1. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Weird things you believed in when you were a child but were proven wrong...

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Link the Writer, Jan 25, 2010.

    Hey, not sure if it's been done before but here it is. =D

    Share some of the weirdest things you believed in when you were a child that may/may not have been proven wrong yet.

    Here's some of mine:

    1) I used to think that ants could not take care of themselves, so I would take bits and peices of leaves and sprinkle them all over the ant pile. To get them to notice, I lightly brushed away parts of the mound to get them out.

    2) There was an old computer game called "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego" where I chased this red-headed villain through time. Well, I didn't know that any of the people like Thomas Jefferson, Beethoven, and Julius Caesar were real, so I assumed they were just made up characters in the game. Once I realized they once walked the Earth, I became a history buff. :D

    3) I firmly believed that bathtub drains were portals to another world, so whenever I took a bath, I stayed far away from it.

    4) I used to think the human body was an empty chamber. Do not ask me why I thought this. I was 6 at the time and this was before my parents bought me a book about the human body, of which I considered to be the greatest book about the human body of all time and would've recommended it to aliens so they didn't have to abduct people anymore. (again, 6!!)

    5) Remember in "A New Hope" when Vader strangles Motti who was badmouthing him in the meeting? I always thought Motti was puking up yellow vomit at the end of the choking session for years. It's only recently that I realized it was a yellow button on the table.

    6) I thought, and still do think, that roaches are aliens from another planet. I'll stop here before I launch into a roachophobia tirade.

    7) The first time I heard of Adolf Hitler, I assumed he was some stuck-up, snobby rich kid in my school and was always on the watch for him. Boy, was I wrong when I realized who he REALLY was. :eek: I'd take that snobby kid over him any day!

    8) I used to think that South America and Africa were once married but broke up after a bad argument.

    9) When I was into dinosaurs and Pangea, I got how the Eurasia, African, and Australian continents came about, but not the North American one and assumed it just sprouted from the ocean and South America, once it broke up from Africa, went "I'm leaving for a better man! Good day!" and hooked up literally with North America.

    10) That the Alamo was a baseball team and they all died in a car accident, and Davey Crockett was their Babe Ruth. The saying, "Remember the Alamo"? That other baseball teams were inspired by their deeds. I know, how did I get this oh, SO wrong. XD

    Well, that's some of mine. Now share yours!

    EDIT: Do what Cogito says!
    That goes for politics too. It's supposed to be fun! =D
     
  2. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I've mentioned this one before, but...

    I beleived that marshmallows grew on trees until I was about 13. I saw a skit of Sesame Street about a marshmallow farm and since no one in my family likes them and we never had them in the house, the erroneous idea remained uncorrected until I was invited to Paula Preacher's 13th birthday party. I picked up one of the strange mushy things from a bowl of them which had been put out with the other party favors and said, "Isn't it funny how you can't tell which side was attached to the tree like you can with an apple or an orange?"

    Children at the party had to go home because they wet themselves laughing.

    (not really, but it felt that way) :redface:
     
  3. SonnehLee

    SonnehLee Contributor Contributor

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    I believed for a long time that babies starting in that space in between your thumb and your finger, and that when they got too big for that spot they swam to your belly to grow. I would start shrieking hysterically if someone would try to shake my hand.
     
  4. Peerie Pict

    Peerie Pict Contributor Contributor

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    Hmm can't think of any apart from Santa Claus and God.

    I used to think that my parents, who were born in the late 1950s, were adults during World War II and that the 1960s/1970s were also 'the olden days'

    Oh and I used to believe that Patrick Swayze had changed his name to Patrick LemonSqueezy because his surname was too hard for kids to pronounce... my Aunt was quite convincing.
     
  5. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Up untill I was about seven or so, I thought Jehovah’s Witnesses were people who believed they seen some guy called Jehovah doing a 'really bad thing', but I have no idea what I thought this really bad thing was.

    It all changed when I found out one of my friends in school was Jahovah's Witness.

    Damn. You beat me to it.
     
  6. madhoca

    madhoca Contributor Contributor

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    I couldn't understand how a child could be born after its father had died...I could handle the father not being with the mother, but I sort of had the idea that both parents were necessary to put the soul into a child when it was born. I've no idea where I got that from.
     
  7. Rei

    Rei Contributor Contributor

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    I don't let people prove me wrong. I still believe in fairies.
     
  8. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Haha, good replies so far. =D

    Lemme see...

    11) When I first watched Macbeth, I was confused at the part where he looked into the pot and saw the vision of the kid going, basically, "Beware the man who was born without a mother." I was just as confused as he was arrogant. How could one be born with no mother? That question was answered at the end by MacDuff.... I think his mother died giving birth to him.

    12) I was actually afraid of the Easter Bunny. I don't know why, but maybe the idea of a 6 ft tall bunny standing on its hine legs was a bit creepy.

    13) When I was small, very, very small, and it was dark outside, I was convinced that a deranged Great Dane was just outside the window, every night, staring at me. I remember panicking when I see the windows and would hurry to let the blinds down. I still do that, but mainly because it's the end of the day.

    14) I believed my toys actually came to life when I left the room. I guess I was a WoodyxJessie shipper, as I always put my Woody and Jessie toys together so when they woke up, they would be together.

    15) When I watched DBZ, I actually believed people could go Super-Sayian. The fact that I saw people with yellow spiky hair and green eyes only made it more real.
     
  9. yellowm&M

    yellowm&M Contributor Contributor

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    I used to believe that a couples first baby was made when they kissed at their wedding (and therefore the whole Virgin Mary bibical story really confused me because she wasn't married, I actually remember asking my mom about it when I was little lol) and that a woman just became pregnant randomly with later children. So pretty much a woman had absolutely no control over how many kids they had because she would just become pregnant one day out of the blue. When I was about 4 (I remember this only because it was shortly before my mom became pregnant with my little brother) I asked how someone was able to only have as many kids as they wanted since they had no control over it lol, she said something along the lines of God just knows or something.

    It took until my first health class in 5th grade to actually learn what really happens haha.
     
  10. Gigi_GNR

    Gigi_GNR Guys, come on. WAFFLE-O. Contributor

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    Um, for me there's all the normal ones that everyone has: the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, etc. I can't think of any more right now, but if I do I'll post them here. :p
     
  11. Sabreur

    Sabreur Contributor Contributor

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    When I was young, I used to believe that I had talent and the capacity to become something exciting when I was "all grown up."

    Oh, how wrong I was. :)
     
  12. Lydia

    Lydia Contributor Contributor

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    I always thought water towers were filled with water, for some reason... haha.
     
  13. yellowm&M

    yellowm&M Contributor Contributor

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    Oh I also used to think the lyrics "Hark, the herald angels sing" were actually "Park, the haerald angels sing." accompanied by a mental image of singing angels in a car

    to this day my parents and i still joke about it when we hear that song
     
  14. hiddennovelist

    hiddennovelist Contributor Contributor

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    Weirdest, most random thing that I believed when I was a kid and no longer do?

    I was convinced that there were crabs that lived in the u-bend of a toilet. I was terrified that if I sat all the way down, it would come out and pinch my butt.

    True story. Ask my brother. He still makes fun of me about it.
     
  15. SonnehLee

    SonnehLee Contributor Contributor

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    They're not?!?!



    Oh, and I asked my mom what a hooker was when I was little, and she said "someone who sells their body" so I thought, ya know, sell their body to science. which I thought was a completely noble cause. My Sunday School teacher was horrified when I told her I wanted to be a hooker when I grew up. :rolleyes:
     
  16. rory

    rory Active Member

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    I had a similar belief, except instead of crabs it was gremlins. I used to believe they had a lair in the sewers and would sneak out of the drains in the bathroom if you weren't paying attention. This haunted me for years, heck, I still can't watch the movie.
     
  17. TheHedgehog

    TheHedgehog Contributor Contributor

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    There were many, many, like I couldn't figure out how storks got babies in women, and when they did have the babies, the babies were delivered fully clothed, with pacifiers an bonnets.

    I thought you had to milk chocolate cows to get chocolate milk.

    I thought characters in movies were real people instead of actors (ex: I thought Jack Sparrow was a real person).

    I was convined eating broccoli would turn you green.

    I found out mall Santas were fake, then discovered Santa Clause is false altogether.

    This was when I was all very young, probably all found out they were lies when I was 6-8. :D
     
  18. soujiroseta

    soujiroseta Contributor Contributor

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    I always thought the reason people had nightmares was because they slept with their heads out of the blankets. I got this from watching so many hollywood movies where sleeping people always had bad things happen to them when their heads were outside the sheets. As such i slept with my head entirely covered leaving only a space for mouth and nose.

    I still sleep like that now. Although it's more out of habit now:)
     
  19. Mercurial

    Mercurial Contributor Contributor

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    Uhm, okay. At eighteen, I still thought that until just now. Are they really not? Is this just some weird Belgium thing? I think my water tower has water in it... :confused:

    1) When I was younger, I thought that there was a camera crew my mom and dad employed to catch all the bad and / or embarassing things I did when nobody was around. I was convinced that the camera crew followed me around everywhere, hiding. So whenever I started to do something potentially strange, I would shout out (which, in retrospect, is more embarassing now than if a camera crew had actually caught me) "I KNOW YOU'RE WATCHING ME!" and then proceed to do the activity. I dont know when I finally grew out of my self-absorbed phase and stopped believing that. (Oh wait... :redface: )

    2) I thought that Tarzan lived in my fishy-smelling tree out front and he ate bananas that the stone statue girl in my front yard kept in her basket. I put bananas in that basket for years. When a moving truck knocked down the tree by accident, I started crying because I was sure Tarzan had died. I have no idea who ended up taking the baskets in truth, day after day. Birds? Can birds handle large bananas? :confused: I believed this until I was at least eight years old.

    3) I thought that teachers really did sleep under their desks once the students went home, but I thought that in the middle of the night when their legs would cramp, they would reveal themselves to actually be vampires and turn into bats and fly around the school. I believed this until I was in the second or third grade...

    4) I used to take those slang phrases literally. "In one ear and out the other." "Foot in mouth." "A stitch in time saves nine." etc. I remember when my mom mentioned that my dad just let things go "in one ear and out the other" I snooped on him when he was working to see where these mysterious things would go.

    5) When I was four or five, I watched Harriet the Spy for the first time. I was convinced that if I wrote things down, then I would automatically be a spy and my life would be as cool as Harriet's. My dad wrote in books all the time, so I figured that when he left at night, it was because he was really an undercover spy (in actuality he attended night school). So you can imagine... during the day, I got a hold of all my dad's notebooks and textbooks and class notes from night school, coloured on them, and thought that I was so cool.
    ...Uhm, that idea ended as soon as he got home and started screaming.

    Interestingly though, I never believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy or any of those other stories. I just knew that I was humoring my parents. I do remember that when I was four, a kid named Michael (who was a supercool fifth grader!) told me that Santa wasnt real, but he just confirmed suspicions I already had.
    I also remember that when I told my mom what Michael had said, she paused and said, "Well, he's just saying that because he's on Santa's naughty list this year. Dont believe him."
    I just kind of let her keep on believing that I believed... ;)
     
  20. MCWhite

    MCWhite New Member

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    Same! I think this might be one of those universal ones for children- as long as you're all covered up by your blankets, you're immune to all evils... It was always ghosts for me though, and Freddy Cougar (watched that movie when I was a little too young). :rolleyes:
     
  21. Unit7

    Unit7 Contributor Contributor

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    I used to think that when people died in movies they were actually dead in real life. I remember I was about 8 or 9(yeah... i know) and watched the Titanic and I couldn't understand why all those people would want to die just to make that movie. I mean I knew that movie wasn't real. But for some reason I still thought those people were dying.

    Wait... water towers dont have water in them?

    Well what the hell are they for?
     
  22. Peerie Pict

    Peerie Pict Contributor Contributor

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    When I was about 6 I thought that my parents' home video was being broadcast on live on tv. My mum filmed me naked in the bath as I was desperately trying to protect my modesty, and you hear me saying "I don't want Gary (neighbour's kid) to see me on the tv!!!! Please Mum nooooo! Why are you doing this?"

    To which my Mum just said quietly, "Don't be silly, you're not on tv"

    But she didn't explain that the camcorder was for our own private use, I thought that ALL cameras were for tv.

    It was one of the most traumatic moments of my childhood and my family laugh themselves silly when they see it!
     
  23. SonnehLee

    SonnehLee Contributor Contributor

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    American ones are. I had to google it.
     
  24. Lydia

    Lydia Contributor Contributor

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    Yeah, I know it has some kind of tank in it, but I really thought the entire building was completely filled with water, from top to bottom... :p

    Edit: This spaceship-like water tower is the one in my city... http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/9884/dsc361567tonemappedbd.jpg
     
  25. Xeno

    Xeno Mad and Bitey Contributor

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    Cassette Tapes that were labelled "Something something something LIVE" were beamed by satellite directly from the concert hall. They could only be listened to at one time per day.

    I'm sorry, I'm still laughing at that. :D
     

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