# childish notions



## EricNoah (Nov 14, 2005)

My dad's a minister.  When I was a kid, I had the notion that anything my parents didn't like was a sin.  I didn't understand the difference between their personal preferences and "ultimate good/evil."  So as a kid, I thought...

... anyone who watched the Flinstones or Popeye was a sinner.
... anyone who drank coffee was a sinner.  
... anyone who was "too rich" was a sinner.  

Yeah.  I was like 3 or 4 when these beliefs were prevalent in my brain.  Yet on some unconscious level, I still have problems with the Flinstones and Popeye!


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## diaglo (Nov 14, 2005)

at 3 or 4 i thought women got pregnant from kissing.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Nov 14, 2005)

I was born in 1966, and I remember being stunned around age 6 or 7 by finding out people born in the 70's could actually speak.


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## eabha (Nov 14, 2005)

I believed men had to shave their fingernails (this after walking in on a scene that was obviously carefully choreographed by two older cousins).

I was also lead to believe that the following things were poisons (not _poisonous_, as in they would hurt you, but actual _poisons_ and would _kill _ you if swallowed): toothpaste, the pool of vinegar left on the plate after the fries were gone, and the carrots that had been left in last year's garden until the spring thaw.

EDIT: I was also told I'd be vacationing on the moon by now.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Nov 14, 2005)

eabha said:
			
		

> the pool of vinegar left on the plate after the fries were gone,




That one is true.  Vinegar on fries is a bad thing.


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## BOZ (Nov 14, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> I was born in 1966, and I remember being stunned around age 6 or 7 by finding out people born in the 70's could actually speak.




it's not easy, but i try.


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## sniffles (Nov 14, 2005)

When I was small and my mother made pancakes for us, she would cut them up in a certain way. When my sister and I got old enough to cut up our own pancakes, we thought we had to cut them up exactly the same way or we'd get in trouble. I have no idea why we thought that; my mother certainly never indicated anything to that effect. 

We also both thought the spine of the _Book of Mormon_ my parents had on a shelf said _Book of Moron_.


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## elforcelf (Nov 14, 2005)

Fred Flintstone is the Devil!


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## jgbrowning (Nov 14, 2005)

I was very afraid of humanitarians.


joe b.


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## eabha (Nov 14, 2005)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> I was very afraid of humanitarians.


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## WayneLigon (Nov 14, 2005)

I thought for a short time that if I turned the TV off, went away and did something else, then came back and turned it on that it would pick up where it left off.

I was convinced birds could speack English, just that they purposefully didn't to exclude us.

I was told that hummingbirds were giant bees that could kill with a touch.

I was told that flies laid their eggs in you if they landed on you even for a millisecond.


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## eabha (Nov 14, 2005)

When I was in grade two I had a heated discussion with a first grader who didn't think second grade existed. He was convinced that everyone in our primary school was in first grade and would be leaving school forever at the end of the year. Ha.


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## Rel (Nov 14, 2005)

My 4 year old daughter is under the crazy impression that these bronze statues of children playing in the park are actual children who were dipped in bronze because they disobeyed their parents.

It's probably because I tell her that every time we go there.


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## BOZ (Nov 14, 2005)

jgbrowning said:
			
		

> I was very afraid of humanitarians.




hey joe, you should come over sometime - i got a nice new hot tub.  it's big, round, and black (like a cookpot, almost!), and the water might be a bit too hot, but you can much on the nice vegetables in the tub while you cook... i mean, relax...


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## EricNoah (Nov 14, 2005)

Before I knew otherwise, I believed our bodies were filled with "guts."  Not just the belly area, but all over.  And "guts" were just kind of vague, peanut-shaped blobs of bloody flesh.  No organs, just "guts."


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## diaglo (Nov 14, 2005)

when i came to the states and had the first drill at school i thought the world was gonna end in a big bang.

we climbed under our desks to avoid the "Fallout"

from the age of 5 until ... well heck i still think it.


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## der_kluge (Nov 15, 2005)

Eric, that's ok - the Flintstones and Popeye both really suck. So they are obviously creations of the devil.


The only funny thing like this I can think of as a child was one day we were riding home in the car, and my Dad had bought some sort of funnel. I fished it out of the bag and was blowing on it like a trumpet. Afterwards, I said that I'd given it a blow job. I'm surprised my Dad didn't wreck the car!  Don't know where I learned that word, but apparently had heard it somewhere.


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## Darth K'Trava (Nov 15, 2005)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I thought for a short time that if I turned the TV off, went away and did something else, then came back and turned it on that it would pick up where it left off.




I thought the same thing but with the radio.


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## fuindordm (Nov 15, 2005)

Watching my parents drive, I thought for a long time that the blinkers were telling them where to go.  After all, they went on_ before_ they started a turn.  I always wondered how they knew where we were going...

Ben


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## Jonny Nexus (Nov 15, 2005)

I used to think that people who took the foil lids of milk bottles rather than carefully piercing two holes in them were stupid moral degenerates. (This was because my dad insisted on doing this, and got incredibly upset if someone else got to the milk first and took the lid off).

I also thought that people who drove forward into parking spaces instead of reversing were stupid moral degenerates, again because of my father's influence.

Which made it very confusing to my little five-year old brain when we went to stay with my maternal grandfather, because he both took the lids off of milk bottles and drove forward into parking spaces.


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## FickleGM (Nov 15, 2005)

fuindordm said:
			
		

> Watching my parents drive, I thought for a long time that the blinkers were telling them where to go.  After all, they went on_ before_ they started a turn.  I always wondered how they knew where we were going...
> 
> Ben




I had an ex-girlfriend (19, but had never driven) who thought that cruise-control steered the car for me (she didn't realize that I was practicing the unsafe technique of knee steering at the time).


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## BiggusGeekus (Nov 15, 2005)

My Mom and Dad had one of those lovey-dovey books on how to raise children.  In the early part of the book, it had a "recipie for a happy child" or something like that.  The entries read

1/2 a cup of love
3 hugs
2 kisses


... like that.

I knew how to read _just enough_ that I could tell it was a recipie, but not enough that I could read the words without help.  My Dad "helped" me with the words and you can probably figure out what happened.  I ended up thinking it was a book on how to cook little kids.


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## EricNoah (Nov 15, 2005)

Remember Weebles?







The slogan was "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down."  I was very surprised that when I held them in mid-air and then released them, they fell to the floor.  I thought they wouldn't fall down!


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## RangerWickett (Nov 15, 2005)

Man, I must've been the smartest kid ever. I didn't believe any of this kooky stuff.

Of course, I grew up during the era of Unsolved Mysteries and The X-Files, so I, y'know, believed in aliens. I always wondered why the aliens would never abduct people like me, who believed in them and wanted proof. No, they only took the weird people on TV.

My cousin convinced his brother, who was 3 years younger and really annoying, that when boys hit puberty, all their fat turns into muscle. Poor kid . . . all he wanted was to have lots and lots of muscles. . . .


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## JoeBlank (Nov 15, 2005)

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> I thought the same thing but with the radio.




I remember explaining to my little sister that this was the main difference between the radio and TV, radio would "wait for you" when you turned it off, but TV programs kept going even if you were not watching.

Where did we get this idea?


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## dogoftheunderworld (Nov 15, 2005)

When I was growing up, my family doctor always told me to put my hand over one ear, while he was looking in the other-- you know, so the light wouldn't shine through.  Until I was about eighteen I fell for this, well, because why would a doctor lie to me, right?  Right?


When my kids were younger, we watched a lot of videos -- we didn't have cable and there just weren't that many good kid shows on.  When we got cable and started letting them watch TV, they couldn't figure out why they couldn't just Pause the shows when they went to the bathroom or while we ate dinner.


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## Warrior Poet (Nov 15, 2005)

JoeBlank said:
			
		

> Where did we get this idea?



Commercial repetition?  Same songs played over and over again?  Or maybe a sense that it was like a book, that it "started" where you left off?

*shrug*

Dunno.

Warrior Poet


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## sniffles (Nov 15, 2005)

Rel said:
			
		

> My 4 year old daughter is under the crazy impression that these bronze statues of children playing in the park are actual children who were dipped in bronze because they disobeyed their parents.
> 
> It's probably because I tell her that every time we go there.



Why does this not surprise me?


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## WayneLigon (Nov 16, 2005)

Jonny Nexus said:
			
		

> I used to think that people who took the foil lids of milk bottles rather than carefully piercing two holes in them were stupid moral degenerates. (This was because my dad insisted on doing this, and got incredibly upset if someone else got to the milk first and took the lid off).




(Bottles?!)

I remember one weird notion about milk. In first grade, it was a terrible, terrible thing to open _both _ ends of a milk carton. If you did it would 'let all the air out' and the milk would be ruined.


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## John Cooper (Nov 16, 2005)

> Rel:  My 4 year old daughter is under the crazy impression that these bronze statues of children playing in the park are actual children who were dipped in bronze because they disobeyed their parents.



Sounds like an excellent quest for Samantha the Red!


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## Torm (Nov 16, 2005)

I'll try not to get too graphic, but up until I was about 12 or 13, I had some rather unusual ideas about the orientation of female genitalia. Think: Parallel to the belly button.


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## Hypersmurf (Nov 16, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> I ended up thinking it was a book on how to cook little kids.




"To Serve Man..."

-Hyp.


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## fuindordm (Nov 16, 2005)

Torm said:
			
		

> I'll try not to get too graphic, but up until I was about 12 or 13, I had some rather unusual ideas about the orientation of female genitalia. Think: Parallel to the belly button.




How can something be parallel to a point???

I'm just not visualizing, and that's probably a good thing.  No need to elaborate further, really.

Ben


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## Torm (Nov 16, 2005)

fuindordm said:
			
		

> No need to elaborate further, really.



And yet ... I'll try again, anyway. Think: Perpendicular to the actual direction. And I REALLY didn't understand how one would use the restroom in that configuration.


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## Rel (Nov 16, 2005)

John Cooper said:
			
		

> Sounds like an excellent quest for Samantha the Red!




Hmm...this has possibilities.  Once again my twisted sense of humor and marginal parenting skills win the day!

(You do realize that I'm never going to become a better person at this rate, right? )


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## Ambrus (Nov 16, 2005)

When I was young, around 5 or so, I thought I was a budding genius because during an arts and crafts class in kindergarten it occurred to me that a piece of tape, rolled back and stuck to itself, would create an endless loop of sticky tape. Eureka! I had modified an existing product to be able to stick one surface back-to-back with another seamlessly. My teacher wisely and gratefully took my invention and promptly used it to stick the entire class' pictures to the classroom wall. Later on I discovered that news of my discovery had spread and soon it seemed everyone was making use of my new tape-loop™ technique.

My other big invention? Cookies and milk. Together. I started that.  

In retrospect, I think I was actually fairly stupid as a child.


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## Warrior Poet (Nov 16, 2005)

Ambrus said:
			
		

> My other big invention? Cookies and milk. Together. I started that.



You are a gentleman and a scholar and I salute you.   Your idea sure spread quickly, though.   

Warrior Poet


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## DungeonmasterCal (Nov 16, 2005)

Rodrigo Istalindir said:
			
		

> That one is true.  Vinegar on fries is a bad thing.




I love vinegar on fries.  More than I do ketchup.


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## Ambrus (Nov 16, 2005)

Warrior Poet said:
			
		

> You are a gentleman and a scholar and I salute you.   Your idea sure spread quickly, though.



Yeah. If I'd only known how these things were going to catch on I would have had them patented at the time. :\ 

I was robbed of that Nobel peace prize though. Do you know how many schoolyard fights are prevented annually by the sharing of cookies & milk™?


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## Prince Atom (Nov 16, 2005)

I thought there were boy-eating sharks at the deep end of the pool at the Y.

Both my dad and my fiancee's dad told us that television would rot our brains. Difference is, I knew my dad was kidding.

When I got _Link's Awakening_ for the Game Boy, I spent months wandering around the island looking for the heavy-lifting bracelets. Hadn't quite got the idea that they were hidden in the dungeon. Once I got stuck in the dungeon, I left and didn't go back. I thought they were hidden somewhere on the overworld.

World War II felt like a very, very ancient war to me.

TWK


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## kenobi65 (Nov 16, 2005)

I had two noteworthy ones.

1) I couldn't accept that pretty people (especially women) could be bad.  I have no idea where that came from, but it was definitely a misconception I had as a kid.

2) My father fostered this other one in me.  When I was about 7 or 8, we were driving on the tollway (we lived in Illinois at the time), and they had "rumble strips" in the pavement before each toll plaza.

"Dad, why do they put those things in the road?"
"So that blind drivers know that they have to stop and pay the toll."
"Oh, OK."

It took *years* for it to dawn on me that they didn't have rumble strips before, say, stoplights...and how would the blind drivers know when to turn???


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## DungeonmasterCal (Nov 16, 2005)

I used to watch the ground as I walked, imagining my footsteps were what made the world rotate.  It never occurred to me that when I changed direction, the sun still went down in the same place.


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## Darkness (Nov 16, 2005)

When I was, like, 3-5, I read the price of something in a bakery and noticed that 5 of some item cost less than (the price of one such item *5). Puzzled me quite a bit, but fortunately someone soon explained it.


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## Ferret (Nov 16, 2005)

I don't think I ever had one of those misconceptions. I always really skeptical as child though, whenever someone said something I didn't believe, I'd say "Really?". Everyone always explained it for me after that  .


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## Abstraction (Nov 17, 2005)

Just in the last week, my daughter has decided that angels and bats are the same thing. It came about when I was singing "Just call me angel in the morning" and had to explain the song. She decided that they were leaving each other in the morning to go home and go to bed. Because they go to bed in the morning, they must be bats. Because the song is about angels, angels must be bats.


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## Uzumaki (Nov 17, 2005)

All I remember thinking was that women could only be pregnant once, so I was confused when I would watch movies where there would be 2 children at different ages. What's even weirder is that I have an older brother and I still thought this.

I remember not believing everything my parents said, but I remember I believed everything my older brother would say, no question. He had me thinking I came from a chicken egg that he'd won a footrace for.

Me: This bottle of wine says 2-9-9. Does that means it's $299?
Him: Yup.
Me: Wow!

He doesn't do that anymore, but I'm so damn skeptical I think he's lying when he's actually telling the truth.

Him: Some guy stole a tank and is going on a rampage. (This was a few years ago.)
Me: LIAR!
Him: ... It's true. Look at the news.

He told me he used to think that people would never stop growing. Then he realized there was a lack of giant people around, so that couldn't be true.


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 17, 2005)

der_kluge said:
			
		

> The only funny thing like this I can think of as a child was one day we were riding home in the car, and my Dad had bought some sort of funnel. I fished it out of the bag and was blowing on it like a trumpet. Afterwards, I said that I'd given it a blow job. I'm surprised my Dad didn't wreck the car!  Don't know where I learned that word, but apparently had heard it somewhere.




I hope it bought you dinner first.

When I was potty training, my father apparently told me that when you flush the toilet, "it" went to San Bruno (a city south of San Francisco, and we lived in the Bay Area).  It was sort of a little game; I'd yell "flush it to San Bruno!" everytime I was done and my father would flush the toilet.  I guess it stuck in my head, because for many years thereafter, I was convinced that all toilet mains and sewers emptied somewhere in San Bruno.  To this day, I still avoid the place.


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## glass (Nov 18, 2005)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I remember one weird notion about milk. In first grade, it was a terrible, terrible thing to open _both _ ends of a milk carton. If you did it would 'let all the air out' and the milk would be ruined.



Never mind air, wouldn't that let all the milk out?


glass.


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## glass (Nov 18, 2005)

DungeonmasterCal said:
			
		

> I love vinegar on fries.  More than I do ketchup.



Me too. Although being English, I prefer to call them 'chips'.


glass.


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## Angel Tarragon (Nov 18, 2005)

glass said:
			
		

> Me too. Although being English, I prefer to call them 'chips'.
> 
> 
> glass.



<drool>



me too.


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## kyloss (Nov 18, 2005)

I thought Movie soundtracks were the sound from the whole movie-just no pictures.


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## LostSoul (Nov 18, 2005)

I used to think that every song on the radio was performed live, in the studio.


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## Darth K'Trava (Nov 18, 2005)

glass said:
			
		

> Me too. Although being English, I prefer to call them 'chips'.
> 
> 
> glass.




Only when it comes to "fish n' chips"....


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## Rel (Nov 18, 2005)

glass said:
			
		

> Never mind air, wouldn't that let all the milk out?
> 
> 
> glass.




If I'm understanding correctly, they are not talking about the top and bottom ends.  Most milk cartons in the US are made of a heavy, waxed paper (or thin cardboard you might call it).  They are folded in such a way that the top has two sides from which the milk can be poured.  One says "open" on it and the other does not.  That size usually has more of a wax seal on it so that opens rather poorly.  You'd usually wind up ripping up the whole top of the milk carton trying to get the "unauthorized" side open.  We called this "lactomangulation".


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## Henry (Nov 18, 2005)

Rel said:
			
		

> We called this "lactomangulation".




And here we see those same parenting skills in action... 

--I accidentally walked in on my mom in the bathroom once, and thought I was going to Hell for seeing my mother naked. Still have yet to test the theory. 

--I used to think that there was a buried treasure chest under a large double-trunked maple tree in my backyeard. The thing had a widespread, shallow root system, and very few places to dig anyway, but every day in summer I'd be out there, picking another place to dig for a few inches, hitting roots and giving up.


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## sniffles (Nov 18, 2005)

When I was fairly small, my family went to Arkansas to visit my great-uncle, who ran a dairy farm. I was very tired when we arrived and fell asleep on the couch. I dreamed that my uncle had a buffalo in the pasture next to the barn. For years I was convinced that my great-uncle really had a pet buffalo, until I mentioned it once to my mother and she stared at me like I'd grown a second head.


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## Nellisir (Nov 18, 2005)

For years I thought Vietnam was in Central America, near Nicaragua ... and Beirut.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Nov 18, 2005)

I used to think that Mormon women grew an extra set of arms for every kid they had.

I have _no idea_ where that idea came from. I didn't even know what Mormons were back then!


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## Tarrasque Wrangler (Nov 19, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> --I accidentally walked in on my mom in the bathroom once, and thought I was going to Hell for seeing my mother naked. Still have yet to test the theory.




Silly Henry.  If everyone of us who've seen your mother naked were going to Hell, Lucifer would have to add a 10th circle.

 :\ 

...I've said too much.


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## DungeonmasterCal (Nov 19, 2005)

sniffles said:
			
		

> When I was fairly small, my family went to Arkansas to visit my great-uncle, who ran a dairy farm.




Where, may I ask, in Arkansas?


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## Torm (Nov 19, 2005)

Tarrasque Wrangler said:
			
		

> If everyone of us who've seen your mother naked were going to Hell....



Oh SNAP!

Oh no ee didunt! Oh *no* ee didunt!


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## Rel (Nov 19, 2005)

Torm said:
			
		

> Oh SNAP!
> 
> Oh no ee didunt! Oh *no* ee didunt!




I was thinking something along these lines but your phrasing was better.  I bow to your greatness.


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## RithTheAwakener (Nov 19, 2005)

John Q. Mayhem said:
			
		

> I used to think that Mormon women grew an extra set of arms for every kid they had.
> 
> I have _no idea_ where that idea came from. I didn't even know what Mormons were back then!




LOL! Thats freakin priceless


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## Tinner (Nov 19, 2005)

When I was a boy, I took every word from my father's mouth as gospel.
Until he slipped up once and revealed that he didn't actually know everything.

Every Saturday morning, my father would get up early and cook breakfast for the whole family, letting my mom sleep in.
My dad worked his way through college as a short order cook in a diner, so he made excellent pancakes, french toast, etc.
Since I idolized my dad, I decided that one Saturday, I would get up even earlier than my dad, and cook breakfast for everyone too.

Now, I was probably 6 or seven years old, and had never made pancakes before. I didn't know about Bisquick and other pre-made mixes, so I knew I'd need a recipe.
Friday night I went up to my fahter, pencil and paper in hand, and asked for a recipe for pancakes.
Dad was watching the game on TV and flippantly rattled off "Take 10 cups of flour, a dozen eggs, 1 cup of milk ... etc."
I faithfully wrote down every word.

Saturday morning, I got up early and following my father's "reipe" to the letter proceeded to make DOZENS of the heaviest, most awful tasting pancakes.
It's a miracle those things were even edible.

Once my mother found out exactly WHY I had followed such a ridiculous recipe, she made certain that my father ate a nice big plate full of those pre-historic pancakes!


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## wingsandsword (Nov 20, 2005)

Tinner said:
			
		

> Once my mother found out exactly WHY I had followed such a ridiculous recipe, she made certain that my father ate a nice big plate full of those pre-historic pancakes!



Priceless.

Now, my parents were pretty good about not filling my head with nonsense.  My grandparents however, told plenty of tall tales.  My grandmother filled me full of historical inaccuracies, my grandfather did his best to discourage me from any scientific thoughts.

My grandmother told me that when she was little, she had to hide from the Indian attacks on her house so she wouldn't get scalped, and tell me fanciful tales of indian raids and frontiersmen from when she was a little girl.  (Her childhood being in the 1930's instead of 1830's, not very likely).  She also told me filled me full of a lot of very bad things to say about the Japanese, since her world view was stuck firmly in the 1940's and 1950's her universal villains were "japs" and "commies" when they weren't "injuns", my parents flipped when I started casually using racial epithets for them, not knowing anything else to say.  If I took all my grandmothers stories of childhood as fact, she never owned a pair of shoes until she was in her 20's, and walked dozens of miles in the middle of blizzards to get anywhere, everyday having to avoid Indian raids and mobster shoothouts while communists tried to burn down churches and close down the schools.  All in a tiny town of a few hundred people in rural Kentucky.

My grandfather was adamant, vehement that there was no such thing as "the speed of light", and told me my teachers were wrong, and to trust him or I'd "git a whoopin".  He told me that light didn't take 8 minutes to come from the sun, it took no time at all.  There was just the "speed of eyesight", "see, it don't take light no eight minutes to come from the sun, your eyesight will go to the sun and come back in no time at all!".  He taught me that my teachers were either intentionally lying or possessed by the devil, and trying to lead me astray when they said there was a big bang and evolution, and that I was beng "ignernt" when I talked about dinosaurs because there was no such thing and all those bones were a hoax being played by the devil.  He also taught me that disease came from the devil, not germs, and doctors were lying or "jes ignernt" when they talk about germs.  That and tobacco is healthy for you, gives you strength, and that "commies" want to ban or regulate it to weaken America.

Then I had the worst time mispronouncing so many words because I tried to pronounce words I read literally, I read Chaos as "chah-ohs" among others.


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## Rel (Nov 20, 2005)

wingsandsword said:
			
		

> If I took all my grandmothers stories of childhood as fact, she never owned a pair of shoes until she was in her 20's, and walked dozens of miles in the middle of blizzards to get anywhere, everyday having to avoid Indian raids and mobster shoothouts while communists tried to burn down churches and close down the schools.  All in a tiny town of a few hundred people in rural Kentucky.




Well, I think I've got the idea for my next campaign.


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## pogre (Nov 20, 2005)

I remember when Nixon resigned I assumed it was because he had lost the war (I was 7 at the time). Did not get the whole Watergate episode explained to me until High School.


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## glass (Nov 20, 2005)

I've been racking my brains since I found this thread, trying to think of childhood misconceptions, and I can't come up with much, but there were a couple:

I believed sex was just meant kissing, and later that it meant kissing with no clothes on, before I learned the truth.

I believed that the kilogram was a unit of weight, until I learned otherwise in physics. As do most kids, because for some inexplicable reason that's what they are taught.


glass.


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## Goblyn (Nov 20, 2005)

I used to think old people came apart.  This was because my grandfather had false teeth and after he took them out he would point at me and tell me to pull his finger. I never did because I thought it would come off.

I never realized the 'pull-my-finger' idea until sometime in high school.


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## Pielorinho (Nov 21, 2005)

Darth K'Trava said:
			
		

> I thought the same thing but with the radio.



I've got an hour-long commute to class, and usually I'm either listening to audiobooks or to news radio.  When I'm listening to an audiobook, sometimes I'll realize that I was spacing out for a minute or two and missed something, so I'll reach down and "rewind" (is that what you call it with CDs?)  the audiobook to the right section.

The problem is that when I'm listening to news radio, sometimes I'll realize that I've been spacing out and missed something, so I find myself reaching down to rewind the radio before I realize that I can't do that.  Need to get me a better radio.  Do they make RadiVo?

As for my childhood misconceptions:
1) I concluded that bird tails were extremely susceptible to dehydration, and that's why Sylvester T. Cat was always trying to sprinkle them with salt, because then their tails would shrivel up and they couldn't fly away.
2) Toilet bombs.  Not all toilets, but some toilets (especially those at school), were equipped by my enemies with a deadly bomb, activated by pulling the flush lever.  The bomb would explode when the toilet made its final gurgling sound, killing the person closest to the toilet.  I always made sure to exit the bathroom very quickly so that someone else would be closest to it and die in my place.  I wasn't a very self-sacrificing child.

Daniel


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## kenobi65 (Nov 21, 2005)

pogre said:
			
		

> Did not get the whole Watergate episode explained to me until High School.




OMG, that reminds me...

I was a couple of years older than you, but didn't really understand Watergate at the time, either.  One of the first times I overheard the word "Watergate" on the news, they also had a film of a flood on the same newscast.  In that film, they showed the flood waters moving through a cyclone fence.  So, somehow, my little brain combined the two, and I decided that "Watergate" had something to do with a flood that covered a fence (gate) somewhere....


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## DungeonmasterCal (Nov 21, 2005)

I spent the entire summer after my 3rd grade year recovering from complications due to an appendectomy lying on the couch.  We didn't have cable, so all I could watch were the Watergate hearings.


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## Steve Jung (Nov 22, 2005)

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> The problem is that when I'm listening to news radio, sometimes I'll realize that I've been spacing out and missed something, so I find myself reaching down to rewind the radio before I realize that I can't do that.  Need to get me a better radio.  Do they make RadiVo?



Here's one product that might fit the bill.


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## Thotas (Nov 22, 2005)

My parents thought that science fiction, horror and fantasy were bad for children's minds.  I rejected this idea completely, but one day I was watching an episode of the original "Outer Limits" ... without seeing the intro, mind you, with the "Control Voice".  It was an episode called "A Cry of Silence", in which a young couple finds themselves trapped by a hermit and some tumbleweeds that are being mind-controlled by an alien intelligence.  While watching it, my parents did their warning about how this material would negatively affect my brain.  I ignored them again, loved the show ... and then, a voice from the TV said "We now return control of your television set".  I thought (and I'm sure largely because of my parental warnings) that this was a transmission from the same alien controlling the hermit and the tumbleweeds -- and that watching the show would give the alien control over me!  From that day forward, I'd watch all the other SF shows and movies, but not the Outer Limits!


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## amethal (Nov 22, 2005)

My father used to listen a lot to Abba.

I knew they were Swedish, so I thought they must be singing in Swedish and that presumably there was some clever device attached to the radio which was translating it into English for us.


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## Zander (Nov 23, 2005)

When I was a kid, I thought that shaving made you smell bad. I came to this conclusion because my father splashed on nice smelling after-shave which I assumed was to mask the bad odour of shaving.   

I also thought that in 'olden days' everything was black and white because all the old films and photos were that way.


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## Zander (Nov 23, 2005)

fuindordm said:
			
		

> Watching my parents drive, I thought for a long time that the blinkers were telling them where to go.  After all, they went on_ before_ they started a turn.  I always wondered how they knew where we were going...



LOL    That's classic!


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## Aeson (Nov 23, 2005)

I thought fog was clouds that had not woke up yet.


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## der_kluge (Nov 23, 2005)

I'm struggling to think of some misconception I had as a child, and I'm at a loss. But I am amazed at how naive some of you were in your youth. Amazing stuff!


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## Aeson (Nov 23, 2005)

der_kluge said:
			
		

> I'm struggling to think of some misconception I had as a child, and I'm at a loss. But I am amazed at how naive some of you were in your youth. Amazing stuff!



You will come up with something. Every child has misconceptions.


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## Uzumaki (Nov 24, 2005)

I remembered another one. I thought that there was a car out there that all the other cars followed, like a huge race. Before the car in First Place, there were no other cars.


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## eabha (Nov 24, 2005)

I went to my first wedding when I was 3 or 4, and after seeing all the groomsmen lined up in their tuxedos, I thought the bride had her choice of husbands and simply picked the one she preferred. The bridesmaids then had to settle for whoever was leftover.


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## Blue (Nov 24, 2005)

dogoftheunderworld said:
			
		

> When my kids were younger, we watched a lot of videos -- we didn't have cable and there just weren't that many good kid shows on.  When we got cable and started letting them watch TV, they couldn't figure out why they couldn't just Pause the shows when they went to the bathroom or while we ate dinner.




This is my daughter.  We have a TiVo on one TV, and she just doesn't get the whole concept that shows are on at a specific time.  She assumes that the TV will show her the specific show she wants exactly when she wants it.  Lots of fun when we go visiting somewhere.

My sister-in-law also has a TiVo, and started keeping an episode of my daughter's favorite show.  Good short term solution, but I'm afraid all it's done is reinforce that TVs show what you want and when.  The idea of shows on at certain times, and shows starting on the hour and half hour is completely foreign to her.

*shrug*

Cheers,
Blue


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## ssampier (Nov 25, 2005)

I thought I was the only "weird" child. 

As a child, I misunderstood male genitalia.  I also thought, for some reason, they held urine. I thought that everyone had testes. I rationalized that males had two and women had one, since my father and I could "hold it" a lot longer than my mother.


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## Rogue765 (Nov 25, 2005)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> My cousin convinced his brother, who was 3 years younger and really annoying, that when boys hit puberty, all their fat turns into muscle. Poor kid . . . all he wanted was to have lots and lots of muscles. . . .






BEEFCAKE!!!


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## Abstraction (Nov 25, 2005)

I remember when I was young there was a freeway (Southfield freeway in Michigan) and that there was a sign that would say "Freeway end in 1/4 Mile" and then we would exit. In reality, the exit we took was the end of the freeway. I imagined that just past the exit we took there was simply a wall and there were all kinds of crashed cars there that hadn't heeded the signs warning. I remember being vaguely scared that we wouldn't exit one day. I don't remember how old I was, but I could read well on my own.


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## Richards (Nov 26, 2005)

I remember being confused as a child as to why we didn't get into trouble when my Dad drove by the "DO NOT PASS" signs on the road.  I thought they meant "DO NOT PASS THIS SIGN POSTED HERE."

Johnathan


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