Stuff you thought when you were a Kid

[Dethenger]

For a while, I either misread $1.00 as $100, or didn't understand what cents were yet, and thought my mom paid a hundred bucks for one of these. [http://d1535dk28ea235.cloudfront.net/preset_65/532_0.jpg] I still understood that a hundred dollars was a lot of money, so I was almost ashamed to eat it.

I also used to think you weren't allowed to ask your mom for anything on Mother's Day. Anything. I was only like six at the time and couldn't reach the cups in my house because the shelves were too high, but I was really thirsty. I was beside myself with nerves when I asked her to get one for me.

 

[octafish]

When I was a kid I thought Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov would end all life on the planet in a Nuclear Apocalypse. Then, after Chernenko, Gorby came along and let me sleep at night. I still remember Gorbachev very fondly, although I remained unconvinced that we would survive beyond the year 2000 until I was a teenager. The Cold War was a weird time to grow up.

 

[game-lover]

Gosh... I can't think of anything off the top of my head...

I'll have to read this whole thread when I get a chance to see if my memory refreshes.

 

[Animyr]

I thought that if I was in the garage when the garage door shut I would turn into a pumpkin.

Oddly specific, I know.

 

[CJMacM]

I used to think that The Simpsons was an accurate portrayal of everyday life. I saw one episode where Bart finds out the Homer went to jail like 6 times and Marge went like 3 times. I assumed that is was completely normal for most people to go to jail that often.

My brother used to think that on shows with re-enactments of real people getting killed that the camera man was actually there at the time of the murder. He would be so confused as to why some guy would be filming something like that instead of helping.

 

[Arrogancy]

Also, I used to think that if I ever told anyone over the phone that I was alone in the house, they would burst through the front door to murder me. Thank you Julia, my loving sister.

 

[randomsix]

I thought that if a book was on tape it was true. So many nights spent awake in fear of the Talon of Doom.

 

[everfreeDragon]

I used to think Thunder was the sound of god bowling.
Also my room would be instantly filled with monsters whenever the light was off and the only ways to not be eaten by them were to stay on my bed or disguise myself as a monster.
Also I believed everything on the TV was real but only on other planets.
Last one I can recall so far is that I used to believe I had super powers. I was sad to discover I was completely average.

 

[anAngryHamster]

For a long time I thought snow came from the rings of Saturnus.
A teacher told my class that. She apparently didn't know six year olds(might've been five) doesn't really get sarcasm.

My grandmother did the same thing to me. We were at the beach and she told me that the ocean was salty because fish peed in it. I couldn't imagine anything this woman saying being anything but the truth. A few weeks later my 1st (or 2nd) grade teacher asked us why the ocean was salty...

I had to move my good behavior sticker from happy face to frowny face.

 

[Fijiman]

I used to be really afraid of heights. Really afraid. If I looked down from a window it was fine but if there wasn't anything between me and the free fall to the ground I couldn't stop imagining slipping and ending down on the ground broken and dead. If I looked down from our balcony, I always held on to something in case I fell. But it didn't help my fear, because if I held tightly enough, I just ended up imagining my head will fall off if I leaned out.

I'm still fairly bad about this one. I hate going up on tall ladders or other tall, easy to fall off of structures. It helps even less when said structure is really shaky.(this did nothelp me during theater tech class at times)

I thought that both girls and boys had a penis (I had never actually SEEN a penis, I just thought that everyone had one without really understanding what it was.)
Oddly enough after that misunderstanding I was never very confused about sex.

Same here. I used to think how much it would hurt to have a baby come out of your penis.(at least I got the pain part right if nothing else)

Aside from thinking that everyone had a penis, I can't think of anything that I thought was true as a young child but now know is not.

 

[zane224]

I used to think that my birthday was MINE, and only mine. I took this further to realize that this meant there were only 365 people in the world...

 

[yRar_972]

I thought I could become invisible or at least unnoticed if I thought about it hard. When it didn't work I told myself I didn't think about it hard enough.

I never liked sleeping with my neck exposed so I always had my blanket up to my head. I thought some psychopath with a silent chainsaw would cut my neck.

Like others, my childhood was messed up.

 

[pastrami05]

My mom told me not to push the call flight attendant button above the seat on an airplane.
So I naturally assumed that if I pushed it the flight attendant would come with a glass of poison and make me drink it. As a result, whenever I turned the light on or off or adjusted with the fan, I was very, very, careful not to get anywhere near that button.

 

[bojackx]

I can't think of any good ones, but I couldn't grasp that 15 + 15 = 30 until I was like 7. I couldn't understand how two numbers could make 30 unless one of them had a 2 at the start (e.g. 20 + 10). I just thought it was 25.

 

[CAPTCHA]

I got a splinter under my little finger when I was young and thought I was going to have to have it amputated. That didn't bother me though because if it was removed it would be replaced with a robotic finger (standard procedure really) and that I could then use it to dominate all around me at arm wrestling.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I thought the world was built to not hurt us. As in cars would stop before they hit someone and every cliff had a guardrail.

I believed that clouds were really snow in the sky.

I thought you could turn off the tv by blowing hard on the screen.
I feel this one needs some explanation. My grandpa started this by saying you could then made me blow over and over till I nearly passed out. Finally he would turn off the tv using the remote behind my back so it appeared I "blew out" the tv.

I thought the food restaurants "Taco Bell" and "Taco John" were brothers. John Bell and his brother made a restaurant then got into a fight and split.
My Dad told me this... he told me lots of things.

I believed the ninja turtles were real and tried to open a sewer cap to go find them.

I ate a watermelon seed and thought it was going to grow till it exploded. It didn't help that I saw the Rugrats episode and my parents kept teasing me about it.

I thought monarch butterflies ignited in flames to deter predators when they felt threatened. It was because of an old children's cartoon show Mia the Bee. The intro you see a monarch butterfly get engulfed in flames.

 

[imnot]

I used to think all of earths surface was city, DESPITE living in a village in the middle of country side.
So basicaly I thought Earth was coruscant.

 

[FamoFunk]

I thought actors died in real life when they died on the screen.

I though people on live TV could actually see me.

And (this one is one of my Brothers fault, he convinced me and I believed it) that on programmes like Cow and Chicken when Mum and Dad were only half on the screen, if I went right up to the TV and looked up I could actually see their faces.