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!

And I also used to think if you were selling your house, you could only buy a house if the person who owned that house wanted to buy yours (so pretty much just a house swap!)

I couldn't get over when I realised you can buy any house for sale!

In the middle of a secondary school lesson I announced that there was a country called Daneland where the Danish are from clearly

And I never believed that badgers were real as I hadn't seen one.

A stopem floppem is not German for a bra

😂😂😂😂

Didn't realise NZers are named kiwis after the bird rather than the fruit.

And the name of the fruit is just a marketing stunt by NZ farmers. It's actually a Chinese gooseberry. (According to wikipedia, the name Kiwifruit started being used for it by NZ exporters from 1962.)

stopem floppem
😂😂😂😂 some one is missing a marketing trick there!!

When i was 18 my dad was teaching me car maintenance. I checked the oil and then tried to top it up by pouring some down the dipstick hole. I couldn't understand why they'd made it so fiddly. I didnt realise til my dad found me and told me about the separate bit with a cap

I thought Jessica Ennis Hill was an actual hill named after her like Henman hill...didnt realised she had gotten married

Narwhals - thoight they had been invented by The Octonaughts. Saw a horn and didn't believe my 5 year old that it was real and not a model. My 5 year old. I had to hoogle.

I always wondered when Frankie was coming back from Hollywood.

My XH believes the holocaust never happened

My XH believes the holocaust never happened

I imagine that's part of the reason why he's your XH?

Gammon is old bacon no? Salted old bacon?

I only realised that you can actually wash wool clothing in the washing machine.

I'm 35 and housework /laundry isn't my forte.

And I only realised that people in the swinging 60's were actually having sex, which is the opposite to what my mother led me to believe.

I've read that American soaps are about wealthy upper-middle class characters,

There's often a working class family in American soaps.

*I still cant work out why people in Australia arent upside down, and being held on to the ground by their feet because of gravity. I know its something to do with the curvature of the world but my mind wont let me understand it."

Well they are exactly that, or we are, because in an infinite universe who's to say which way is up?

But...the earth spins on an axis, an imaginary pole going through the Earth and we have defined one end as North and the other as South. Luckily (or due to physics I'm not sure) magnetism also points approximately North and South too. So I'm not sure your friend is correct really.

But it's imaginary and it's only human definition that it's north and south so as far as the earth is concerned it's just a spinning ball with a magnetic bit in two opposing places.

this is a bit much for my mind, especially at 3am.

That spatial is spelt spatial and not spacial

Beans: "I was ASTOUNDED to find out that Scandinavia isn't a country. Made my ex DP roar with laughter."

Me too I'm there now. But it isn't as absurd as it sounds, as we all speak nearly the same language (but for the Finns) for example there's a popular TV show where the host is Norwegian but the guests are Swedish (and Norwegian) and they all speak their own respective language so your mistake is quite easily forgiven! I thing ex hubby was wrong to laugh so much... I'd been mortified had it happened to me. Come and visit in the summer, it's really nice then.

MegMortimer: "I never knew that West Virginia was a completely different place to Virginia. I only found out a few months ago and I am ...not 20 any more."

Oh, is it? You're absolutely right, it isn't! {looking at Wikipedia}
Well, to name the states of the US on a blind map was never my forte. (I'm 52.)

yolofish: "I once said to DH "wouldn't it be a good idea if you could adjust the windscreen wiper speed when it's really raining?" he pointed out to the little slidey switch on top of the wiper controls.... we'd had the car 11 years at that point!!"

Easy mistake! That's why one should read the manual I suppose...

open.spotify.com/track/49PEV8fMl6xCcbnRyxDp5U

I used to think former US Secretsry of State Condoleezza Rice's name was Lisa Rice, and that "Condor" was a fancy title, like "Major" or "General" (i.e. Condor Lisa Rice)

As a child I also used to think there are only 365 people in the world because everyone's birthday was unique, and I remember spending ages thinking/worrying about what happened in a leap year
They're all coming flooding back now

Our church did monthly collections to
"Send an underprivileged child to Hucklow"
It took me years to understand that they went on holiday there and then CAME BACK
I was really worried that all these underprivileged children were stuck in Hucklow and couldn't get home again.

I was in my 20's before I realised Christmas stockings were a real thing and not just something in books.

My husband grew up with the milkman delivering eggs so he thought eggs were a cow product...

Do their Xmas cards have snowmen and Robins on or beach scenes?

I will answer this, although not in Australia, but also Southern Hemisphere.

We get a variation of Christmas cards, usually things like Father Christmas on a surfboard or wearing shorts and a muscle tee. But then there are always those have clearly haven't been printed locally, that have robins sitting on a snow covered branch.

When asked when the hottest part of the year is, we usually say December/January. As this is our long summer holiday, schools closed for 6 weeks. Our school year runs from January to November, I always found UK starting a new year of school in September, very very odd.

On Christmas day not that many families eat a big Christmas dinner. We would always have ours on Christmas Eve, is its a bit cooler in the evening, and really, who wants to be eating a bloody great roast dinner when its 30 degrees outside. On Christmas day, leftovers, ie cold meats and salads. Or a bbq. And dc will be swimming in the pool, and just a general outside day really.