there is a venue near my parents' home called "private dancer/adult bookstore." i always wanted to go there when i was little because it combined the two things i loved so much: dancing and books. i was taking tap lessons at the time, and thought one day i'd be able to perform there, my first step on my way to broadway. also, i was jealous of the adults who went to the "adult bookstore." i thought that meant they were books for people who were advanced readers. i couldn't wait until i was well read enough to go there. little did i know they were all picture books.

kel

When my brother and I were younger, my mother didn't want us wandering around in the grocery store and getting into things. For that reason, she told us that it was illegal to get out of the shopping cart. "What about the other children that are out of the cart?" we asked. "Their mommies are going to be arrested."

gullible child

My brother and I believed that we could make a fort behind the rows of toilet paper in the supermarket. Then we would wait until the store closed and eat everything in sight.

Anon

My sister would always bring a lunch size bag of potato chips whenever we went to a department store. She didn't eat them herself, she would feed them to the mannequins. She believed that they came to life after the store was closed and they were relying on children to leave some food behind because adults did not know they were alive.

Little Lisa's Sister

I used to believe that the "black market" was a physical flea market somewhere in Central America where you could buy stolen paintings and Russian tanks.

Shannon Hubbell

I believed when I was a child that a man lived in the Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket (on top of the sign) and he was always chasing his furniture while it kept turning.

Caro

I used to belive that when shops closed at the end of the day, the shopkeeper took all the things off the shelves and took them home... only to bring them back the next morning and put them back again.

Wayne UK

When I was little, my dad told me that when the mall closed at night, zombies came out and ate all the people who were locked inside. It backfired, though, one night when we were still at the mall at closing time and I started freaking out.

Marian

When I was around five, I asked my older brother where store mannequins came from; he told me that these were shoplifters that the store's boss had shot a ray at that turned them into stone, and that is why they were in such odd poses, as they were desperately running away when the ray got them- separate hand, arm, foot, and leg mannequins were grazing hits by the same ray, or when the store decided to show some mercy. I decided never to shoplift, and was in fear that I would see someone that I recognized as a mannequin someday.

Pat Flannery

When I was about three years old, the elevator Mother and I were riding in somehow skipped the ground floor and we went all the way to the basement. It was dark and spooky and there was a garbage incinerator in it. Men were feeding broken cardboard boxes and other trash into it and the fire was very high. I thought we had accidentally gone all the way down to Hell. I had nightmares about elevators for years.

Texas granny