I thought that the athletes who played for the Chicago Cubs were young and that as they got older they played for the Chicago Bears. :rolleyes:
I still have a slight fear that there will be a hand in the toilet that is going to reach up, grab my ass, and pull me down. Yikes!
Nat
I’ve suddenly decided I need a new sig line. Can I have this one, pleeeeeze?? I’ll make you famous, I promise…more or less…
I used to believe factories were where clouds came from. I also thought that musicians came to the radio stations to play their songs.
The abbreviation -lbs.- is pronounced “lubs”. 
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by straykat23 *
**I thought that all dogs were male and cats were female.
I believed this one, too! It took me a long time to accept the fact that there were male cats and female dogs–to my little girl mind, it just didn’t seem right!!
That has GOT to be the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! I only wish I hadn’t read it at 2:30 am–I’m about to choke trying to not wake up my hubby!!
Goodness, how I love these threads. I just laugh so hard at everything everyone writes, because so many of them are so close to things I did as a kid.
More on the lbs. thing. I saw this in a book once and asked my Mom “what’s this word?” She glanced at it and said “pounds.” Somehow, I got this confused with the money in the UK, and was convinced that English people said “libs” when Americans would say “pounds.”
In school, I think second grade, the teacher was telling us about differences between American and English words, like truck and lorry, and apartment and flat. I raised my hand so I could share pounds and libs. Holy mortification, batman!
I also thought the title of the musical “Hair” referred to pubic hair. Dad had bought the album (on 8-track, I believe) and Mom made a little comment about how it might be too adult for us kids to listen too. It seemed obvious to me that the only thing that would make hair “adult” would be if it was pubic hair.
When I was little I thought that if you were awake at midnight, the clocks would come alive and fly down off the wall and attack you. So I was always very careful to be asleep at that time. I thought it must be very frightening to be an adult and be awake at the time when the clocks came alive. I think I thought that they had to fight the vicious aggressive clocks every night!
Oh and my grown-up brother who was in the Army and got a medal for driving trucks in Northern Ireland told me that he had got it for killing a hundred Germans and cutting them up into little pieces, *and I believed him!*He described the cutting up of the Germans he had killed in great gleeful detail too…(of course I didn’t know that we weren’t at war with the Germans anymore, I think I had some kind of vague idea that World War II had never ended, having 2 brothers who were obsessed with war comics and military stuff sort of gave that impression to a little kid!)
Anyway I was always a bit wary around my army brother after that…I thought he was a mass murderer!
I thought that I was an Indian because I was born in Indiana. I was the only one in my family born there, so of course I was an Indian and they weren’t. I kept wanting to believe this even after I was old enough to know better.
Two entertainment-related weird beliefs from my childhood:
I tended to get Austria confused with Australia. The ending of The Sound of Music really threw me for a loop - I could imagine Australia ringed around with mountains, but I was worried. When they climbed over them, wouldn’t they end up at the ocean? I shared this with my parents and they laughed and laughed and laughed, but eventually straightened me out.
When I saw Fiddler on the Roof, I assumed that the action was taking place in Canada (wheat, you see, I knew they grew wheat in Saskatchewan, and they grew wheat in Fiddler, and I knew it wasn’t set in the US, hence naturally it must’ve been in Canada). And this misapprehension I did not explain to my parents. For years, I harbored great suspicions of the Canadian government because of their apparently highly anti-Semitic (not to mention mean) policies.
As a result, I was always very nervous when we were in Canada, waiting for them to start rounding us up, and recoiled in terror from probably harmless Canadians merely being friendly. (“So, from the States? Where 'bouts?” “That your father?” “How old are you?” Such questions terrified me - I assumed these were Canadian government agents speaking, they were on to us, we had to leave the country RIGHT AWAY!) My family never understood why.
I cut off my doll’s hair, figuring it would just grow back. 
We preschoolers used to believe that we could dig to China. When we’d hit “black dirt”, that meant we were close. I was a little afraid that I’d fall out of the other side – that is, if I didn’t grab onto a bush once I hit China, and flip myself around so my feet were touching the earth, I’d just keep going out into space.
I was convinced my grandfather (a skinny man with a full head of hair) was Mr. Clean. I don’t remember why.
In third grade, for a while we had a spare swing seat and ropes. I convinced myself that if only I were strong enough, I could swing myself the ground by holding the ropes up. (That is, my strength would take the place of the swingset frame.) Ouch, my aching head. Next day: Strong enough now? Ouch. Next day…
I thought my stuffed animals had parties at night after I went to sleep. After all, no matter how carefully I arranged them the night before, at least one would be out of position the next morning.
But here’s the topper:
My folks always said that Santa wouldn’t come unless everyone in the house was asleep; I spent guilt-ridden Christmas Eves, convinced I would ruin Christmas for everyone. In fifth grade, I still firmly believed in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny. When my mom realized that (she’d thought I was pretending for the sake of my younger sisters and brothers), she told me the truth. I remember sitting on her chenille bedspread, shocked. I asked about the Easter Bunny. Then about the Tooth Fairy. She told me the truth about each. Later that night, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I was going to go to hell for asking this question, but I had to know. I stood at the top of the rec room stairs, shaking, and finally mustered up the courage to ask, “Well, then, what about GOD?!?!”
hm. I used to think that if you swallowed watermelon seeds and drank a lot of water, that a watermelon would grow in your stomach until you exploded. Ditto for any other fruit with seeds. So I’d very carefully pick the seeds out of watermelon with my fingers before I ate…I still do that today.
When I was a little kid I thought cows and bulls each came in male/female. I’d heve never guessed they were the same animal.
on that same tack, i used to know a girl who thought that veal came from some other animal. she had no idea that they were baby cows. she thought that there were some other farm yard animals called veals, and wondered why she’d never seen one. i found this out when she one day said “has anyone ever seen a veal? i never have. i don’t even know what they look like. i think they must be really ugly, because the veal farmers don’t want you to know waht they look like.” we all stared at her for a minute, then i said “tracy, they’re baby cows.” “no!” “yes!” every one jumped in, and we convinced her we weren’t just screwing with her head.
we were in college, at the time.
I used to believe the world used to be black and white, and then at one point in the 20th century, it magically became color. This was based on all the old pics of my parents as kids, which were in B&W. Later pics of them were in color. Plus, all the old movies and tv shows were in B&W…I had an awful lot of supporting evidence.
I used to believe that if a woman wanted to have a baby, she would go to the doctor, and he would somehow mysteriously put the baby inside her tummy. Then nine months later, it would come out through her belly button
And I had an imaginary friend (actually, I had lots of them, but this one is special) who was a crocodile called Cecil. He had a magic icecream bucket, and you if you just put your hand in and wished for any sort of icecream, it would appear. He didn’t live at my house, just came to visit sometimes (I would wake up in the morning and say to my dad, “Cecil’s coming today!”) Exactly how this fitted in with my absolute terror of crocodiles I’m not sure - I wouldn’t go near them at the zoo.
You know how when you’re a kid, you believe everybody gets the summer off. It’s that myth that most all children believe since it’s true for you, it must be true for every one.
Anyway, where I went to elementary school as a kid students get dismissed from class early on Mondays. Our school system does this (I believe they still do this) so that the teachers can do weekly planning. Well I thought everybody worked only half days on Mondays. Garfield and everybody hated Mondays made no sense to me. Sure it wasn’t the weekend, but what better way to ease back to the workweek than start it with a half day!
Boy was I upset when I started middle school with a full day on Monday.
i used to think COLOR was invented, but the really just invented color TV
I used to believe that if I ran fast enough in a rainstorm, I could run between the raindrops
I believed the exact same thing. I remember one day when my father told me about helping his father paint their garage green, and I told him that was impossible, since green wasn’t invented yet.
When I was a little kid, our regular mailman’s name was Chuck. I liked Chuck the Mailman, he always waved and said “Hi” to me and the other kids on the block. One day, we had a new mailman, and I never saw Chuck again.
A few days later I was in the supermarket with my mother, and I was looking around in the meat section. I was horrified to see “Chuck Steak”. I thought they chopped up his body and wrapped the parts in plastic, and that’s why I didn’t see him anymore. :eek: :eek: :eek:
There is a Cleveland Ave. near where I grew up. I thought the street went from my house all the way to CLeveland and that’s why they named it Cleveland Ave.
WHen I watched the Western movies and someone got killed, I thought they really died. I thought, man, they musta really liked that movie to die for it.
I remember hearing a song I liked on my new transistor radio, but I had to run to school, so I turned it off. When I got home, I turned it back on so I could hear the end, it wasn’t on. 
And of course I thought there was a monster under my bed, and if I put my foot down to go to the bathroom it would reach out and grab me.