Stupid thing you thought when you were a kid

[glitteryboots]

I'm watching the first episode of Schitt's Creek on Netflix and the boy and girl in it are arguing over who gets what bed in the motel because if someone were to break in they would murder the person in the first bed. I thought the exact same thing when I was a kid - made sure my brother slept in the bed nearest the door because then I thought I was safe. Not an AIBU but what weird things did you think as a kid?

That Houston was a person, as in "Houston, we have a problem."

I thought that tales of War were all fiction. Didn't believe that a person could kill another person in such events as war.

I thought turkeys were male chickens until my uni years.

I also was once listening in to my mum and her friend having a conversation where her friends daughter let the bath water out and didn't get out in time and was sucked down the hole... They obviously wanted to scare me and it worked

What was it with adults telling children scary shit like that?
I remember a friend of my parents telling me about how she had been to a country which had earthquakes and she’d seen an earthquake which had opened up a crack and a load of houses with people in had fallen down the crack and vanished.

I actually believed this well into adulthood but I thought the phrase “a leopard never changes his spots” was “a leper never changes his spots”.

I didn’t have the concept of biology as a small kid I thought we were essentially like blood bags walking around and was always worried somebody would pop me with a needle and all my blood would spurt out like a water balloon... so of course I had a terrible fear of needles when I went to the doctors - it took a very amused nurse to explain to me that we had veins and arteries that carry our blood around our bodies and she said to think of it like a lot of motorways and blood cells were like lots of tiny cars carrying important things around my body.

I relaxed around needles after that and when I have to have blood drawn as an adult I still think of the motorways and care analogy (even though my knowledge of biology is much improved now!).

I also got really scared that gravity might get switched off and everybody would float into space and explode but I think I have sci-fi to thank for that one (and one random episode of the Simpsons where they end up going into space and Homer and Bart are on the rocket designated to fly into the sun or something equally bizarre ).

OhWell on a similar note, I loved Abba as a kid and my brother hated them. I used to play their LPs (showing my age here) so much, my brother told me that everytime I played their music it forced them to sing and sometimes they want a rest!! I believed him for a while until I wondered to myself what would happen if other people were playing a different song by them, how would they sing both songs at the same time?!

Not me, but my daughter thought cats had no skin, she thought their fur held everything together.

My brother used to tell me that because he could see my ribs, that meant I would die before I was 21.

We also lived opposite a graveyard and he would tell me the skeletons would crawl out of their graves and get me. Forty four years later fate has brought me and DD2 back to the same area, we're still close to the graveyard and they haven't got me yet

I remember watching some programme where there was a discussion about the "free press" and so I assumed newspapers were free.
I also was very shocked to find out you had to pay at the vets because I thought that animal doctors were provided by th government just like human ones

I used to thing sex was touching belly buttons

OP your post reminded me that when I shared a bath with my sister I made her sit at the plug end so that if Jaws came up the pipe he’d get her first!

I thought an Artichoke was a type of fish until I was 13 .
I gasped in shock while in Tesco with my mum because I saw a tin of artichoke hearts and said loudly “eurgh, who’d want to eat fish hearts?!”
My mum was pissing herself and so were some other people near by ..
I always thought I was a smart child but obviously not !

I thought carrots grew in bunches under the plant, like potatoes do. It took me to getting an allotment two years ago (aged 46!) to discover that one plant equals one carrot.

I was also in a class of fifteen year olds who were all convinced by our maths teacher that he was getting a new dog. He had told us that we had extra time to do our homework because he wouldn’t be in on Thursday because he was “going to see a man about a dog”. Cue 30 teenagers earnestly asking him what type, recommending breeds etc.

We used to go to watch out local football team every Saturday afternoon. If they were on Match of the Day I thought that they were very clever to remember exactly the moves they had made earlier to be able to repeat them. It never occured to me to wonder why even though it was dark it was still light as they were 'replaying' the match!

That people sat inside of traffic lights and pressed buttons to change the lights

My partners brother believed he was a puppy until he was around 6 because his mum used to say he had "puppy fat" 😂😂

That baked beans had meat in them, like tiny little ravioli

That Houston was a person, as in "Houston, we have a problem."

My late mother thought that the horse Bar ran in every race, when the odds were shown on the TV there were horses mentioned and their odds and the last horse was Bar who ran in every race.
My brother wondered where Random was, the place where the winners' names were drawn, as in 'the winner's name was drawn at random'.
He later thought that Einfahrt was a big city but he couldn't find it on the map. We had to tell him that all those signs he'd seen on the Autobahn meant Exit!
Actually this is making me doubt my gene pool.

I used to believe that when Tower Bridge across the Thames raised its bridge that you could just be unlucky if you were walking across it at the time and be tossed into the water. This gave my six year old self nightmares. Also as a child I loved Toffee Crisps until my older brother told me that the Rice Krispie stuff inside was really ants eggs.

The first time I was on mainland UK, I was surprised about how many public conveniences there were. I was about 7 or 8.

The second time, aged about 15, I twigged. You see, I grew up in an island where we didn't have 'for sale' or 'to let' boards outside properties... and I didn't notice the missing 'i'.

Wotsits reminds me of how I used to think that each individual pea had some sort of cheese/mashed potato thing in them.

Another one who thought they had flown down the stairs - or rather jumped from the top and landed on my feet at the bottom.

I also believed that if I shouted loud enough, the people on the screen on the TV could hear me. My mum nearly had a heart attack when she heard me shouting my cousin's name out of nowhere (he was at a televised football match and had been shown on the screen for a couple of seconds, he was only young at the time).

I believed that you told your car where you wanted to go and it would take you there, and that was what postcodes were for.

I thought that the dish Welsh Rarebit was made of rabbit.

I remember being around 4 and asking my dgm how old she was and she would always reply that she was 21!

I was a bright little kid so would question how she could be younger than my mum but thought she must be telling the truth somehow

I had really weird fears as a kid, I believed that if you walked into the depths of a woodland you could never get out again, I would only ever walk around the edge of a wood which drove my parents crazy on dog walks.
I also believed that only witches owned black umbrellas!!
My dh thought that Piccadilly Circus was called Piccalilli Circus right until his 20’s -dim-wit.
I also genuinely believed that when you became an adult you had the answer to everything, had no idea everyone is just winging it!

I used to think that Great Britain started at sea level on the south coast then inclined gradually upwards as you travelled north, reaching its highest point at the very north of Scotland.

I also used to think that all children could run faster than any adult, so was massively unimpressed by olympic sprinters, and sure I could beat them!