When we first got married, I told my wife (a native of Thailand) that athey sold garages at garage sales. Since we had a garage, we didn't need to stop. I never thought any more of it until she smacked me after one of her friends asked her if she would like to go shopping at some garage sales. Apparently she believed my story. Now if I can convince her about yard sales.

Larry

I used to believe that the dark spots on the pavement of grocery store parking lots were left from children that had been run over because they weren't holding their mom's hand.

Anon

When I was about 3 years old, my mom always took me shopping. But whenever I spotted something I wanted, I wanted it. So badly. And when my mom told me that I couldnt have it, I would cry. So loudly.

So instead, she came up with a routine. Whenever I wanted something, she would say, "Let's go ask the manager (I thought everyone who had a job was a manager) if they will let you buy that, then." And so we would go to the cashier and my mom would say, "Excuse me, my daughter would like permission to buy this." And she would wink to the cashier. Then the cashier would reply, "Oh...I'm afraid we cannot sell that to you today." And I would say, "Oh. Okay." And obey her because to me then, the manager was like God. =P

Grace

My frugal mother had me believing that if something wasn't ON SALE, it wasn't FOR SALE. This kept the nagging down until we realized the truth.

Sploxy

When I was maybe 5 I refused to go to the flea market because I thought it was full of fleas that would jump on you. lolll

kim

I used to believe that every time i went in a store that the grown ups had to buy me something.

jvf

When i was about 5 yrs old me and my mother went shopping to Marks and Spencer and i was crying and screaming ( as we did when we shopping with our mothers )because i couldnt get my own way, then my mother turned around and told me that there was this child man hiding in this door in the corner of the shop and if he saw a child screaming he would come out and take me away and lock me up in this room until it was time to go home, i never cried shopping with my mother ever again.

Kay

when i was 5 my cousin told me that shop dummys were people who were evil and got thier arms cut off and were covered in plastic in a factory in china. he also said they came to life at night and thats why they sometimes had on clothes on. then i realized they were hollow.:)

air

I used to think that F.A.O. Schwarz toy store was a hands-on children's museum. My mom told me that so I wouldn't ask her if I could get a toy.

Anon

when i was 5 my grandparents took me to my first yard sale and for a few years i said nothing but thougt it was strange. one saturday my grandfather said we were going to a few yardsales and i just couldnt hold it in anymore i asked "why do some people sell there yards but keep their house?" well they still laugh about it.

tara

Ya know how kids just love to stand up in the shopping cart and the mom always tells the to sit down? Well after my mom telling me that if I didn't sit down, the cops would come to get me, and not 2 seconds later, I heard a siren...I didn't move an inch

Sherrie

I thought that mannequins in department stores were real people who were paid to stand there wearing the stores' clothes and stay very, very still. When I was five I told my mom that being a mannequin must be the most horrible job in the world. Cause how can anyone stay still for that long? What if they get tired or get an itch?

Lyssa

I used to think that a car boot sale was where motorists exchanged car boot lids.

Alan, Sheffield, UK

One my mom and I walked in front of this toy store and I wanted to go in and check out the toys. She told me no one that wasn't buying a toy could enter. I believed her. Then, several years after, we were looking for a present for my cousin. She entered the store and I told her that we couldn't go insede unless we were buying something. She laughed at me. Who wouldn't? I was 17!

Rory

when i was a little i used to believe the travel section (the section with all the mini bottles of shampoo and stuff) was the aisle where little people shopped. when i say little people i don't mean dwarfs, i mean miniature grown-ups a little taller than i was. it only made sense that mini people needed mini things. and the reason why i never saw them was because they only shopped at night when everyone else was sleeping, there was a whole different mini world at night. then when i went to bj's for the first time i thought "this must be the place where the really big people shop." i have no idea how old i was when i believed this or when i realized i was terribly mistaken.

andi

when I was a child I couldn't figure out for the life of me why in the world anyone would go to a flea market.Why would you want to buy fleas?Unless of course they were talented as those who worked in flea circuses!I believed this until the age of 12!!

bonnie

There's a local grocery store around here called "Foodland". When I was really young, I imagined this place to be giant, mystical land; a wide, open field with plants growing any type of food you could imagine.

Matthew Brabbin

my mother used to play jokes on me all the time. This is a good example:

We were living in germany, my pops stationed at an Army base over there. Me and Mom go out to the Post Exchange (for you civilians out there, think the military version of a Wal-Mart)

A bunch of men were doing excercises. They were stretching out their quads by placing their hands against a wall of a small building. To anyone, especially a gullble child, it looks like they are, with all their might, trying to hold up the wall

My mom says, "During World War II, American bombers destroyed most of this area. Ever since, they have had to have people hold up the walls so the building doesnt collapse"

For at least 6 months, every time i saw soldiers doing stretching exercises, i totally believed that they were actually holding up the wall

as a sidenote: my mother did this so often, by the time i turned 10, i didnt believe ANYTHING she said. To this day.

josh

On Main St. in the town where I grew up, there was an unfinished furniture store. I was well into my 20's when I finally realized that "unfinished furniture" meant that there was no paint or stain on the wood, NOT that it was missing legs or tops.... I wish I had known that before I bought that set of dining-room chairs that I had to strip and repaint myself.....

Emily

I live in Denmark where people speak danish. When shopclerks in Denmark have finished calculating the price for your wares on their cash register, they say: "Ellers andet?" which means "anything else?", but when i was a small boy, i thought they said "Æd lasagne!", which means "Eat lasagne!"

Morten Vestergaard