I used to think this too. In fact the belief was so strong that even today I get a bit nervous whenever I say “Jew”.
Heh, in that vein, those yellow “traffic light ahead” signs with a light painted on them confused the hell out of me. How were you supposed to know when you could pass the sign, if the light was painted on?
I also didn’t understand stop signs. How were you supposed to know how long to stop for? I didn’t really understand intersections, I guess.
When my son was very young, he kept wanting to do things he wasn’t old enough for–stay up late, ride a bike, drive the car, whatever. He decided that it was his right to choose how old he was on his next birthday, and he figured 100 years old would be old enough to do anything he wanted to.
He also figured out that if he could grow body hair, that meant he was older (and therefore Old Enough). He showed me some arm hairs with great pride (he had always had very fair hair and skin, so it took a while before his arm-hairs were visible). I said, “Pretty good. Now see if you can get your hair to grow out of your ears. THEN you’ll be old enough. See?”
I believed that Mighty Mouse was real. I had a Mighty Mouse comic book that I lost when I was 6. I cried for days and believed that Mighty Mouse wouldn’t be my friend anymore.
Up until I was 11 or 12, I treated and felt about insects much the same as I treated and felt about animals such as dogs and cats. For instance, I believed that ants, flies, and spiders were my friends and if I found one at night, I would take it to bed with me (of course in the case of a fly, the wings would have to be removed). I especially liked ants.
Jump forward thirty some-odd years: if I see a spider I immediately go to Home Depot, buy a quart of Ortho, and unload. I have an exceptionally fine collection of spray apparatus.
There was a muppet on Sesame Street (I don’t know if they still use him), I don’t remember his name, but he made noises with his voice, much like the actor Michael Winslow (?)
I thought that all adults could do that- I confused the heck out of my parents asking them if they could make the noise of a phone ringing…
I also failed to make the conneciton between the portion of the Catholic Mass where people offer prayers for those in need and reality: at the family Mass we went to every week, I would invariably raise my hand when it came time for (what’s it called? It’s been too long…) that part of the mass to offer prayers for “an old woman who got hit by a car.” Keep in mind, that I have never known any woman who got hit by a car, let alone a new elderly one every week. 
-j
First of all, as an English teacher, I must inform you that the correct pronunciation of “lbs.” is “illibles.”
I, too, believed that the metallic balls on top of cupcakes were bbs and should not be eaten, and that your car could potentially catch on fire if you drive over a cigarette the moron in front of you so recklessly threw out the window. I still have an unreasonable thought-process regarding this phenomenon, and will always try to hit a smoldering cigarette with my tire, so as to extinguish it and save the lives of those unsuspecting drivers who might otherwise have the lit cigarette sucked up to their engine, which will cause the fuel to ignite and the car to explode. Just a little public service I provide.
As I have gotten older, I now realize that all cables coming off of utility and phone poles are NOT electrically charged, but to be on the safe side, I never touch any of them. Used to anger my parents that I wouldn’t mow around those support wire things.
Finally, for the longest time I believed that if I blew my nose I would blow some of my brains out (thanks, Dad. Mom appreciated that little bit of help, too.)
A a little kid going to Disneyworld, I noticed none of the characters spoke (They did in the cartoons…why not now?)
I figured they “caught” whatever the Pink Panther had and were left mute.
When I was four, my parents and grandmother took me to “visit” my grandfather in the cemetary. While navigating, my grandmother said “He’s over there”, and I saw some old man standing under a tree. I interpreted “passed on” or whatever euphamism they used in front of 4-year-old to mean my grandfather lived in the cemetary and couldn’t leave, but we could come visit him anytime.
My grandfather used to tell me that if I accidentally swallowed a watermelon seed a plant would start growing in my stomach. Eventually I would have watermelons sprouting out of my ears. I would dread the embarrassment of having that happen.
When I was pretty young I used to watch football with my dad. Once we were watching a San Francisco 49ers game and my Dad told me that Jerry Rice was my cousin because my last name is Rice too. I went to school the next day and told everybody about my cousin. I just couldn’t figure out why he was black and I wasn’t.
When I was five, I distinctly remember being party to a large argument about how many days there were in the week. I, the losing party, insisted that there were five days Monday-Friday, and Saturday and Sunday were part of “the weekend” which was completely different. I was unhappy when my kindergarten teacher informed me that both weekdays and the weekends make up the week.
I’m sure I’ll think of more…
I believed that one too. I also believed I lived in New York City because I heard my parents refer to the traffic at a nearby intersection. I seriously thought that traffic only occured in big cities…
Up until I was about 8 years old, I thought there was a “state” of Kanada located in the mid-west. Of course, I was thinking of Kansas, but that didn’t stop me from getting into huge arguments with othere kids and even my first grade teacher that Kanada was a state, and I’d been there. When I was asked to point it out on a map, I realized I was thinking of Kansas. “oh, I was there before they changed the name” I said.
Unfortunately, I bet there are adults who still think Canada is a state.:rolleyes:
Someone told me when I was around 6 or 7 that if I watched a dog or cat “do it’s business” I would get a stye in my eye.
my mom told me that if i didn’t wash behind my ears, potatoes would grow there. she also told my sisters and i that cardinals (the birds) were santa claus’ spies, and would fly to the north pole to tell him every time we were bad. she also said that when she was a kid, they had keys for their roller skates, and you had to wind them up using the keys. if you lost your skate key, your skates wouldn’t go anymore.
i was afraid of dragonflies for a long time, because i was convinced that they would land on my face and sew my lips shut.
an old man up the street told us that if we could put salt on a bird’s tail, we’d be able to catch it. he told this to ALL the kids on our street, and we ALL believed him. there’d be 14 of us, all with salt shakers, trying to catch some poor little robin.
i thought that white things glowed in the dark. so when i had to go out to the utility shed, which was unlit, at night, i’d take my sock off and hold it in front of me to “illuminate” my way.
i also had a very hard time with fractions. i could not understand how you could have 3/2’s. it made no sense to me. and the term “a quarter” was confusing to me, too. we walked to sunday school at a small church near our house, and my mom would say “you need to leave at a quarter after 8 to get there by 8:30.” well, i knew there were 25 cents in a quarter, so i figured that “quarter after 8” meant 25 after. my mom could never figure out why we were always late to sunday school.
When I was 8ish I had a dream (started as a nightmare then turned better) about getting sucked down the toilet when you flushed it. Ever since I’ve always put down the top of the toilet so that it wouldn’t happen. Been doing it for such a long time that it’s ingrained.
Even with schoolmates telling me that Santa claws doesn’t exist I just didn’t believe them. Understandable when I always fell for the tricks they played like no gullible in the dictionary (dylexica and being an only child didn’t give me the experience to disbelieve). I just thought they were playing another trick. I was 7 before I asked my parents.
I believed that same thing, too!
Also, that all ladybugs were girls, too. Think about it. How could there be such a thing as boy ladybug! When I saw a dog give birth, I was horrified! I didn’t want to give birth, it looked like it hurt!
That’s OK, I thought the same type of thing…that white people were white because they used ivory soap. I never understood why ivory soap was so popular in my neighborhood; I preferred Zest. I also never noticed that white girl in the commercial using Zest.
I also alternated between thinking I was born full grown at age 5 in my bedroom or that I lived forever (at 5) at those Alexandria townhouses. Why? Because my first memory was that of waking up at age five to watch Saturday morning cartoons.
It took me a while to figure out why girls private parts looked funny. (after a neighborhood girl pulled down her underwear and showed them to me. I was 8, I think. She was 5. I have no recollection as to why she did that.) For a while, I thought little boys and girls were built in a factory, connected together bon-bon (what I called my penis) to that hole in the girl (I don’t remember what she called it). Yet, it didn’t trouble me that I was missing my girl; or that instead of her having a companion boy, she had a sister instead.
That’s so cute 
Another vote for “libs”, and dogs=male, cats=female.
Also, I believed that green olives grew with the red center in them.
I was only about 8 or 9 when I figured out for myself how babies are made. To me it was perfectly obvious: men have a tool that sticks out, and women have a hole that goes in—the same hole that babies come out of. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put 2 and 2 together.
But I imagined that it could only be done under a doctor’s supervision. So that when a couple wanted to make a baby they would schedule an appointment in a doctor’s office to have sex.
At that age, I also didn’t get how lovers, when they had sex, didn’t mind being naked in each other’s presence without getting embarrassed to be seen naked! I was very shy about anyone seeing me naked and wondered what I would do when I got married, since the movies made it obvious that people did it without their clothes on.
My dad referred to mopeds as ‘deathtraps,’ and I thought that was the model name. I imagined ‘Deathtrap’ written in in cursive in chrome letters near the saddle. I couldn’t figure out why the company would want to name them that, since it didn’t seem like the kind of name that would sell a lot. It was years before I figured this out.
I used to think that there was a “president of presidents” - as in, an elected ruler of the entire Earth, and his title was Black Widow.
When I was first told about where babies came from, everything internally was explained in great detail- I was quite clear on the journey the sperm would take once inside the woman… I asked how the sperm got inside the woman, and my mother said “it happens when two people sleep with each other.” Being a little kid- I took it literally. I thought a man nearly had to sleep in the same bed as a woman to impregnate her, and that the sperm would make the journey from the penis, across the sheets, and into the woman.
When I used to watch cartoons on television, some of them were in color and occassionally a few were in black and white. I asked why they weren’t in color, and my parents said it was because it was a much older cartoon. I then assumed that at some point in the life of film, it lost all color. I honestly thought that what I now watch in color my children would be watching in black and white.
I’m sure there’s more…