Ummm, plastic, Eve. (Or rubber, or something of that sort.)
Anyway, the only one that I can think of now is the common one about those little sharp things that stick in your socks when you run across a field. You know, if you get one in your ear, it will tunnel into your brain and a plant will grow in your head. That and the watermelon seeds. :: Shudder ::
I also thought that any particular skyscraper rooftop could contain a sniper. Well, I still believe that and constantly scan the horizon and walk close to tall buildings. So I won’t be shot of course…
We do have some NYLON screens in our house…in the laundry room, and in the bathroom. My cat tore one of them up once!
Anyhoo, my cousin once thought that when his mother breastfed his baby brother that one breast was plain white milk, the other was chocolate.
I used to be confused when I would get up late and my mom told me one of my shows was “over”. How could it be “over?”
The TV wasn’t on!
I’m sure all kids thought something like this: I thought sex was kissing naked.
My dad is a funeral director, and we lived above a funeral home when I was very little. I thought the bodies were actually just big dummies made of glass.
I’m sure I’ll think of more later!
When I was a child and went on trips with my parents, they would point to an RV and say “Winnebago”. I thought they said “win a bagel” (oddly enough, at the time I had no idea what a bagel was).
My older sister was in elementary school and I was not. She brought home construction paper renderings of pilgrims. Note that the exposed hands a faces were purple. She also spouted the lines “April showers bring May flowers. What do May flowers bring? Pilgims!” I had no prior exposure to the Mayflower ship, so I thought that pilgrims were little people like smurfs except purple and they lived in flowers instead of mushrooms.
When I was a kid I was told that my Uncle John “got carried away”. Of course, I thought a bunch f guys came along and literally carried my uncle away, against his protests. ot an easy thing, because my uncle was (still is) a pretty hefty guy.
But it was Okay, because later I heard that he’d been “dropped off” (Ouch!).
I remember thinking that too. I was one up on my mother, though, who once told me that when she was little she and one of her brothers were certain that tiny people lived in the television and performed all the shows. They even took apart the family’s old television to see if they could find the tiny people. When they didn’t find them they figured that the tiny people had moved away once the family stopped watching that TV.
A friend of mine says that when she was a little girl she thought she would turn into a boy when she got older. She just thought that was a natural part of growing up. The only explanation she could think of for this belief is that she had several older brothers and somehow associated being older with being male.
When I was in elementary school, my brother had me convinced that if you cursed, green slime would grow in your mouth and would eventually suffocate you.
(::MP looks in mirror:: Aaaaaaahhhhh!! so far, so good. :))
I also believed that, well, #2 was stored in your butt cheeks, and if you had a big butt, you really had to go.
I thought that trees made wind. At some point my dad tried to explain what actually caused wind, but I didn’t get it. From then on I thought clouds made wind.
I thought the people on TV were people leading real lives, and asked my mom once who was watching US on TV.
I thought that the reason you got a stitch in your side was because the tops of your leg bones had big spikes on them which stirred up your innards when you ran and caused bubbles.
My brother convinced me that water striders were poisonous, and could kill me if one bit me. To this day, water striders freak me out. Mrs. ricepad thinks it’s hilarious.
I thought that your food was digested along a tiny conveyer belt inside you, complete with choppers, smushers, grinders, etc… Think back to the cartoons where the hapless critter stumbles along the belt barely missing the machinery. That is they type of set-up I figured must be going on inside you (minus the cartoon character, of course).
I also had no concept of an airport. I just assumed the plane came to your house to pick you up.
I grew up in Long Beach, California, and just off the coast were some off-shore drilling islands visible from the beach–just that the rigs were covered up by a “building” structure. Thing is, I thought these islands were the Hawaiian Islands, and that those buildings were hotels. When people talked about going on vacation to Hawaii, and flying out, I would think, “but… they’re so close you could nearly swim to them!”
Needs2Know: me too. I was certain I could do it, but I only got a two foot hole dug before I was caught by my parents.
Once, I was builing a model truck with my dad. I sniffed the airplane glue to see what it smelled like, then read the warning label on the back. I spent the next week certain I was going to die because I had sniffed airplane glue.
We used to bike from our house several miles to the beach to swim. Along the ride we crossed 25 Mile Road. There was a big sign there that said “Caution: 25 Mile Road does not stop!”. I used to puzzle over how 25 Mile Road could go all the way around the Earth and fold back on itself like that, when there were oceans in the way. By the time I got into my teens I had figured out that that sign couldn’t mean what I thought it did, but the lightbulb didn’t really come on for me until I was in my twenties and saw the same sign at another intersection, referring to trains crossing the road…
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I went to a Catholic grade school in Michigan. One day when I was in about 6th Grade, they put a big charcoal drawing of a man’s head, thrown back with the mouth open, on the wall in the hallway. He had a beard and long hair. Why, I wondered, did they put a picture of Bob Seger singing in the hallway? It wasn’t until I was at a party (again in my twenties) and we were making fun of musicians who seemed to have cult status in the Midwest, and somebody said that Bob Seger looked like Jesus, that it occurred to me that that picture was a picture of JESUS LAUGHING!!!
This was about third grade. Remember those Scholastic/Tab book services where a kid could order books through school? Well, I ordered one called the “Witch’s Catalog” or some such. I was convinced that this book would enable me to do all sorts of magical things. Spells, invisibility, you name it. At the very least, I was all set to order potions and stuff.
Well, I got the book. There was all sorts of neat stuff to order! I was so excited that I actually filled out an order form. Then at the very end was the directions to rub the form with newt fat, bat tears, and leave it in a hollow log under a full moon, blah blah blah. (Along with a specific note: DO NOT MAIL)
I was crushed. It was a rip-off! No magical stuff. Of course, this was about the same time I ordered the X-ray glasses from the comic book. Yes, I was all set to be able to look through girls’ clothes. Imagine my disappointment when they arrived.
When I was just a young 'un, I remember hearing a lot of talk in our house about the “candidates” in the upcoming election. I was mystified, because I thought “candidates” were people from Canada, and I wondered what business they had running for office in our country!
I too use to believe in the little people inside of the television and radio. I use to wonder how they got food in the radio.
When I was about six I woke up one night and hid behind my mom’s chair in the living room while she was watching a Vampire movie. (I think it was Salem’s Lot) I use to really really believe that Vampires existed and was scared when someone came over to the house after dark. Don’t invite them in!! I was also scared that my best friend would come and knock on my window one night…
I use to believe that the lights from helicopters and airplanes and night were UFOs.
I use to believe that if you took an egg out of the refrigerator and hid it under your bed long enough it would hatch into a baby chicken.
I use to always ask my Mother where common expressions came from. (This was before Cecil) I thought my Mom knew everything because she always had an answer. She told me the expression “Holy Cow” came from the fact that Jesus ate steak at the last supper. I believed that one for years.
