Things you used to think and now can't quite believe you did

[treaclesoda]

I saw a seagull flying and it suddenly occurred to me that when I was little, I thought there were two different types of seagulls. Ones with legs, and ones without. Naturally the ones with legs had no choice but to fly all the time

I was a pretty bright child, I can't imagine why I thought that.

Please tell me someone else out there thought the same?

"When we were very young my cousin and I entered a magazine competition to win a boat. We had so little understanding of probability that we were sure we'd win. we had long detailed conversations about how wed share and where wed store it. Not in a "when I win the lottery" way, we were absolutely certain we'd win"

My 8 year old is determined to prove me wrong on the fact that you dont automatically win something just because you enter the competition. Ive tried to explain but he just doesnt get it.

I love the "yap" dog!

And 'to let' signs baffle me for years. To me they were a sentence with the start and end left off. I just didnt get them at all.

I thought the same about To let/Toilet!

Until I read this thread, I knew there was a place pronounced Arkansaw. I had no idea it was spelled Arkansas.

When my dad was diagnosed with heart failure (he was 49), I believed that your heart failed, then failed a bit more and then you died. I suppose my parents didn't realise I thought that because no one told me otherwise! He is now nearly 70.

I did understand sex (growing up on a farm) but worried a lot about what would happen if the man accidentally did a wee.

I used to believe that there was a Queen spider (bit like a queen bee) and that if you killed her, all her minions would find you and crawl all over you. I lived in terror of being asked to sweep down cob webs in the barn.

My dad told me once, that if i could see very well, that i could see a city called Stockholm behind the sea. I really tried hard standing on top of a dune trying to see Stockholm... After that i looked at a map :(

I used to think everyone could grow facial hair once they got old enough!

I just thought women chose not to have beards,I clearly remember feeling my mam I was going to have side burns, and her patiently telling me no,I wasn't

Still feel cheated.

Oh my God, where to start? I used to think:

The lockabie bomber was Irish and called Al McGarry

Cash point "advice slips" have actual financial advice on them. I wondered how they personalised the advice to everyones individual circumstanced

Its impossible to get change in a restaurant

I used to believe when I was older I would marry my dad.

After I saw Michael Jackson in concert at Aintree racecourse I sat on my bed when I got home after the show, waiting for him to knock on my front door and ask me to marry him. I waited for an hour at least convinced he had spotted me in the audience and had used his sources to find out where I lived.

When I used to lay in bed at night I had to have the curtains shut very very tightly otherwise if there was a gap I would see God walking past checking if I was asleep or not [to me god was a very tall person].

Me & my sister were convinced we saw father xmas in the sky on the sleigh with Rudolph one xmas eve, complete with the sounds of bells and flashing xmas lights.

I used to think Haggis were little white bunny rabbits.

I thought that when you got your period you would just occasionally wee some blood when you went to the toilet and didn't realise it would be constantly coming out throughout the day. I was corrected on this in time though!

Or blue, obv....

vulva so how do you pronounce Arkansas then?!?

Ah, I see my question has already been answered. Well who knew!

Bill stickers will be prosecuted.

I thought Bill was an actual person and that these notifications were some kind of warrant or something

I used to think unicorns were extinct. Like the dodo.

I also used to think that compilation albums, Now 32 etc, were made by all the artists going to the studio in the same day. I wondered how in earth they managed to find a day they were all free with their busy schedules.

I actually believed when I was a child that I would never die. As a I would put a Tune in my mouth and it would 'help me breathe more easily'.

Kansas and Arkansas are related words based on American Indian tribes, but for historical reasons, Arkansas was given a French pronunciation so the last s is silent. In the south central US accent, the "sa" sound became "saw."

A beloved friend of mine grew up on Skye. She was well in to her 20s before she realised that, when birds fly south for the winter, they don't just go and hang around in Brighton.

Surprised to hear about narwhals, by the way!

the origin of the treacle mining myth

Similar to a few others, I used to think that cat's eyes in the road were for blind drivers, so they would know when they were steering out of their lane a bit.

When supermarkets offered people cash back I couldn't understand why anyone would say no! I didn't realise they charged you for it.

Finally, an answer to the treacle mine thing! Thank you!

I used to think that when the clocks went back an hour in October, that you actually got an extra hour in bed every night in the winter. Not something I gave a huge amount of thought to, until I had a conversation with Dh about it - I would have been about 33 .

I thought -people lived in Big Ben (me and my sister used to pretend our bedroom was a flat in the big ben building.

• that people only had sex for procreation purposes, and you automatically got pregnant when you did the deed.
• that once you got your period you bleed constantly forever !
• that when my dad played records (yes, records remember them ?) that the bands/singers lived in the record player ! in my defence I was only about 3 years old.