thinking, he's got to be careful not to think 'he's a prick' or it would be read out. What a fucking idiot.

winglesspegasus · 19/09/2017 21:06

Wolverines are indeed real and pound for pound one of the badest mammals on earth.
roadrunners
gilla monsters
sidewinders
horn toads all real.

winglesspegasus · 19/09/2017 21:07

and no americans did not elect trump the electoral college did
another myth

drinkswineoutofamug · 19/09/2017 21:22

A stopem floppem is not German for a bra Blushthanks Dad for that!

And air miles are the same as a land mile. My OH found that one amusing

justdontevenfuckingstart · 19/09/2017 21:29

I thought Lichtenstein was a made up place in A Knight's Tale until I saw them in the world cup.

fizzingwhizbee · 19/09/2017 21:42

Haven’t RTFT

Until I was about 20, I genuinely thought that left hand drive cars were for left handed people Blush