Silly stuped things your younger self thought was true 🤪😳

[Justjackie]

I will go first...first job after leaving school..thought you paid tax then at end of year got it all back! I thought it was some kind of loan to the government 😳 heard mam and dad mention getting '-tax-back' over the years and thought that was what happened!

Croydon is on the coast.

Until I was 15 I didn't realise that a penis went hard, I thought it just got sort of tucked in until I went to a talk about contraception and they demonstrated a condom (on a banana) with diagrams. (It was a more innocent time, the 70s)

I thought

• Worms were baby snakes
• Flies were baby bees
• Cats were girls, dogs were boys
• Pee and poo came out the same hole
• I didn't know girls grew into women and boys into men. I just assumed kids stayed kids and I suppose adult must have been born adults (this was when I was very young)

But the worst

• a few years ago I saw a programme showing narwhals swimming through cracks in ice and I am mortified to say, I said, "where did those dolphins get the sticks?" DH and DCs have never let me forget it!

I am quite clever, got a degree and am a senior manager. The shame

@FuriousCheekyFucker

Those of you who think Strasbourg is in Germany - well there are good reasons for it. The whole of the Alsace-Lorraine region borders have been fluid since the Middle Ages - the French have always wanted their natural border to be the far side of the Rhine - to protect against Germanic aggression, and the Germans the other side for the same reason.

The area has flipped between "ownership" over the years and is bilingual, and beautifully multi-cultural. Go have a Google of Colmar, the birthplace of the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, a German speaking Frenchman who fought on the the French side during the Prussian wars...

I grew up in Saarland, which is now across the border from the modern Alsace region and part of Germany. After WWII there were plans for Saarland to become largely independent, similar to Luxemburg. It ended up as one of the federal states of Germany in the 1950.

It used to be a rich region, with a lot of coal mining and steel production going on, hence both France and Germany being keen to absorb the region in the past. Now all the coal mines are shut and steel production has largely stopped.

There was an old joke when I was at school that went something like this: Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand are having lunch. Kohl's favourite dish is being served - Saumagen (stuffed pig's stomach). Mitterand is only picking at his food, not enjoying it much. Then Kohl leans over and whispers something to Mitterand, who suddenly gobbles up every last bite, asked later what he said to Mitterand, Kohl says "I told him that if he didn't finish his plate he had to take Saarland back"

@Gobbeldegook I know, I was most discombobulated. It's all to do with the Sun and Moon's gravitational pull causing tidal bulges (high tides), sort of like a "space hoover" effect!
I'm about as scientifically minded as a chopping board, I hasten to add!

@Twernip I feel like my whole lifes been a lie 🤣🤣

Just remembered another one - we lived in a house when I was in my early teens and the owner cam and stayed at weekends in one room while we had a flat upstairs. When we moved in there was a loofah on the edge of the bath in "our" bathroom. I'd never seen one before, and the explanation that one of my parents gave me, probabaly unintentionally, left me believing that it was full of tiny creatures that came out and cleaned the bath after use.

Cue me spending the next two years having really careful baths in case I dislodged the damn thing and ended up in the bath with these mythical little animals......

@Gobbeldegook I bet you'll never look at the sea in the same way again!

@donerwillbehere

I thought that if I spoke/ shouted into the volume/speaker (70' child) that they could hear me . Especially if it was hammer house of horrors

You were just ahead of your time!

We used to fly a lot as a child because we had family abroad. Whenever we came through customs and into the arrivals hall I thought all those name cards held up for people being collected were the names of people that were going to be arrested after going through customs. Used to dread coming through arrivals in case saw our name

@Twernip you're right I won't 🤣 I'll be gazing out wondering where it all goes 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Must do research

Trots off to the computer

That it's illegal to drive with interior lights on

I was about 22 when I learned that Dungeness was in Kent, and not, in fact, in Scotland, near Loch Ness, or Caithness, obviously.

One of my teddys said a few random phrases and my dad convinced me there was a little man sitting in there speaking. I used to place him upright so he wouldn't spill his coffee.

I was 37 () when I found out that dragons aren't real!

Also another one who thought dunkirk was in Scotland. Also thought Everton was in London (sending a theme here!)

I realise at age about 26 that "ball ache" isn't "bore lake". I thought if something sounds bad it's like a large of boring. I used to say it a lot, now that I know the meaning I never say it and probably used it in quite inappropriate/over the top reactions

@BeckyWithTheGoodHair5629456

I was about 22 when I learned that Dungeness was in Kent, and not, in fact, in Scotland, near Loch Ness, or Caithness, obviously.

Whaaaaaaaaat?

I thought frogspawn was frogsborn. At least it was logical though.

I used to think that anyone could fall in love with anyone - put a man and a woman on a desert island and they'd think they were soulmates. Definitely not.

That puffins were baby penguins.

[quote Twernip]@Gobbeldegook I know, I was most discombobulated. It's all to do with the Sun and Moon's gravitational pull causing tidal bulges (high tides), sort of like a "space hoover" effect!
I'm about as scientifically minded as a chopping board, I hasten to add! [/quote]
Do you mean it lifts it up, sort of making it less dense?

I always assumed that it pulled the water from across the ocean.

@soditall56

That it's illegal to drive with interior lights on

I thought that too, although some cars have a map light directed at that passenger side.

What makes you think it's not illegal?

Our maths teacher once told us (a class of 16 year olds) that he wouldn’t be in the following day because he “had to see a man about a dog” and we’d have a temp teacher. I went home and told my mum and dad that Mr W was off the next lesson because he was buying a dog. They cried laughing when I repeated word for word what he’d said. And it wasn’t just me - the whole class thought he was getting a dog.

I always thought that if you planted a carrot seed you’d end up with a bunch of carrots, like you do with seed potatoes. It wasn’t until I got my own allotment that I discovered one carrot seed = one carrot. I was gutted as they are my favourite vegetable.

@Onairjunkie

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, thought Dunkirk was in Scotland. Presumably somewhere near Falkirk.

I'm Scottish and thought this until I went to Uni with a girl from Dunkirk

@LunaNorth

Glamorgan was in Scotland. It still trips me up, to be honest.

It just sounds Scottish to my ears.

What! Glamorgan isn't in Scotland! I never knew 😂😂😳

I used to think that you could drive however you liked on a motorway and was really disappointed when I found out about lanes and overtaking etc.

I also used to think that you got nits from just a normal fly so if there was one in my bedroom at night I would hide under the cover so it wouldn't land on my hair and give me nits whilst I was asleep. I thought that until my late teens!!