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!

Ducknose

I had a colleague who thought that every country had its own moon and if you stood at a border you would see them both. She swore blind that this was true.

I once asked a group of people how you played Silly Buggers.
That was a bit painful.

My mum will not have it that you can't stand at the end of a rainbow, in the same way that you can't stand on the horizon. She insists she once stood inside a rainbow where it touched the ground.

One that my 17 year old pointed out to me the other day that I was never aware of even though I've been driving 30 or so years. Next to the fuel pump symbol on your dash, there's a little arrow. That arrow points to the side of the car that has the fuel cap. Who knew?

My friend started a rampant urban myth at Uni that Cubby Broccoli the film director invented broccoli by mating a cauliflower with a Savoy cabbage. And people say Oxford graduates lack critical thinking skills.....

My lovely but dopey next door neighbour when growing up thought all universities were in Kent.

And she commented once to me that she hadn't seen me for a while, I said had been at uni in Leicester. She said (we grew up in Essex) "that's a long way to go everyday"

I least she knew where Leicester was.

My brother told me that he'd learnt in Food Policy lectures at university that any red meat could legally be described as beef and therefore a certain fast food chain's burgers were actually made from a specially bred type of Argentinian worm. I repeated this to people throughout my 20s, many of whom believed me until the penny suddenly dropped.

And my sister believed, in her 40s, that motorways only had a start and finish point which were the only places you could get on and off them - so, for example, you could only get on and off the M1 in North Nottinghamshire where we lived or London.

Bujinkhal not all cars have the petrol arrow. Mine doesn't. I read that fact a while back and thought "well fuck me that's news" but they don't all have it, which is why I'd never noticed one!

Up until my teens I thought the 'Dead Sea scrolls' were infact the 'Dead Sea squirrels', until my mum and sister laughed at me in the museum when I asked to see them. I was most disappointed.

MagicMoneyTree Ahh ok, every one I've checked since he mentioned it does, good to know though.

Lol! How did that colleague of the PP think that the UK was actually the whole world?! Are people really that dim? Don't they teach anything in schools during geography?

I've just remembered another one of mine.
When the first test tube babies were born, for years I seriously thought that the babies were grown in test tubes in a lab.

sukitea "I had a colleague who thought that every country had its own moon and if you stood at a border you would see them both. She swore blind that this was true."

Where on earth do people get these ideas from? I suppose when she's heard of moon landings she wonders which one.

@alibongo5

I used to get mixed up between herrings and herons. I still have to think carefully which is which!

There are so many funny things in this thread but, for some reason, this one has really made me laugh. I suppose it's because it sounds as if this is a daily problem for you. Ooh, are you a Scandinavian with a pond?

Lucky I'm alone in the office this afternoon or I'd have a hard time explaining my mirth.

I thought that the equator was an actual ring of fire until DH and DD (whilst doing GCSE Geography) corrected me a few years ago!!! When we were taught it in school (back in the 70s!) they said "oh the equator is really really hot so I interpreted it as being ring-of-fire hot. That's my excuse anyway! I also hasten to add that I'm not a Geography teacher 😂😂😂

I have nominated for Classics

My fil convinced my DD that a bounty hunter was a man searching for chocolate bars.

When I was a small girl, about 100 years ago, we had a coal fire. One winter afternoon I sat down on the rug in front of the fire with my Bunty (a comic for girls from the Olden Days). My mother came into the room and said: "No, no! You mustn't sit with your back to the fire - you'll melt the marrow in your spine."
Even aged 8 I thought 'huh?'

An old lady I knew some years back thought that if you didn't put a plug from an appliance into the electric socket on the wall, that the electricity would "seep" out into the room. I don't mean she had an appliance plugged into every socket, but those that didn't, were switched off, to keep the electricity in the wall.

I nearly choked at Peruvian birthing helmets omg

Until recently I thought pontious was an adjective, as in the pontious pilot in the Biblical story. I remember being g surprised in Sunday school that planes existed in Jesus' time

She had four puppies and has nine nipples so no difficulty getting access.

Nine? I thought there were an even number?

Brighton haven't read the full thread but in case no-one else has answered this, the farmer might well have stuck his arm up the cows rectum after she gave birth. It's to feel through the rectal wall to the uterus to see if there's another calf, ie a twin. They do this rather than go into the uterus which could introduce infectious bacteria.

Amazing the stuff you learn on MN eh?