A physician I work with once told me, that when he was a little boy he believed, when a store "Closed for Inventory", it meant that they were closed so they could "invent" new things. He couldnt wait for them to reopen, so he could see all the new things they invented.

Sandy

I used to think that the "black market" was an actual place, where people in black cloaks and hoods wandered around wooden stalls (painted black) and purchased stolen and illegal goods.
I wondered why the police couldn't just go in and shut it down, since they complained about it so much.

S P Davis

When I was about 5, my mom and I would go to the mall. We loved to have our pictures taken at the little booths. I asked my mom how we were able to get pictues from the booth. Her reply was..There is a little man inside who paints your picture, then sends it out through the slot. I would bang on the booth and yell at the little man to hurry up with our pictures. My mom would crack up laughing and paaer bys would have very strange looks on their faces. I believed this until I was about 9. Thanks Mom. *grin*

MJM

I had a recurring dream quite often when I was young, a nightmare that when I went shopping at the mall with my parents, in the clothing store the mannequins/dummies would somehow draw me away from them... and then never let me leave the mall. They would always keep me there with them and no matter what I did, I'd never get away.

Throughout my early elementary school years (up until grade 4), I would not accept clothing from a store that had mannequins in it (of any sort, even just body parts like arms or waists). I was terrified of them. The sight of one creeped me out and I would scream and cry to be removed from the store. My poor parents could not figure out what the hell was wrong with me because I never told anyone about the dream. I was terrified to stay in the store because I was afraid the mannequins would get me. It got to the point where I had to see a psychologist for my problem- and she worked out a solution where I no longer feared them (and stopped having the dream).

Yeah, I was a weird kid.

Lindsay

When I was probably around 2 (unfortunately this is one of my first memories) I was in a video rental store and I strayed from my father and into the adult section. It was curtained off. I remember standing in there looking at all the jacket covers, and thinking to myself that behind every curtain there were pictures of naked people. Everywhere I went after that, I'd peel back curtains to check for the creepy naked people... dad told me you weren't supposed to be naked, so I wanted to tell on them!

Anon

My mum told me that the programmes being shown on the tellies in Rumbelows window were always on earlier than the ones at home as I was upset at missing playschool. I fell for it.

Karen

My parents took us children for a drive and I saw this sign on a building that said, "Flea Market". I kept asking my parents,"why do people want to buy fleas?" I never got a reply, or an explaination! It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out that a "flea market" was used goods sale.

pumpkin52

I believed that inanimate objects had feelings and opinions.
When we'd go clothes shopping I thought that my new clothes didn't like me, and wished that someone else had bought them instead.

dbigtex56

I used to believe that buying something "on the black market" meant you had to walk down a scary, dark, corridor, to find what you were looking for...in the dark. I pictured disfigured vendors, trying to sell you all manner of weird things that weren't available anywhere else.

Dude

when i was mayeb 5 i used to believe that if i went into clothing store wearing something i had not bought at that store, they would be offended and would yell at me. same thing if i went into a store with toys in it, i always got really nervous when my little brother insisted on bringing a toy into a store with him, i was convinced that we would get in trouble.
needless to say, i really hated shopping with my mum.

Anon

when i was about 3 i went shopping for the first time in a supermarket and the shiny floor tiles really freaked me out i thought i was falling down through them and freaked

Anon

My father made me belive that it only through yelling at the ATM that it would give us its money. Thus, in order to go shopping, he would hold me up to the machine, and i would scream and yell and shout at the machine until finally, money would pop out.

It was only once i got older that i noticed the stares of passersby and the howling laughter from my dad.

Eva

When my dad was a little kid, every time he wanted to ride one of those pony things outside of the grocery store, his parents would tell him about all the kids that got electricuted on them.

Dahne

I used to believe that the people who worked at the mall lived there. I thought that they slept on the display beds, wore the clothes that were being sold, and ate at the food court. I wanted to work and live there too. I was disappointed when I found out the truth.

xoxo

You know the signs in the handicapped parking spots? They have a picture of a person in a wheelchair. My daughter believed they were pictures of a person on the toilet, and the parking spaces were marked that way for people who had to go really bad, so they needed to park close to the store.

Debbie the Bad Swimmer

That flea markets sold fleas.

Sarah

I remember the first time I encountered barcode readers in a supermarket - I was about 8 and with an Aunt.
She had a trolley full of food and I couldn't understand how the checkout girl knew the prices and descriptions of everything as she took them off the conveyor.
It took me a LOT of years before I realised what was going on.

Simon

when I was about 10 and saw "sundries" advertised on stores I thought they sold raisins, prunes, etc.--"sun dries", things dried in the sun.

DJ

I used to believe thato to adopt a child you had to collect points from supermarket products...

Linda

When i was 5 or 6 or something I was convinced that if you did not have enough money for something that the shop keeper would not only give you the item but would also hand over the money your were short of. It wasn't until the nice lady in the sweet shop explained it to me that that wasn't what getting change was about. And that had to happen in the first time i went out with just my younger brother and myself. Embarrassing or what! ... Hmm, that may explain my aversion to capitalism in later life.

~Ra thinks: Just gimmi the sweets lady!