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!

Eliza I also thought you could get pregnant at any time until about 4 years ago (bearing in mind I have an 8year old dc) and I only found out from reading a thread here!

I thought Mt Rushmore had been carved by the wind! Family still laugh about it now

i usd to think everything was in black an white aswell before a certain time because of tv!

what did you think was in potato salad snowist?

burnoutmum the Fallopian tubes aren't connected to the ovaries - they're separate structures. The ends of the Fallopian tubes have wafty tendrils called fimbriae that catch and waft the egg into the tubes after ovulation and the cilia in the tubes waft it along towards the uterus.

You can have your uterus and tubes removed and leave the ovaries.

Until I was in my early 20s I thought escalope was pronounced the same as envelope. I ordered it in a restaurant and got a funny look from the waiter.

Another one that still makes me laugh now is my mum told me that if you got lockjaw, your mouth would just keep opening until the back of your head was on the back of your neck and it couldn't open any more, like on that old toothpaste advert.

I was astounded by the fact that the actual lyrics to "Oh dear what can the matter be?" have no mention of 'three young ladies locked in a lavatory'.

I always thought that it was three old ladies.

As a child, I used to think that during a televised football match, when they showed a slow motion replay, that it was the players who had to stop and do it all again, just a lot more slowly

I thought people on the TV could see me. I loved Jimmy Cricket as a child and I remember my parents telling me he could see me pick my nose. I haven't picked it since so fair play to them.

I love this thread. I was very disappointed the first time I travelled in the channel tunnel (aged about 45) that I couldn't look through the windows and see the fish.

I'll clear the cow situation up for you!!
If the farmer is actively calving the cow then clearly the farmer needs to put their arm in through the vulva into the actual vagina. Yes we really are elbow deep in cow fanny!!
However you are correct that most "investigations" are done rectally. You check they are in calf, inseminate them and check all their reproductive anatomy this way and can also feel the calf prior to calving starting. Once they've started to calve the calf is usually easily felt vaginally as the cervix opens!

I'll add my few silly thoughts! Husband (afore mentioned farmer) genuinely thought babies come out the same way as calves. Sounds reasonable until you realise he thought they come with the same presentation and everything. So back to back, arms first then head, shoulders and body. His mind was blown!

A friend of mine genuinely thought that pelicans were dinosaurs that don't exist any more. Oh and that they didn't have electricity before World War Two. She has a degree and everything!! She's even a vet nurse!

no particularpattern how do you inseminate them rectally? Surely the sperm will just end up in the rectum/ lower bowel? How does it get through the cervix from the rectum?

When I was a kid I was taught that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. I was also taught that at the North Pole it's dark for most of the winter. So I wondered what the sun did there. I decided it must rise in the east and travel really really fast across the sky to set in the west an hour or so later.

Re Fallopian tubes, a friend of mine had an ectopic pregnancy a few years ago and had the tube removed, and was amazed (as was I) when the doctor told her she could still get pregnant (albeit it's less likely) from the ovary on that side. I really thought the tubes were actually tubes!

NoParticular - how does the semen reach an egg if inserted rectally?

Pop that under questions I never expected to find myself asking on an internet forum

You know what, Kittens, that has always troubled me too. What does it do in fact?

@Excusemyfrench I genuinely got confused thinking about this too. I was saying to my husband and he looked at me like

I didn't know about wolverines being real. Just looked them up. Apparently they're the largest member of the weasel family!

I remember being a secondary, in perhaps the first year there, I wrote about ugly buildings being an Isaur (eye sore). Funnily enough the teacher didn't know what I meant and I didn't understand what I'd written incorrectly. With no explanation, I continued in ignorance for a little while longer until the penny dropped.

I am loving the Run DMC one!
I want Haile Selassie as the third member.

For some obscure reason I once decided to convince DP that Blondie were from Wythenshawe in Manchester and we're great chums with Joy Division. We had fun for years with that one and he still sees them as a Manchester band.

I thought goats were male sheep.

WERE. Damn you, autocorrect!

Cross-post with strawberry, who can join me in the Things I Hope Never Get Quoted out of Context club.

A few weeks back I was chatting to my teenage ds whilst we were watching a documentary about trainee airline pilots.
The trainees had to land the plane and take off again successfully as part of their course.
I turned to my ds and said that ' I bet they'll be having to do a 'reverse manoeuvre' next on the runway' and I imagined them to be nervous at having to reverse the plane.
My ds doubled over and eventually managed to tell me that passenger planes do not reverse! I seriously never knew this
My ds thought it even more hilarious when I added that ' I'd always wondered where the rear view mirrors on planes were!'

Admittedly my knowledge is a bit limited but I have seen at any rate a vet using an ultrasound probe through the rectum to help with placing the AI sperm through the vaginal tube. An outside view if you like.

Mummyoflittledragons, our history teacher used to regale us with the tale of his past student who had listened to his lessons on Henry VIII and the Pope for a full term then written an essay about how the king had rejected pot pourri (Popery). He may have been making his up though. [outs self to everyone with same history teacher].

DS once asked me "what is a stoma cake?" When I enquired further he said "you know, the hungry caterpillar has apples and pears and sausages and then he has a stoma cake."

That the fairy tale is not Rumpleforeskin and the Three Bare Bottoms. Thank you dad and uncle