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!

Oh Meg

PennyLane - the Earth has a crust which is several miles thick surrounding the molten mantle etc that you are talking about it. It's made up of solid rock - you see it on land, things like mountains and the bedrock under your feet, and that continues under the sea (there are mountains and rocks at the bottom of the oceans).

So, just as you can create a tunnel on land by boring through a mountain, you can create a tunnel under the seabed by boring through the rock. The hot magma is far, far below that.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who's been educated about the Channel Tunnel on this thread. When I read it I said 'WHAT!!!!' out loud

Haha, meg

'Oh dear what can the matter be'; there appear to be a variety of 'locked in the lavatory' women - in terms of age and numbers en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Dear!_What_Can_the_Matter_Be%3F

Not me, but DP was once reading about Oscar Wilde having been in prison, The book/article he was reading used the old-fashioned spelling of jail, so gaol. He made a comment to me saying ".... Oscar Wilde was in Goole". It took me a few moments to realise he wasn't talking about the town in Yorkshire/Humberside!

My partner and I told DS that Croissants are little fluffy pink animals that lived in Australia (I don't know why, we just thought it was funny).

We used to go to the Zoo and look for them (he was only 3), they were always hiding whenever we went.

Then one day we were outed by Big Cook, Little Cook, when Little Cook flew on his wooden spoon to a factory to see Croissants being made. DS was 4 and he was watching and he just turned and looked at me and DP like . He still brings it up now he is 20 .

Until about the age of 12, thinking OAP stands for One Ancient Person.

I always sort of in some wierd way thought that whichever direction I was facing was North. I still feel that way even though I know its bonkers.

I've shared this before, but that when you see a lorry load of pigs/sheep/chickens etc, the chances are that they're not just being moved to a new farm, and it's even less likely that they're going on holiday. Took me til at least 24 to realise that... Just never considered where they would be going!

Not me (honest) but a relative of mine - believed that robins were mythical birds that only appeared on Christmas cards. It wasn't until he went to Uni in Oxford that he saw one and realised.

Steamy eyeballs that's brilliant.

I had a friend who was convinced a "haggis" was some kind of highland cow, red setter dog, badger hybrid that runs about the highlands of Scotland, I honestly thought she was pulling my leg.

humblesims I still struggle to remember that just if one is at the sea/coastline etc. that you are not NECESSARILY facing south.

I'm assuming all those who thought the channel tunnel was on the sea bed are too young to have seen the news footage of them breaking through? Because that was a big moment. And the news went on and on about the digging constantly.

Still, you have all made me

Mine is I used to think Blackpool and Liverpool were names of pools that were either side of the country. Took me a while to realise they are actually cities, let alone them being on the same side of the country.

I have a friend in her 50s who thought that the horses who used to pull canal barges swam in the canal and was astonished when i explained thats what the tow paths were for!!!!

I only realise that wolverines were real recently too, I thought they were a mythical creature turned X Men superhero.

As a child I also believed that when you died you lay in the shape of a cross with your arms out to the side. I remembering questioning my mother on how your body knew to do that and her looking at me like

Tishhope "This is stupid but I still don't know the answer to this one: I have had one fallopian tube removed, so what happens to the ova when it is released? I have visions of it bouncing down my leg "

Surely if you've had your Fallopian tube removed you've also had your ovary taken so there is no ova?

I stupidly thought that my baby's umbilical cord was attached to the inside of my belly button until I was about 8 months pregnant.
Im a lawyer and read a lot about my baby/ the placenta etc at the time - I dont know why my brain just- I dont know. It didnt register the information at all. I think i believed that from being a child and then it just carried on in adulthood! Its only at a MW appointment when I asked about the cord left floating in my body and the MW went that the puzzle FINALLY clicked. I felt so stupid!

My dad told his chatterbox younger sister that you are born with a certain number of words as you lifetime quota and so she ought to shut up and not waste any.

It was after her worried parents were taking her to psychologists for her sudden unexplained selectve mutism that he confessed.

My DD, whilst home from uni, asked me to explain how one side of the body got oxygen. After a bit of rather confused discussion I realised that she believed that the biology diagram of circulation showing a blue side and a red side was an actual description of what happened inside the body. I must point out she had a shockingly bad biology teacher for her final year in GCSE (having to pretend to be a polar bear and do a family photo and also lots and lots of colouring in, cutting out and sticking in - top set all predicted A/A*)

She has just read this post and reminded me of the Run DMC incident, a couple of lads in her class convinced her that the members of the band were Robert Mugabe, Gandhi and one other equally unlikely person. It only came to light during another discussion about Gandhi. She is bright - honest.

I thought porridge was made from Ready Brek not oats.

Also, thanks OP I thought the same about the car heater

Just remembered another DP 'classic'. It was years ago when Nectar cards were first introduced - and that supermarkets started to do cashback. We were shopping and I paid, produced Nectar card, paid by bank card plus asked for cashback. He thought this was a marvellous idea that they gave me £50 because I used my loyalty card. The cashier and I looked at him a bit while I explained that she hadn't given me £50, it had been added to the cost of my bill

And I worked with someone(university educated- very accomplished) who asked an Australian colleague if she ever got confused having December in the UK when it was June at home.

My grandpa is from a farming village just outside Aberdeen and told us his mother was a Haggis farmer. Believed him for years!

I thought the channel tunnel was like the walk-through aquariums in sea-life centres for years too

DD aged 17 is just as clueless. Didn't want to ring me in Inverness from London as was unsure of the time difference. Her guess was that it might have been as much as eight hours and she'd wake me up at 4 a.m.

I also thought under-soil heating on football pitches was to keep the players warm in winter

Oh, so I have just learnt that wolverine is a real thing!

I thought for years that it was ILLEGAL to drive with the internal light on in the car, and that you could genuinely get pulled over for this.

@burntoutmum I've had a Fallopian tube removed but the ovary is still there. Apparently the ova can just find their way into the other one as they're not 'tubes' as you'd think. (I always imagined solid ones like drainpipes but apparently not!!)

I thought seahorses were mythical creatures too until I went to the Sea Life centre in Weymouth when I was about 20 years old and there my mind blew!