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!

Ginger is it not?

*@Lancelottie oh 😳 how do you if you don't have a fire extinguisher?

With a blanket, I'd assume?*

At Guides we learned to put out a chip pan fire with a damp tea towel. I was so pleased when our chip pan caught fire and I was able to apply what I had learned. I never got to put a donut bandage round a piece of glass sticking out of someone's arm, though.

Thank Christ I'm not the only one that thought the yolk was an unfertilised chick

@ProverbialOuthouse no the yolk is what the foetal chick feeds on during its growth

Mine was that 'subterfuge' was not pronounced 'sub-ter-fudge'./ DH laughed all the way home at that one and then told EVERYBODY.

Never laugh at someone pronouncing a difficult word incorrectly: it means they learned it from reading.

This cow bottom stuff is confusing. I think I thought there was one big hole, tunnel if you will, with different branches off for vagina, rectum and urethra.

And I always have to Google the difference between urethra and ureter.

splendidisolation how did you put it out then?!

More embarrassingly I thought that sein fein (however you spell it) was the guy in glasses (Gerry Adams I since learnt) and that he was the leader of the IRA.

😂😂😂😂 as an Irish person I find this fantastically hilarious!

Sometimes eggs are fertilised - if you ever break one open and see a little brown blob in the egg then it's been fertilised. That's the story my grandmother told me and I believed it for years but in reality they are little blood/meat spots.

I still won't eat an egg with them in though I give it to my children instead

I thought Davidoff Cool Water aftershave was a celebrity aftershave by David Hasselhoff - combining the David and the off! I was subsequently confused when I walked passed a shop called Davidoff selling cigars etc, I thought it seemed a weird diversification, until my DH explained that the Hoff had nothing to do with it.....

@user327854831 as egg production is managed without the presence of a rooster, none of the eggs can be fertilised. So you're safe!!!

BackieJerkhart, I don't know If you really want to know this, but I'll tell you anyway. ;-)
I've got a friend who grew up in East Germany and trained as a midwife there as a very young woman.
They basically NEVER did vaginal examinations, they checked everything by rectal examinations. Position of child, etc, even cervical dilation.
When she had her first baby in a West german city she was actually shoked that the midwife told here she would be doing an exam and then shoved her fingers into her VAGINA!

@user327854831 as egg production is managed without the presence of a rooster, none of the eggs can be fertilised. So you're safe!!!

I know, but I'm still squeamish - we buy our eggs from a local farm which does have a rooster; the fact that he's called Houdini does not fill me with confidence

Up until a couple of years ago (mid 20s), I thought people who were colourblind only saw things in black and white.

I also thought gammon was fish, because it sounds like salmon.

Christ I'm learning all sorts how is subterfuge pronounced then?

notenglish whaaaat?? Why? Why did they do everything up the bum??

I believed for a long time that caesareans were performed by cutting a circular hole like a manhole cover to remove the baby.

I thought petrol was black.

Wait. Is it not??

A couple of years ago I bought my first steam generator iron. I genuinely thought it was some highly technically advanced technology and was wowed by it. Every time I used it I'd marvel curiously at its power! It mystified me...

One day I verbalised this to DH, exclaiming "its amazing, I mean, how does the steam get in to the actual iron?!" DH looked at me like and said "please tell me me you're kidding me?!"

It's only as he reeled off that sentence it suddenly dawned on me how the steam 'magically' got into the iron... through the very 'technically advanced' cord that connects the iron to bleedin' the water tank!

I'm reasonably intelligent and astounded myself at how stupendously thick I'd been. DH was gobsmacked and retorted "wow, I'm just speechless Ghouls, fuckin' speechless"

Oh, I also couldn't get my head around what asbestos was until I started working in a related field (4 years ago). I thought it was just a black poisonous cloud that got released if you broke whatever contained it.

presspaws No, when you buy it from the pump it's kind of pee coloured. Go to 2.43 here:

brighton - it's sub-ter-fyooge. Like centrifuge.

NotEnglish: "They basically NEVER did vaginal examinations, they checked everything by rectal examinations. Position of child, etc, even cervical dilation."

Forgive me for feeling sceptical about this - but really? Is that even possible? And if so, why would you do that?

The chicken egg thing
All kinds of embarrassing going on here today!

Talk to me about asbestos then? I thought it was fibres in the wood/plasterboard
I think that might be right but why is there so much asbestos everywhere?

To this day i still cannot eat:

Raisins/currents - my Nan jokingly told me that they were dead flies..

Faggots - as they were made by Brains...and my wonderful brother told me that meant they were made from Brains, not by them

I have a lovely family

@user327854831 that made me properly lol!!! I want a rooster called Houdini now!!!!