One day at a restaurant, my brother misunderstood our family discussion about snorting coke (we thought it was a funny concept).

He tried inhaling his Pepsi through the straw into his nose, and then proceeded to sneeze pepsi-snot on the tablecloth!

Stig

when my mother said someone 'didnt drink' that this referred to everything, not just alcohol. I dont know how they survived...mabye they were some human version of a camel.

Gareth B Jenkins

When my brother was around seven or eight he developed a strange obsession with orange juice. At one stage he was drinking so much of it we began to get rather concerned. The truth was finally revealed one morning when my mum spotted him carefully examining a carton. 'Mum', he said. 'If I drink loads of long-life orange, do you think I'll have a REALLY long life?'

Clare Batt

When I asked my sister why Mountain Dew was yellow she told me it was because it was made with Mountain Goat pee. Oddly enough, this thrilled me, because I liked goats, and I thought that drinking Mountain Dew would give me special powers to climb mountains and join them.

bubbles

When I was 5 my mother and I were riding in the car, somehow I managed to drop my can of pop. I went to open it, and my mother quickly stopped me from doing so and explained to me that my pop would explode if I opened it. Well you can imagine what was running through my head... she then said I would just need to tap the top of the can with my finger for a little while. So some time had passed, about a half hour probably longer... and my mother looked in the back seat... I was still tapping the pop... my mom said it is fine to open it now... well at that point I burst into tears... and explained to her that I didn't want it to explode and we should just get rid of it. To this day... I will never forget the fear I experienced on that car ride, and every time I tap my pop, I remember sitting in the back seat of that car thinking I had something explosive in my hands.

Jessie

When I was about 10, I was drinking the last can of Coke. I wanted some more, so I took a Pepsi that was in the refrigerator since it's pretty much the same. My dad, not wanting me to drink anymore, told me that if I drank Coke and Pepsi together, it would bubble up into my lungs and I'd suffocate and most likely die. She told me that the reason they had the Coke and Pepsi at opposite ends of the isle in the store was so if they were to spill it wouldn't explode. I believed this for about three years. My friends all thought I was nuts when I would ever so daringly get a cup of each, spill them on top of each other while outside, and run like a mad woman.

Amanda

I used to believe that the date stamped on soda cans and other beverages saying "For best taste, drink by..." meant that the beverage would taste the best on that exact date. I tried saving a can of Coke for about 2 years so that I could savor the "best taste." I thought this applied to milk as well, and learned the hard way that it didn't.

Jong

I was always told that beer was made from horse pee.

Just me

One of the saddest moments of my life, and the pivotal moment that ended my childhood innocence and started me on a life as a bitter cynic, occured the morning after one of my parent's parties.
It was early on a Sunday morning, probably in the fall of 1964 or 1965. There had been one of my parent's parties the night before. My father was an executive in a construction company, and often held parties to which he would invite clients and business friends. When my younger brother and I came downstairs to the family room in the finished basement, there was the usual collection of empty beer bottles, filled ash trays, rumpled paper napkins and such. Our parents were still asleep upstairs. We knew not to try to swig the leftover beer from the bottles (my brother had found a cigarette in one after the last party). I had always been fascinated by hard liquor, in particular by scotch. I had gotten the idea somewhere that scotch must taste like butterscotch. Perhaps I assumed that because of the evident gusto with which some of my father's friends drank the stuff. At any rate, I decided that this morning was the time to taste scotch for myself.
Taking the half-empty bottle from the ledge which served as a bar, I removed the cap and took a large drink directly from the bottle.
Of course, I immediately spit what was left in my mouth out across the room in a fine spray. The portion I had already swallowed was rapidly searing a path through-not down-my esophagus and boring a deep hole in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't breath, I couldn't talk. I could only choke and gasp, trying vainly to convey to my brother that I was in the process of dying.
When I could finally catch my breath and utter comprehensible sounds, I told my brother that "Dad must have put kerosine in this bottle!"
Well, that was it. The moment when I realized that childhood fanasies were just that-fantasies, with no basis in reality. Reality was sharp and bitter and stung and burned. Scotch did not, of course, taste at all like butterscotch. Grownups drank the stuff not because it tasted good, but for some other horrible, yet to be determined but undoubtedly evil, reason. So it would be for all my naive childhood perceptions. They would all have to be abandoned or at least re-evaluated in light of this painful new experience.

March Warn

My mother drank alot of coffee, so I would ask her for some. She always told me coffee made you ugly! I have never drank coffee.

cab

My dad used to drink Mountain Dew like it was going out of style and for some reason, one day he told me it is was panther piss. I looked on the ingredients and when I informed my father of this he told me they couldn't do that or no one would buy it.I believed that it was at least partially true and when I was about 16 and at Taco Bell drive-thru I ordered a 'medium panther piss'. Needless to say I didn't get a mountain dew. When I was about 19 somehow the discussion about it came up and my father almost had a heart attack when he found out that I actually believed him.

LJ

My wife used to believe that Apple Juice was just urine. In her whole life she has never tasted Apple Juice because she is still not convinved it is not urine.

ELB366

My dad used to tell me that sugar only worked in drinks if you stirred it clockwise. If you wanted to switch it off you just stirred it the other way
I believed this until about 11 years old

n

When I was a little boy, my mom was VERY health concious. In the grocery store, I asked my mom to buy some Kool Aid. She refused, saying that it was bad for your teeth. I said, "Then why do they even MAKE it?". She said, "For people who want their teeth to rot.". I took her 100% literally and was horrified to think that there were people in the world who actually WANTED their teeth to rot and would buy a product specifically made for that purpose!

Joe

When I was younger (about 6 or so) I used to believe that "concentrate" (you know, written on orange juice labels) was an actual place (as in a 3rd world country) where they just grew bad fruit. I used to think that the fruits were grown dried-out because the soil didn't have enough water (because they couldn't afford it of course), so they had to add water to the juice when it came to America.
That's why I never liked juice from concentrate.

I believed this up until I was 11.

Powdered-Juice MAn

I used to think that 'Dilute to taste' meant that if you didn't add water you couldn't taste it. One day I downed a glass full of undiluted Ribena and realised my error.

DegenerateTaoistJuggler

I used to think that orange squash was called 'sum' because when my mum would pour my brother a drink she would ask me 'Do you want sum?'

Rick

When I was four or five, my grandmother always told me not to drink my tea with the spoon in the cup. She told me I would have an accident. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I realized that I would poke out my eye. I actually believed that I would fall down the steps or get hit by a car or some other horrible thing would happen to me.

Dolores

When I was 2nd-3rd grade, I use to believe that drinking Gatorade would turn your blood into the color of that drink. Drinking green Gatorade would turn your blood green, etc..

Koo

I had my brother convinced that the Coke and Pepsi people hated each other so much that they put chemicals in the drink that would kill you if you mixed Coke and Pepsi in your stomach. So, you had to pick just one and stick with it.

Mean Big Brother