When I was little, my grandfather told me that all the left shoes travelled in a different lorry to the right shoes, so that if there was an accident people couldn't steal pairs of shoes. This was enforced by the fact that we always seemed to see Hush Puppy lorries travelling in twos.

Janey

I used to believe when I was little that if you passed an American Flag at this one tall building you would have to be silent or George Washington would shoot his cannon at you.

R.H.

My mother was a little girl in Brazil in the early 1960's. Whenever my mother would see a homeless person carrying a bag, her mother would tell her that those people kidnapped children and they would carry the children in the bags.
As a result, my mother was horrified and never got near homeless people with bags. Now she feels terrible and knows they were just carrying around their belongings.

Claudia

i thought lease was some rich famous lady that everyone loved since i saw all these signs on buildings that said *for lease*
i thought she was taking over the world or something, buying all those stores and stuff

reh

When I was about 7, I thought the red front doors of my sister's high school meant that firetrucks were stored inside, and the firetrucks would come down the 20 or so steps of the building anytime there was a fire. I proudly told this to a visitor we were showing around town and my entire family stared at me like I was a total loon.

Still confused by buildings

I used to think that all the buildings with "TO LET" signs were actually public toilets and the letter "i" had fallen off.

Annie May

I always thought that a little person lived inside each mailbox waiting to take my letter to its destination.

Anne

There is a block of flats on the way up to my dad's house, it had a very steep alley that led down to a car park under the flats. I used to think that that's where "the black market" was!

Ela

When I was about 5 or so, my good friend (same age) and I used to play this game called "Pie Pie". It involved us trying to unscrew the manhole cover near the bottom of my neighbor's driveway with my plastic tool toys. I don't know why we named it Pie Pie; we could have possibly been trying to pronounce "Popeye". Anyways, I thought that below the manhole there would be a world of dinosaurs while my friend thought there'd be a lot of hot women. Needless to say, we never managed to open it. My dad still likes to joke with me about this.

Matt

I lived in a town where there were ditches at the side of every road. On the way to and from school, sometimes kids would fall into these ditches and get soaked. Cars would have accidents and crash into the ditches too. I used to believe that, before you became an adult, you would at least ONCE fall into the ditch. Some sort of rite of passage or something. And I truly dreaded when it would be 'my turn' to fall into the ditch.

I never did fall into the ditch. But in my dreams, 25 years later, I still have nightmares about death and ditches.

momcat

i used to believe anyone who didn't live in my neighborhood was rich.

Spencer

I used to believe that the Fire Station was where all fires occurred.

Anon

I believed for many years if I was caught taking the shortcut to school I would be glued to the ground. I was in grade one when the older kid told me this. I thought I would turn into a statue with birds nesting on my shoulders.

Anon

On our street there was a manhole with a small hole in it. We believed that the devil lived down there and every once in a while we would drop a pebble down there and listen hard to see if we could hear him howl.

Anon

I used to believe there was quicksand at the top of my street. I saw a movie once where a man was "swallowed" by quicksand and the hat he had been wearing was left on top. The quicksand in the movie looked like mud, so when I saw a huge muddy area up the street, I thought for sure it was quicksand!

Anon

I used to believe that all houses with For Sale signs were intended for Sali, and thought Sali must be quite important to have a monopoly on all houses.
Then again, I am Welsh, and couldnt speak much English at the time!

Phillips

When I was 5 I moved with my Mum & Dad and Brother & Siser to Kenilworth, which has a very old, ruined castle. We went to see some houses in Kenilworth before we moved there, and on the same day we visited the castle. Until we actually moved to Kenilworth (into a 3-bed semi) I thought we were going to live in the castle, and had nightmares about it!

Tim (nice but dim)

i used to live on an Armed Forces estate, and their was a Salvation Army store there. I had it in my head that the Salvation Army where a regiment in the Army, up to about 5/6 yrs ago. im 17.

Anon

When I was little I thought
body shops were places to
work out.

ginny

I used to think that between about 8 to about 5 in the afternoon, the streets and highways were completely empty because all the kids were at school and all the parents were at work. I always thought the world was split up into parents and kids, it never occured to me that the world is full of all kinds of people with different jobs and that traffic happens ALL the time almost every hour of the day!

Marcel