Goofy shit you thought as a kid...

[Guest]

With my own son getting older, I'm wondering what stuff he thinks right now about how the world works.

Case in point:

I head about someone getting fired when I was a kid and thought that literally meant they were set on fire. 

Wrestling was real.

I didn't like that my mom would drink and drive when she sipped a Diet Coke in the car.

What kind of silly thing did you believe as a child?

 

 

[Braff Zacklin 13559]

20 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

With my own son getting older, I'm wondering what stuff he thinks right now about how the world works.

Case in point:

I head about someone getting fired when I was a kid and thought that literally meant they were set on fire. 

Wrestling was real.

I didn't like that my mom would drink and drive when she sipped a Diet Coke in the car.

What kind of silly thing did you believe as a child?

When Elvis died, I asked my parents what killed him.

"He drank too much," was their reply.

My pre-preschool self spent a short amount of time terrified of large glasses of water after that.

[MAUFRAIS 6623]

I thought that the water tower out at the end of Mopac past the dollar theater towards Joy and Hooters was the “McDonald’s Observatory.”

A little further along that route when going to Dallas, I thought that longhorn in front of the Westinghouse building was Bevo.

[Upgrayedd 5810]

We would have flying cars by now.

[Da Fino 2780]

I thought Lou Diamond Phillips actually died in a plane crash while filming La Bamba. I was scared of tabasco for a long time because I heard it took down Babe Ruth. 

[Bender Bending Rodriguez 1678]

I thought our house was bought at a grocery store after having its bar code rung up at the register. I also thought the song “Secret Agent Man” was “Secret Asian Man”. 

[Sbbruin 21844]

I was certain that if I swallowed a watermelon seed a watermelon would grow in my stomach.

[hookemATL 11715]

I always took ad campaigns really seriously as a kid, so I did my best to avoid the Noid. 
 

But he found me. And he did…things to me. 

[Guest]

Darth Vader can't get me if I'm under the covers.

Errant Stormtrooper blasts also rendered harmless. 

[LebongJames 1805]

I thought my parents were rich… boy was I wrong

[Baboontyme 2810]

My kids have both told me separately that when they were younger they thought the world used to be black and white. Kind of mind blowing if you really think about it. 

[Knoxtnhorn 5974]

Not really a thought, by my brothers and I got sick of our parents' shit one year, loaded up the Radio Flyer w/ snacks, and decided to walk from N. Dallas to our grandparents' house in Brownwood.  In our defense, we did get a good 2-3 miles before getting caught.

I was sure I was going to succumb to quicksand at some point in life.

I thought male nipples were called, "tillies".

 

[Chris Dishman's Donut 192]

Street lights were turned on & off by a dwarf that slept in the housing.

 

 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

Yeah I thought quicksand and the Bermuda triangle were much bigger threats than they turned out to be.

 

I thought John Wayne actually died in the shootist, and cried my eyes out, my mom explained was a movie and it wasn't real. Then my dad said that was true but he was dead in real life too.

[Post Oak 20210]

I though acid rain and quicksand were going to be a much bigger problem.

[ztejas 43419]

13 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

I thought John Wayne actually died in the shootist, and cried my eyes out, my mom explained was a movie and it wasn't real. Then my dad said that was true but he was dead in real life too.

Yeah came here to post something similar. I thought when people and animals died in movies - specifically battle scenes - that they were actually dying. 

[Atxracer 797]

45 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

I was certain that if I swallowed a watermelon seed a watermelon would grow in my stomach.

My dad came downstairs searching for a knife while my mom was yelling at him one day. I asked what happened and he replied “i ate a watermelon seed awhile ago and it just came out”.  Was really careful with them for awhile. 

In an effort for my older brother to preserve the Oreos, he told me the center of them was whale fat. That lasted until high school. 

He also drank out of the milk jug and told me the last 3rd or so was backwash. I still wont drink after anyone besides my wife.  

[dcbc 14472]

Reading some of these, it's a bit of a wonder some of you didn't perish in tragic household accidents involving electric outlets or garbage disposals. 

 

I'm sure I believed in some dumb shit at some point, but I can't think of a single thing at this moment.  However, I knew a girl that goes to my son's high school, who told me that for a long time, she didn't realize eggs came from chickens.  When I asked where she thought they came from, she sheepishly said, "Eggplants."  I think she said she was around 13 when she finally learned the truth.

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

If we're including other kids, my youngest cousin has a friend that thought Alaska was an island near Hawaii due to how they are sometimes displayed on a map of the US. 

 

 

 

 

She is now a stripper 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Grade of D as in David
She was a senior in HS when she thought this

[Scheiss Meister 8407]

I, too, thought that people who died on TV or in the movies really died, but I thought that they were on death row and were given a choice of riding the lightning or dieing in the movies.

I thought that there were still giant radioactive ants and tarantulas roaming the West, looking to eat me.

There was an old stone building with barred windows a couple of blocks from my house that every kid I knew believed to be a portal to hell that had been sealed off.

And I was convinced that The Creature From The Black Lagoon roamed the sewer system, biding his time until he could reach up through the toilet or bathtub drain and grab me.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Scheiss Meister
And another one.

[Dnaguy 11947]

I had a dream once that there was a portal to animated shows like GI Joe, Ninja Turtles, and Masters of the Universe down the stairs at the Lion exhibit at the Houston zoo…. And somehow convinced myself that it wasn’t a dream but real. I was stone cold convinced that it existed to the point where my parents took me to the zoo to show me that I was full of shit.

But being that my parents were cheap as fuck they let me go on and on about it until the next federal holiday so they wouldn’t have to pay to take me and my brother.

I was crushed when I discovered there was no portal. 

[Dnaguy 11947]

Oh and in kindergarten our class was learning about Japan as it was 1989 and Japan was probably going to run the world soon. 
Anyway, at the end of the lesson we were told to be ready for our field trip to Japan tomorrow!

I went home fucking ecstatic. Told my parents to pack the suitcase, DNAkid was headed to the land of the rising sun.

My parents tried to tell me I wasnt actually going to Japan.

I was like bull shit. The teachers told us. Oh well. Guess I just buy my clothes when I get there.

get to school the next day. Chairs are arranged like airplane seating. Teachers hand out Dixie cups of rise with a piece of seaweed in it.

I get so angry and pissed off that I lose my shit and cry. I accuse the teachers of lying. I make a huge scene. Call them all liars while being escorted out of the class. My parents get called and brought in for a parent teacher conference. This is my first of many of those throughout my academic career in which teachers assume my parents are being super tough on me at home only to realize that I just take school and learning WAY too intensely all by myself.

I did eventually go to Japan some 25 years later. Cool place. But not near as cool as it would have been in 1989 for 5 year old DNAkid.
 

[Rudiger 1162]

7 hours ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

With my own son getting older, I'm wondering what stuff he thinks right now about how the world works.

Case in point:

I head about someone getting fired when I was a kid and thought that literally meant they were set on fire. 

Wrestling was real.

I didn't like that my mom would drink and drive when she sipped a Diet Coke in the car.

What kind of silly thing did you believe as a child?

 

 

I thought the same thing on drinking and driving. I mean, the commercials just said "don't drink and drive."

[Zepol87 9185]

48 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

If we're including other kids, my youngest cousin has a friend that thought Alaska was an island near Hawaii due to how they are sometimes displayed on a map of the US. 

 

 

 

 

She is now a stripper 

You have my attention sir. 

 

My dad racing modifieds at Devils Bowl meant he was the same as a Nascar driver even though he was a plumber by day. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by Zepol87

[Macanudo 12976]

I though that having an erection longer than 4 hours was really something to be worried about.

[nnm 36365]

My daughter (no pics) is 27 years old and a PA. A very bright young woman. She was raised until 9 in Santa Fe, where there’s a store called Jackalope and where a common postcard has a jackalope on it. 
She thought, until last year, that jackalope were real. 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

I thought people just sort of “got” pregnant.  Something like that glowing orb that brings in Glenda the Good Witch of the North floats down into their belly or something.  I can still picture it in my mind what my imagination was telling me.  I remember asking my mom if it was possible to get pregnant without being married, with my unspoken assumption being confusion that the orb must somehow incorporate that timing component. 

[ScottS 1062]

2 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

My kids have both told me separately that when they were younger they thought the world used to be black and white. Kind of mind blowing if you really think about it. 

I distinctly remembering asking my dad when I was a child if he remembered the first day that was in color.

[Zepol87 9185]

Yea I definitely thought that as well. 

[Baboontyme 2810]

So wild to me. But if I stop to actually think about it, I'm pretty sure there were some b&w sets around when I was a kid. Black and white film was a thing. And I also remember it being kind of a big deal when they colorized The Wizard of Oz. If it weren't for some of those things would I have known? I'd love to hear the response to this question from kids. 

[Surly Bevo 24908]

My "great" godfather (I had two sets) had a sudden heart attack and died in the middle of the night when they were visiting us from South Carolina when I was about 4 or 5.  I was told when I woke up the next morning.  Asked my mom, "did he drive his station wagon up to heaven?"  

She still tells that story.  

[tfoolry 8210]

I thought this demon was living under my bed for a couple years.  I never would get up to pee as thought it would stab my feet. 
 

 

 

 

[Braff Zacklin 13559]

4 hours ago, Baboontyme said:

My kids have both told me separately that when they were younger they thought the world used to be black and white. Kind of mind blowing if you really think about it. 

 

2 hours ago, ScottS said:

I distinctly remembering asking my dad when I was a child if he remembered the first day that was in color.

 

1 hour ago, Zepol87 said:

Yea I definitely thought that as well. 

Seems we all had the same father.

[DeweyCox 366]

I got lost looking for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow…for about 15 hours. Mid-day start, had to sleep in the deep woods overnight, found my way to a dirt road next morning…got home and nobody was even looking for me. Part of me was sad that nobody noticed but most of me was just glad I didn’t get my butt whooped.

Also, my moms friends threw her an “over the hill” party when she turned 40. I sat in the closet and cried because I thought she couldn’t possibly have much longer to live…once she made it over that hill.

*oh, and I used to roll a bowling ball under my bed to make sure there were no monsters under there

Edited October 11, 2022 by DeweyCox
Add-on

[Sam Lin 3556]

I thought married people had more sex.

[Davis Lane 5582]

"The Dream Police, they come to pee in my bed."

[gsoda3 3254]

maybe doesn't qualify, but i didn't know narwhals were a real animal til my mid 30s.

[CycleTex87 2967]

I thought we would all die in a nuclear holocaust.

Wait....

[Sandman 3403]

When I was in preschool, I would watch Batman with Adam West and think that I could climb inside the tv and help Batman catch the bad guys. I just couldn't figure out how to get the cover off of the tv. I also thought the guys that got killed in westerns were guys from prison that were gonna be killed regardless. 

My folks were staining a fence once and I really wanted to help. Mom said no, if I got the stuff on my hand, it would eat away my flesh and I would just have a skeleton hand. I ran like hell away from them and into the house. I believed that shit for years, until a kid a school said my folks really just wanted me to GTFO and not make a mess. 

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Sandman said:

My folks were staining a fence once and I really wanted to help. Mom said no, if I got the stuff on my hand, it would eat away my flesh and I would just have a skeleton hand. I ran like hell away from them and into the house. I believed that shit for years, until a kid a school said my folks really just wanted me to GTFO and not make a mess. 

Dad told me that if I didn't start swimming and just walked around the pool, eventually the skin on my feet would be taken off. 

[Prepuce of Doom 21066]

I thought that Dracula from The Electric Company lived under my basement stairs (just horizontal wooden planks - no back to them), and that if I didn't go up and down fast enough, he would reach through, grab my ankles, and drag me under the stairs where he'd drink my blood. 

Spoiler

It blew my fucking mind later in life when I realized that this was Morgan Freeman. 

I also thought that a ninja lived under my bed, and that if I reached over to my nightstand to get a drink or a Kleenex, he would throw a throwing star and sever my hand/arm, so I had to be very fast, and only reach for things in a real emergency. 

[Hammerin Hank 1227]

In Back To The Future 3 when Marty has the duel with Tannen I thought it was a real gun with a real bullet, and that actor must have been a real good shot to hit the piece of iron Marty had under his shirt. I even asked my mom if it would have hurt to get shot while wearing that plate. She had to explain to me what blanks were 

[After irth 1243]

I was a Senior in HS before I realized where Pickles came from.  I just assumed they grew on a tree or something.

As a young kid, I thought "gross" was pronounced like "cross" when I would read it, and I didn't actually know what the word meant, even though I used the word "gross" verbally.  I didn't put it together until I was corrected.  Whenever I read it, I thought it meant "unacceptable" or something similar.  Stupid vagaries of the English language.....  

[Amos Moses 795]

I used to think:

That it was “bob” wire
That knowing was indeed half the battle
That water proof shoes kept my socks dry
That Eric Metcalf was the best football player I’d ever see
That the Spurs and Astros would never win it all
That Hickory Farms summer sausage was delicious
That you can never eat too much homemade big red ice cream
That riding in the back of grandpa’s truck as he swerved curb to curb was fun
That my camouflage hat with neck flaps was awesome
That the best way to spend a late summer afternoon was a swim in the creek after chasing armadillos with my brothers and the dog

[shakahorn 1645]

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet as I think this was quite common, but I thought you could dig a hole all the way through the earth and come out in China.  A couple of buddies and I actually had a 'secret project' in the woods where we would sneak off to and dig the hole without telling anyone.  The plan was to get the hole big enough so we could put dynamite in it which would help us get to China faster.  I don't remember where or how we were gonna get dynamite.

The hole got to be about 2 feet deep and 2 feet square before we moved on to the next secret project.

[Jerry Callo 8700]

Just now, shakahorn said:

Surprised this hasn't been posted yet as I think this was quite common, but I thought you could dig a hole all the way through the earth and come out in China.  A couple of buddies and I actually had a 'secret project' in the woods where we would sneak off to and dig the hole without telling anyone.  The plan was to get the hole big enough so we could put dynamite in it which would help us get to China faster.  I don't remember where or how we were gonna get dynamite.

The hole got to be about 2 feet deep and 2 feet square before we moved on to the next secret project.

Paging @CleverNickname

[Underdog 28614]

That bands/singers were actually at the radio station(s) to perform their songs. 

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

50 minutes ago, Hammerin Hank said:

In Back To The Future 3 when Marty has the duel with Tannen I thought it was a real gun with a real bullet, and that actor must have been a real good shot to hit the piece of iron Marty had under his shirt. I even asked my mom if it would have hurt to get shot while wearing that plate. She had to explain to me what blanks were 

Is your last name Baldwin?

['stache 21803]

I thought mommies got pregnant from kissing boys (thank my hardcore repressed catholic upbringing for that one).

I asked my dad if we could stop by the baseball card shop because it had a "Now Open" sign and didn't believe him when he explained to me that it was actually closed at that particular moment.

Same with drinking and driving, thought it was any type of drink.

Was totally confused that Nancy Reagan was telling us that drugs were bad but we frequented the local drug store.

That the Texas Rangers represented all of Texas and played everywhere in Texas.

That sports teams were owned by their cities (I couldn't understand how the Oilers could just move somewhere else).

That the Dallas Cowboys were always the best team and always would be the best team.

[strangulation! 1716]

i didn't know what a yawn was called, nor could i figure out until i was like 7 how to ask the name of that act.