I may have posted this one before, but…
…until about age 9 or 10, I thought that everyone had something called an “Ami” of their very own. You know, because on the news I kept hearing about things happening in “Miami” - “my ami,” see?
It got better.
All sorts of stupid things:
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That pretty much anything that wasn’t Queen’s English was a swear word. (including ‘Communist’ as well, like Tripler
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That the alphabet pronounced “Ay, Bee, Sea” referred to capital letters, while “Ah, Buh, Cuh” referred to small letters
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That if you had teletext you could select a song to play through the TV (this is before The Box came along and made this a reality)
I asked my father what the FBI stood for and he jokingly answered ‘Female Body Inspector’. Of course being a little kid the concept of some government agent carefully going up and down a woman’s nude body with a magnifying glass was the most repulsive idea; I thought girls’ bodies were gross at the time.
At one point I was convinced that Gorbechov’s birthmark on his head was some sort of ‘sign’ for what the USSR was going to do; I was almost certain that the birthmark indicated an eastern european country Gorbechov was going to take over. One time I was looking in an atlas and happened to find some little country (can’t remember) that vaguely resembled the birthmark which freaked me out.
I thought that if the USSR took over a country the country would be physically assimilated into Russia, that if a country got invaded by them everyone would be poor and sad and it would be very cold and snow a lot there.
I also thought wars were fought by everyday people just getting in one huge fistfight. I wondered why countries never ‘lost’ wars, they ‘surrendered’.
When I was about 7 or 8, I had no idea that women had hair growing in their pubic regions. The only naked girls I had ever seen were those around my age or younger (probably relatives). So one day, a friend of mine got hold of a porno mag and boy was I shocked. It was the late '70s and grooming wasn’t as it is today. I seriously thought that these women were diseased or something. I asked what all the furry stuff was and one of the older kids laughed and told me it was hair, and that all women had it. I seriously think I turned asexual for a couple of years afterwards.
For a very long time I thought that panty pads were worn “the other way around” meaning that the sticky part was stuck to the “nether regions” of women. I found about the truth when ads for the ones with “wings” started coming out, so I was like “wait a minute, how would that work?” I think I was twelve or something…
so funny.
I used to believe that after men peed, they took one square of toilet paper and rubbed the head of their penis’ with it, the way one might shine a shoe heel with a rag.
My friend Charmie, who is black, thought that white people’s shit was white.
My little brother used to put maxi pads into his shoes because he thought they were Dr. Scholl’s food pads.
I thought that the large white mansion near my childhood home (in Wisconsin) was the White House.
When I was, I dunno, nine or ten, I became convinced that I was an alien. I do not remember what exactly led to this conclusion, but I was certain that I had been adopted by my parents, and that my “real” Mom and Dad would swoop down in their UFO any day now and take me home. All those fake baby pictures in Mom’s scrapbooks didn’t fool me for a second!
A little later (or earlier, or maybe at the same time) I decided that I was telekinetic. There was no actual evidence of telekinesis at all, but I was quite sure that if I thought hard enough at some object in just the right way, I could make it move with the power of my mind. I used to practice this a lot. It never worked, dammit.
I used to believe that maxie pads and tampons were for women who peed their pants. I thought they were gross and would taunt my mother and sisters when I saw them around. “Hahahah You use tampons!”
ForgottenLore, Crystal M…? Sorry didn’t see your post beforehand.
I once heard his birthmark being referred to as a port wine birthmark (in reference to the color) and thinking–If he spilled wine on his head, why doesn’t he just wipe it off?
I thought there was a letter pronounced “kellum.” The alphabet went “a…b…c…d…e…f…g…h…i…j…kellum…n…o…p…” I became very frustrated when Mom wouldn’t draw a kellum for me.
Wasn’t there another thread on this topic about a year ago? Anyway…
When I was in elementary school, I didn’t understand the mechanics of sex. I knew about the whole sperm-and-egg thing, but wasn’t clear on how the sperm got from the daddy to the mommy. Somehow, I decided that that was what bellybuttons were for–the sperm would come out of the man’s bellybutton, go into the woman’s bellybutton, and fertilize the egg from there.
When I was really young, I thought that people didn’t have organs–underneath our skin, we were made of white stuff like the inside of a banana. One of my earliest memories is of peeling off an old scab and being disappointed that I couldn’t see the white stuff underneath.
I’m sure there are more, but that’s all I can remember off the top of my head.
At some point I believed that Jesus was born on Christmas and died on Easter three years later. His apparent growth spurt was a miracle, I guess.
When I was a toddler, my parents took me to a friend’s dairy farm. For the first time in my life I actaully got to see where milk came from. I knew it “came from cows” but didn’t know what that meant. So our friend, Mason, showed me how he milks a cow.
I refused to drink milk for about a week because I thought it was cow pee.
I’m with the OP on the black & white thing except that I thought that entire world outside of the USA was black & white, cloud covered - and mostly rubble. This vision was inspired by postwar newsreels and newspaper photos of Europe. Even when we got TV (black & white) of course, this idea was reinforced - especially for Russia.
As I progressed in school, I was constantly surprised every time I saw a color photo taken in the sunshine anywhere in Europe. For some reason, the same vision didn’t apply to tropical parts of the world that hadn’t been involved in WWII.
It does sound kinda hallucinatory, doesn’t it? But I swear I was on nothing at the time. At least, not that I know of…
For a short time, I believed that babies were created by kissing. This is not as odd as it may seem, I think. I remember watching a soap opera on television, and a couple had been discussing whether or not they wanted to have a baby. They finally agreed that they wanted one, and the husband said to his wife, “Let’s get started right away”. And what did they do next? Of course, they started kissing, which was quickly followed by a fade to commercial…
ForgottenLore, no, is your name Crystal? LOL, I like where your mind goes.
I also had the problem someone mentioned earlier of reading from a very early age, so my pronunciation of certain words was a little messed up:
Bosoms = “boss-ums” (like ‘blossoms’ without the L)
Macabre = “mack-a-bur”
Hors d’ouvres = “Whores deh ovrays” (sounds like Spanish or something)
Faux pas = “Fox paws”
and on and on. My husband thinks this is hilarious, as I’m still finding words that I thought I was pronouncing correctly, that I really REALLY wasn’t. :rolleyes:
No. And I didn’t start it either.
Now, to hijack: Alice, you mention a belief you had until about the age of 4, and Tansu, you mention one you had at the age of 3. Can you really remember that far back? Are you sure of these ages, and if so, how?