Just to say thank you so much for posting this story! Funniest thing I’ve read in a long time, and I’ve shared it with everyone I know. Just wonderful. It’s one of those things I can carry round in my head and make myself laugh any time just by thinking of it.
I figured out why Americans were so loud. My parents must have had some loud American friends at some point. I noticed that on TV Americans lived in really big houses, further research led me to find out that the US itself was really big and houses were really far apart. Americans HAD to speak loudly because the place was just so big and they got used to shouting long distances.
Aged 5, I told people that I didn’t sleep. I presume it was because I didn’t really distinguish between dreams and reality, and that the passage of time was erased by deep sleep.
About the same age I got really excited because I thought that if you could make a color TV black and white, then you could make a black and white TV color. I spent hours fiddling with our kitchen portable before realising it wouldn’t work, then disappointedly drawing on the screen with magic markers to try to fake it.
I also though that if you pushed your eyes from the side a bit, it would make TV pictures 3D.
Even as quite a late teenager, when I looked at my sister’s “Now That’s What I Call Music” albums, they said things like “Bronski Beat feat. Marc Almond” or “Pet Shop Boys feat. Dusty Springfield”. I thought “feat.” was a singer who did a lot of collaborations.
When I was in preschool, I asked my mom The Question: where do babies come from? She, obviously uncomfortable, explained vaguely, “First a man and a woman GET MARRIED, and then they decide to have a baby.”
This led me to conclude that it was physically impossible to conceive a child without being married. After marriage, the man and woman then willed the baby into existence inside the woman’s stomach.
I was also told, as a young Catholic child, that Jesus lived inside the altar at the church. (This is a distilled version of what Catholics believe. The spare Eucharist is kept inside the altar; Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the living body of Christ.) Since my family had small children, we usually attended a children’s Mass in the parish’s auditorium every Sunday instead of Mass at the actual church. But I was dying to go to adult Mass because I thought for sure I would see Jesus there, maybe sitting in a pew with the other parishioners. Whenever we were at the parish for fundraisers, Catechism, or other activities during non-Mass hours, I would beg my mother to take me over to the church. I thought we would catch Jesus just casually hanging out on his time off.
That was me. I was mighty confused for a long time until I learned that they meant ALCOHOLIC drinks. When I did learn this, though, it all made sense: I’d tasted alcoholic drinks before (my dad let me have a sip of his wine), and knew they were yucky, thus I wasn’t surprised to learn that they impaired judgment.
For the longest time, I had no idea what a tornado looked like. We had drills for them, but I wasn’t sure what they actually were. I thought it was some sort of big bad machine that smashed things.
When we learned about fire safety, I was told that firefighters had to rescue you and carry you out of a burning building. What I thought they meant was that at some point in my life, the firefighters were going to come for me, fire or not. So whenever I heard a siren, I thought the firefighters were coming for me. It didn’t exactly help that I was terrified of firefighters. Later, when I stopped being afraid of firefighters, I started being MORE afraid of actual fire.
There are more, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head. I’ll post more later.
I thought this about the people who manned toll booths. I think when I was really small, I told my parents I wanted to be a toll booth worker.
People give you money all day just for sitting there, what could be better than that?
You were either a Menudo fan or psychic. Slightly off topic, did you have an adorable misconception about the PowerBall?
I thought that Jesus was crucified for refusing to worship the Roman gods.
I was about 16 before I figured out that the Roman gods had nothing to do with it. :smack:
When my daughter was about 4, she asked me why some foods are girls and some are boys. I asked what she meant and she said, “You know, like boys and berries [boysenberries] and girl cheese [grilled cheese]…?”
I thought that a divorce was a ceremony like a wedding, and in my mind the divorcing couple would kiss and then wipe it off.
Holy cow. You too?!?
When I was very, very young (probably toddler-ish), I thought that God announced the hymn numbers in Church. (Actually, it was the music director/organist.)
Nitpick: Spare consecrated Eucharist are kept inside a tabernacle. Presumably this could be built into the altar itself, but generally it’s somewhere behind it. (Currently an atheist, but I was raised Catholic, and I never saw an in-altar tabernacle, despite having attended Mass in dozens of churches in four different countries.) Unless by “altar” you meant not the actual table-y bit but rather the whole front area where the priest performs the Mass, in which case nevermind.
I think I thought this, too. For a short while anyway. I think I made exceptions for girlier looking dogs like poodles who were always girls. 
Okay, here are some new ones I haven’t seen posted here.
I overheard my Nana (“grandmother” to the uninitiated) discussing something about Niagara Falls with my mother. Only I heard “My Agra Falls.” Nana’s Agra Falls. So I asked her where MY Agra Falls were and when I’d get to visit them. I’m sure they were totally confused.
Also when I began to read in 1st or 2nd grade, there was one word that I couldn’t read in almost every book I checked out of the library. I later (much later) learned that it was the person who drew the pictures. “Illustrated By.” Who the heck could pronounce a word that began with the letter “L” or “I” together three times?!?
I used to think this too, except I thought it was just sort of a given, automatic thing, no decision or will required. Get married, babies start to show up.
When I was little I was reading my mom’s old “Cherry Ames” books. Both my parents worked at a hospital.
Me: “I want to be a Candy Stripper when I grow up.”
My Mom: “A what now?”
Me: “Candy Stripper. Like Cherry Ames.”
My Mom: “Ohhh, candy stripe-r. Stripe.”
My Dad, real quietly: “I wish they had those at my work.”
…and then they explained that it was volunteer work, meaning you don’t get paid, so that little ambition quickly went out the window.
Well I thought Jesus was born in a Winnibago - You know the song: A Waynamanger" no crib for a bed?
My father told me that if you hold a Guinea Pig up by it’s tail it’s eyes will fall out . . . sadly it was some time before I learned Guinea Pigs have no tails . . .
My mother told me that I couldn’t use Tampons until after I was married. So the first time I bought some I was afraid the pharmacy clerk would ask for my marriage license. I too am embarrassed to admit how old I was before I figured that one out.
A couple more:
I used to do this thing as a kid where I’d twist my tongue around in my mouth in such a way that it felt, to me, like another tongue was pushing its way through the roof of my mouth, and that my natural tongue was pushing it back up. I honestly thought my mouth was growing another tongue whenever I did this.
When I was about ten or eleven or so, I thought that sex was an inherently bad or negative thing. Not because it was morally wrong…but because who on earth would want a penis in their vagina? It just sounded incredibly uncomfortable to me. So I thought that every man who wanted to have sex with a woman didn’t actually care about her at all, and that every woman who had sex with a man was in pain all the time. It took me awhile to realize that wait a minute, sex actually FEELS good? For BOTH parties??
I suppose for some it’s true that their partner’s pleasure or well-being doesn’t matter…but that’s not necessarily the way it’s SUPPOSED to be.
Just think how long your misconception would have lasted if you’d only had today’s pornography to guide you!
I thought that I’d have a different name when I was older. I asked my mother what my name would be when I grew up. I think this is because I had met other children with my same first name, but never an adult. Well into my teens, my mother would point out people in, say, movie credits, with my first name, just to make sure I realized that it was valid for adults. :rolleyes:
Well, of course, because you’re living in the same house and spending so much time together. It’s like osmosis or something, you know?
My mother had a depression in her chest, where her breastbone was severely bent inward. (enough that it pushed her heart out of the way) I thought that it was the way grownup women were built, and that when I grew up, as my breasts got bigger that declivity would develop. Kind of like pushing up dirt to make hills, I guess.