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

When I was little I didn't understand the concept of the intercoms at Meijers stores very well. I thought that the building had a second story, and that there were people who were paid to lay on their stomachs on the 2nd floor and talk down through the intercoms in the ceiling. I just imagined all these people spread out flat on the second floor, doing nothing but talking through holes in the floor so that we could hear them.

olivesmarch4th

The supermarket my mother frequented placed the Wise potato chips on the bottom shelf.
As a preschooler I used to run down the chip aisle in fear because I believed that the eye on every single bag of Wise potato chips was staring at me.
I believed that they wanted to "get me."

Anon

I used to believe that the short display beds at department stores were for dwarfs.

p

When I was little, I believed in "good" and "bad" shops. I hadn't quite grasped the object of getting change when you didn't pay them the exact amount, so I thought that nice shops gave you money back for shopping with them, and nasty shops didn't. I can remember thinking I was really smart with my little theory, until one shocking day...We'd been to sainsburys before and they's always given us change, so I thought they liked me. One day though, WE DIDNT GET ANY CHANGE. My parents started walking off so I stood by the cashtill waiting.They eventually had to drag me away screaming "they dont like me anymore!!"

Emily (dumbass)

Years ago, when VCR's and Beta machines were newly available for household use, I remember going to video rental stores and seeing areas that had curtains over the entrance. I was told that there were poronographic movies there, and I thought they were filming them, not renting and selling them! (No, I didn't try to peek through the curtains, you pervert!)

Mojo!

When I was about seven years old I remember seeing the "adult store" sign while riding in the car and thinking that I can't wait until I am big enough to start wearing adult sized clothing instead of little kid sizes. My Mom had to gingerly explain that it was not that kind of store.

anon

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

There are these metal devices used to measure what one's shoe size is. And when I was little I used to believe that these things were made to cut off your foot so whenever a sales clerk in a shoestore approached me with one I'd promptly run away crying hysterically.

Christina

I used to believe that the phrase "window shopping" actually referred to the act of shopping for new windows.

I spent much of my youth wondering why my mother wanted so many windows, as well as why she was finding it so hard to find any as she always came home empty handed.

Andy A

When my dad and I went to the new supermarket (in Canada) I asked him why one door had "IN" and the other door was marked "TUO". He said this was french for "in". He was a highschool teacher and spoke a little french and I believed him.

mrbsc

My mother would put quaters into the shopping carts at Superstore. For a period of a couple of years, the Canadian Mint put out a new batch of coins each month with a special design on them. You were supposed to collect them and my mom did. She never let me put any of the coins with special designs into the shopping cart slots because she belived that you didn't get the same quater back. I once spent an afternoon convincing her that the quater you put in was the quater you got back. She still doesn't belive me.

Kayle

Ok, I haven't even started reading this website yet, but I just had to post this. Did anyone else have an obsession with mannequins when they were little? I had all kinds of ideas about what they did, how they "lived". One of my beliefs was that when the store closed, they would go to the pajama section, put on pajamas, and if it was a department store with furniture, they would lay on the beds and go to sleep. If there were no beds in the store, they would "lean" against the clothing racks.

One time when I was little, my mom took me to a department store in the mall for some Christmas shopping. The store was somewhat busy. For some reason, I just blurted out, "Mom, do mannequins have BUTTS?!" Some people looked over and smiled, and my mom was kind of embarrassed. She said quietly, "No, they don't." I blurted out, "Well then how do they go to the BATHROOM?!"

RyDawg

I used to think everytime my mom took my to the supermarket, she was willing to trade me for another son and I kept asking myself who would be my new parents, how much I would cost and stuff

Fabricio

When I was a little kid, about 4 or 5 years old, my mom would take me shopping. Everytime she bought something, she put down pieces of paper (which were bills) and some circular metal thing down (which were coins). So then I thought "Maybe it's like trading." The next time we went shopping, I brought pieces of paper with me and a couple of pennies. I took the toy I wanted, handed some paper and pennies to the cashier, and left.

Ceecee

I used to beleive the elevator in the Department store was somewhere you went while they rearranged everything.

Anon

I use to believe that when we grew out of our clothes we would have to go around naked until our parents bought us new ones. I use to wonder what they would pick out for me because I wouldn't be able to go shopping with them naked.

Janie

When my mom came home with a new coat or purse from the store, I'd always like to look into the pockets because they kept those freshner salt packets in there. When I found them, I use to think the packets were drugs that the person making the coat "left" in there. I always wanted to call the cops about each packet I found.....

Olivia

Once I saw some people get in the elevator, then come right out. (Obviously they changed their minds)

This confused me, and I thought this meant that when you went in an elevator, you came out on the same floor you started on, only it looked different to you. (Although to everyone else on that floor, they would reocgnize you when you came back out.)
I couldn't figure out how this worked!

Carrie

I remember thinking that the "Nude Furniture" store was some sort of naughty place.

Texas Rocky