I used to think I had a very scientific explanation for why the earth was round. It was the hills. Y’know, because the hill is by definition lower at the bottom than the apex.
I was also convinced there was a secret society of pop song singers, and their relationships were written as clues into their songs. (Pat Benetar sings “Love Is A Battlefield” in response to Sting talking about the “Fields of Gold” of their past love or something. The stories got quite complex sometimes, four or five artists in a big love tangle)
I also had a great marketing idea in the days when MTV and VH1 actually played music instead of bad reality shows and nostalgia shows, respectively: In every major radio market, have a station that played a feed of the videos being played at that moment on TV. That way I could be listening to Journey "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) starting right as we need to leave for the store, jump in the car, tune into the MTV station, and hear the rest.
When I was little I thought that pink lemonade was made from pink lemons. Not pink on the outside, but pink on the inside. Just like pink grapefruits. It’s really not that stupid of a belief, except that I didn’t find out differently until a few years ago, when I was a junior in college. I’m not even sure how it came up, but somebody gently set me straight. If they hadn’t, I’d probably still think that there are pink lemons. Even now I have a hard time getting the image of pink lemons out of my head.
I also used to believe I controlled the sun. It followed me everywhere I went in the car, so I figured it must be under my power.
I also used to stick (and actually I still do this) my hand out the window of the car and “trace” the trees and fire hydrants and mailboxes and etc as I went by. I used to half-think I could shoot a laser out of my hand. I didn’t really believe I could, but I was always frighted of what would happen if I did, so I made sure to never point it at people for fear of lopping off their head or something.
This is actually quite in keeping with some early modern theories of optics; it’s ultimately derived from Plato (according to a really good article I’ve read on the subject). The most famous poetic articulation of the concept is in Donne’s “The Ecstasy.”
I remember firmly believing that little men lived inside traffic lights, and spent their lives running up and down stairs to change the light colors.
I also remember believing that all live action TV shows were broadcast live. Mind you, I am old enough that I had B/W TV only until I was in middle school or so (remember the NBC peacock in “Living color” anyone?), and a lot of shows I watched then actually were broadcast live. I think this belief stemmed from having been in the audience of a morning kids’ show once when I was about 4 or 5. The belief persisted for several years, until I happened to find two shows that were airing simultaneously with the same actor (Jimmy Stewart, I think) in both shows.
I also firmly believed that magic is real, and I spent several years praying every night (nay, three times a day) that I would be granted the powers of magic. I have to admit that I still believe this, however, and routinely use it to cause parking spaces to become available during Christmas shopping season, and to make lights change more quickly when I am in a hurry or need an excuse to stop. When I was younger (like 8 or so), my mother would routinely ask me to cast a spell to make a parking space become available, because she also believed (and still believes) that I have some kind of power over these things.
Just reminded me of another one of mine, once again centered around music (definitely an interest that was firmly established at a young age). I thought that all traffic lights were controlled by human beings, real-time (though from a remote location), and that The Police “Roxanne” was a song about one such operator “Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light…La la la la, ignore the part about selling your body to the night, that doesn’t have anything to do wtih traffic.”
When I was young, I believed that a fruit would start growing in your stomach if you accidentally ate one of its seed(s). I swallowed a watermelon seed by accident and I remember thinking, “Oh, my gosh!! A watermelon’s going to grow in my stomach!!! WAAAH!!!”
I used to believe that I could beat up my dad. I think it’s because I jumped on him while he was laying down and he let out an ooph. My sister used to think that our dog was a person dressed up as a dog.
I used to think the laugh track on TV shows was the sound of all the people watching the show laughing. Like it was somehow transmitted through the television to other televisions. I had this elaborate plan to test it with a neighbor and a unique laugh.
I also used to be horrified that the people who sold me coloring books were watching carefully to make sure I did it the exact right way. Horrifying…
I used to think all the rocks in the world came from some factory and were then scattered everywhere.
I used to think babies were conceived when the father peed into the mother’s vagina. I also thought babies came out the butt when they were born (I’m male, FTR).
I also used to think that turning off the radio would “pause” the music and it would resume when it was turned on again. How disappointed I was when my mom shut off the car while listening to a song I liked, only to find out that some other song was playing when we returned.
I used to think that the whole world experienced day and night at the same time.
I used to think that the south pole was extremely hot. I knew that it got colder the further north you went and I knew that it was warmer in the south, so it stood to reason that the south pole was one big, super blazing hot desert.
I used to think the sky was this giant dome. Whenever it thundered, I was afraid that the jy would collapse and pieces of the “sky” would come crashing down. I also used to think when there was lightning, God was striking a match and waving it around the sky.
I used to believe that my dad had killed lots of other guys. He always seemed so tough, and I knew that he had been in the Army, so it was perfectly natural (it was, dammit!) to assume that he must have ended several men’s lives. No doubt, I assured myself in my little boy mind, he only killed for good reasons. Though he might be a murderer, he wasn’t some garden variety criminal, killing for pecuniary gain. No, my old man, he killed out of virtue. Some old woman was being harassed, he’d be there to kill the harasser. A bully, you say? Never fear. Here comes my dad. TO KILL!
When I was about 6, I asked him how many men he had actually killed. I was shocked to learn that he hadn’t killed anybody. Turns out he was a cook in the National Guard.
I also had several misconceptions about sex, but that was my big brother’s fault for the entirely made-up information he gave.
Thanks to a misinformed friend, I used to believe that if you had sex with a guy, and his equipment was less that 5 inches long, it would not be able to “pop the cherry” and you would still be a virgin.
Some friends of the family had an automatic garage door opener. The dad managed to convince us that it was voice activated by him saying “open sesame!” when in fact he was just surreptitiously pressing the button.
I believed that road construction was just temporary and one day the highways would all be finished, and fixed, and no one would work on them ever again.
I believed my father could make lights turn green by snapping his fingers. (You guessed it, they were timed.)
I believed that airplanes couldn’t really fly and it was all some kind of trick done with movie projectors, etc.
I thought the cloth towels you yanked down in the restrooms were a continuous loop that were always being washed & ironed inside the dispenser, somehow, and thought we should have one of those things at home.
I thought people changed from boy to girl and back again as they aged, for instance when I was six I’d be a boy, when I was nine I’d be a girl, when I was 12 I’d be a boy again, and so on. I don’t know what I thought I was gonna end up as. I didn’t think that for very long but I was very disappointed to realize it wasn’t true.
At one point, I thought the presidential election was an opinion poll, and that the President himself had the power to appoint the next President. (But that it was basically “bad form” to pick anyone else but the guy who’d won the poll.)