Eating cookies when they're still warm from the oven will make you violently ill. That's why you have to ask Mommy before you take one.

MaryK

When I was 4, I deeply believed that eating ants is healty and even lenthen my life, so I ate "an ant a day" alive from my yard. I still remember the sour taste.

Yuping

I used to believe that the tiny bits of food left in the gravy when you've finished eating were calories. I knew that eating too many calories was a bad thing, so I always made sure I left some.

Nick

When my parents were out and my Sister looked after me, she used to make up a drink from jelly cubes. I used to love this but after I had drunk it she said if I stopped moving it would set in my stomach as a big jelly...so I would keep jiggling about for about an hour.

Ally

When i was young, my Granny, aunts, uncles and of course papa and mama used to tell us that if you didnt finish every bit of rice(we asians here have rice as staple) off your plate, whatever thats left over on it will appear of your future husband/wife's face as pockmarks and pimple. And i figured what its noodles that left over? oh man, wouldnt that be scars that would appear then?! Up till now, i still kinda believe in it.

Skeletony

I used to believe that if you didn't wash apples that you would get poisoned and die. I also thought this is why Adam was kicked out of the garden of Eden. "You know, they should have washed those apples before they ate them."

Anon

I moved to the USA when I was a kid and had to learn english on my own. I didn't understand much about what was going on around me. Lunch time was hell because I was on my own. I knew what a jelly fish was, but I didn't know that 'jelly' by itself meant something. I thought for months that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches served at the school cafeteria were actually peanut butter and jelly fish sandwiches. Needless to say I brought my own lunch on these days.

ricolarno

When I was a kid I was told by my Mom that if I didn't go to bed before 10pm Pumpkins would come after me. I really don't know why she said Pumpkins of all things but it still scared me. I always pictured Pumpkin heads rolling up my driveway and into my front door. It scared me enough so that I always went to bed earlier than 10.

Allie

When I was little, I heard my mother call my belly button a "navel." A few days later, she offered me a navel orange. I was convinced that it was some sort of belly button fruit and from then on I spent hours cleaning out my navel with Q-tips and antiseptic.

Kelly

When I was about 4 or 5, I had (and for some reason loved) a children's book about Louis Pasteur, which had illustrations of rabid dogs with white foam all around their mouths. One day, a family friend served me some blueberry pancakes with blueberries for eyes and a whipped cream smile, and I FLIPPED OUT. I cried softly at the table and when everyone asked me what was wrong, I told them that I couldn't eat my pancakes because they had rabies.

hyperchondriac child