Until I was about 13 or so, my Dad had me convinced that he could magically sniff out McDonald's restaurants. He said their fries had a special smell that made it easy.

Athazagoraphobia

my mother and i used to walk to the store behind my house, across some sand dunes on the Navajo reserve, and i used to believe that the shadows cast by a streetlamp on the ripples of sand were holes and that I couldn't get across without her carrying me.

logique

My half-brother (who is much older than me) told me, when we went to McDonald's, that the red light on the ventilation shaft was a camera and that if I didn't finish my Happy Meal before I played with the toy someone would come out and get me.

Gullible Half - Brother Of Sam

my sisters once convinced me that people had stuck razor blades in the waterslides at magic mountain (adelaide amusement park), thus slicing up any unwary children. the practicalities of installing razors into the slides whilst sliding down never entered my head, nor did the fact that my sisters continually emerged unsliced. i think they actually just didn't want their little brother tagging along.

bob

In grade school, I thought a booster shot was where the doctor would place you in a booster seat, like the brown boxy plastic kind in restaurants, and then shoot you with a gun. It would hurt (just like my older sister said they did), but it would somehow be good for you, once you healed. Man, did doctor's appointments freak me out for the longest time.

J.J.D.H.

i used to believe that the carosel was going to eat my sandals. while riding on the carosel pony,i would pinch my toes together as hard as i could to prevent my sandals from falling off.

sara m.

When we were little, my mother told my sister and I that every time we saw the fluorescent orange or pink surveyor's flags tied to stakes in the woods, that it meant the Girl Scouts had been there. If the flags were green or blue, it meant the Boy Scouts (of course!) had been there. On a Sunday drive when I was about 20, I saw some orange flags in a wooded area off the road. I said to my mom, "Look! The Girl Scouts were here!" She laughed so hard she almost crashed the car. She had forgotten she told us and was surprised that we had remembered it - and still thought that's what they were.

Anon

My four-year old believed that my daughter and I stood outside his school in the spot we dropped him off and came to get him the entire time he was in his kindergarten-one. One day when he noticed something new in the house, he asked from where it came. I told him that I had bought it while walking home after dropping him off. He was devastated to discover that I actually walked home, stayed there for a while, and then returned to the school

Grandma Bear

My parents told me we were going to dinner and were going to see a floor show. I waited and waited and waited, but the floors didn't do anything except lay there. But the singers and dancers were great!

Anon

When I was about 3 or 4 my parents & I would often drive from Guelph to Toronto to visit my Grandmother. The trip home always felt longer...especially late in the evening. In reponse to my constant inquiry "are we there yet?", my mother would say "yes, I can see the Guelph lights now". I remember spending trip after trip trying to decipher the "Guelph" lights from the "Toronto" lights...how could she tell the difference??? I remember coming to the conclusion that "Toronto" lights were yellow (many of the city's highway ramp lights are) and that Guelph lights were white.

Shannon

My parents took my cousin and me to Madame Tussaudes waxworks in London. After about and hour or so my cousin said 'I'm fed up with all these people, when are we going to get into the cinema?'

Mike B. London

my parents and some friends rented a beach hut for a week one summer when i was about 5/6. i was confused when we gor there and there werent any beds i had no idea where we were going to sleep. no-one had thought to tell me that the beach hut is just for visiting everyday and that you go home later. i thought we were all going on holiday even though the beach was only 10 minutes from home!

gertie gitana

When I was a little boy of around 3, my family visited HMS Victory (Nelson's flag ship @ Trafalgar) in Portsmouth. Try as they might they could not get me to go aboard. I remember kicking and screaming in my effort to stop them, I thought we were going to sail away on this very old & unsafe looking ship. I did eventually did go onboard when my older sister told me that Nelson slept in a cot, just like me, naturally I had to see this cot for a grown man!

RJS

When I was 10, my family went on vacation and stayed at Circus Circus in Las Vegas. One of the sideshow acts was "Gorilla Girl," where a "scientist" changed a woman into a gorilla. For some reason I was terrified...totally bought into the illusion...especially when the "gorilla" broke her cage door and rushed the stage. I was outside before my poor father knew what to do!

Lisa