I thought my doll’s hair would grow back if I cut it.
Well, that used to be the case, in the early days I’m pretty sure.
(I can’t really see how anything would get done - well, not like anything gets done now, but … )
When I was very, very young, I tried to wrap my head around the concept that was black-and-white TV. I initially thought that the world was in black and white until the '60s or so, when everything burst into color, Pleasantville style.
When I was very young, I had somehow convinced myself that there was a secret federal agent named “Obey” (rhymes with “Toby”), who had gone incommunicado while on a very important mission, and that the government had to get some information to him so that he could complete his mission.
So important was the completion of this mission, that the government had commissioned and placed several signs in places where the agent would be likely to see them, with specific instructions for the agent regarding his signal.
I thought adults never slept. They were up when I went to bed and they were still up the next morning.
I also thought that “juvenile delinquent” and “home permanent” and a few other innocuous phrases were something vaguely dirty but I never had the courage to ask.
When I began to read I insisted that the letter u was just n upside down, and that it was only someone’s mistake.
I thought the hazard light button on a car was its self-destruct button.
Also, to discourage me from playing with the gearshift as a kid (and probably to avoid the chances of me accidentally putting a car in neutral and having it roll down a hill or something) my dad told me if I moved the gearshift while the car was off it would explode :eek:
Fast forward a few years we’re sitting in my friend’s dad’s car waiting for him to come out to drive us somewhere, with my friend idly wiggling the stick shift up in the front seat.
:o “Hey don’t do that, you’ll kill us all!”
:dubious: “What, this?” wiggles gearshift around like crazy
:o faints
I thought ‘eating pussy’ was literal. Found one of my uncle’s skin mags and read the letters section.
[Hijack]
I cared for people with aplastic anemia after taking colloidal gold in perscribed doses. It isn’t used anymore since it’s so unpredictable and there are more effective, less dangerous treatment.[/hijack]
That’s so sweet! Both that you thought that and the fact that you were so considerate for their need to sleep. Awww. 
That gave me some warm fuzzies.
My mom told me she thought the same thing. I can’t think of any of my own though I’m sure I had many, so I’ll share another of hers.
When she was a little girl all of the grownups who lived in her house either wore glasses all the time or needed them to read. She’d ask her grandpa to read to her and he’d tell her to go get his glasses. She thought that glasses were all she needed to read, and that when she was old enough she’d get glasses and be all set.
And who are wrongdiagnosis.com when they’re at home? On first contact they look like a doctors-don’t-know-nuthin’ website.
A rather long-winded way of admitting that gold isn’t poisonous; poisonous gold compounds, if any, are another kettle of fish. Are hydrogen, carbon or nitrogen poisonous? Prussic acid is.
All that encyclopaedia time, and you’re “presuming”? Stomach acid is not-too-concentrated hydrochloric, which is a constituent of aqua regia but not, per the cite, capable of dissolving gold. So eat a gilded steak, pass slightly gold-rich turds for a while, that’s all. See Food and drink: “metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry”.
Actually true in the early years of the US republic.
Oh, and apologies for the hijack.
In my elementary school you didn’t get sent to the Principal’s Office, you got sent to the S.A. Room. S.A. actually stood for “Social Adjustment” (is that creepy, or what?) but everyone assumed it was a room where you were forced to write essays as punishment.
I thought “To Be Announced” was the name of a TV show (presumably a news program where they announced things). “Various Artists” and “XYZ” were names of bands. “Pelicula” was the name of a particularly popular Mexican movie; it was shown over and over on the Spanish-language channel.
I was insomniac as a child, and I came to disbelieve in sleep. “Sleep” was lying motionless but fully conscious with closed eyes all night; all adults did this; and I needed to grow up and learn to patiently lie there all night myself. What I had originally thought of as “sleep,” total unconsciousness, was a weird fugue state experienced only by me, and then only rarely.
Until an embarrassingly advanced age I believed that college football was a required class in college, their version of Phys Ed. Since I knew I would one day go to college, for years I dreaded having to play football and humiliate myself on TV every week.
But I doubt panache45 is quite that old.
I don’t think I ever put it into words, but I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been an insomniac for as long as I can remember, and sleep generally eludes me…there are times when I truly feel that there is no way my brain will figure it out! My husband tells me “stop moving, close your eyes and shut up!”, but sometimes it feels like that’s all that’s gonna happen!
I can’t think of any misconceptions I may have had right now. I’ll come back if I come up with something!
When we went to church and put money into the offering bags, I thought that we were literally “giving the money to God”. I pictured the pastor taking it into the back room where the coins would be beamed up by a column of white light.
Close, “To Be Announced” was usually written “TBA” in our TV guides, I thought it had something to do with “Tab” (the soda, this was the early 80s, after all), I also thought the “Tab key” on the computer/typewriter had something to do with all that too.
Our church used to put its list of what’s going on in the church that week in the bulletin under the heading “Church Calendar”, I thought if you showed up at the church during one of those events they would give you a free calendar, made by the church.
I believed that only men had pubic hair (similar to beards, I guess) and was shocked when I saw a friend’s older brother’s nudist magazines!