When I was younger, I lived in the city. So, naturally I never saw a UPS man. When I was around 7yrs. old, I moved to a small town. I asked the neighbor kid about the UPS man and he told me that whenever I saw the UPS truck, I had to run. When I asked him why he told me that the UPS man was a child-stealer. For months, I would run in fear of the UPS man. Until one day, my mom saw me running away and told me the truth.

Samm

i used to believe that when you moved they would put your house on wheels and just pull it to a new place. I really wasn't even that young i was like nine and now i'm 13

Lindsay

I used to think that joggers running through the streets without wearing a shirt or long pants were chasing after the robbers who had stolen their missing clothing. I was pretty concerned about the crime wave that hit our neighborhood every summer.

kismet

when i was little when i saw a plastic bag in the road i always made my parents go and get it so i could take it home and look after it


actually i still do that now!?

lil

My older brother and I were out riding our tricycles, and a car drove by. The man in it gave us the OK sign (thumb and index finger making a circle). I asked my brother what the sign meant, and he said 'That means he's going to come back and kill us later.' I was terified!

Tikifish

I used to believe that if I was walking along the street and I saw someone walking in step with me, left foot same time as my left, right same as my right, that that person would some day help me.

John Hetland

In the neigborhood where I grew up, there was a dead-end street with a big yellow sign saying "NO OUTLET". I always wondered who would want to live in the houses on this street, if they couldn't plug anything in.

romulus

In singapore we have these drain gratings on the pathways next to roads. On rainy days, my mom used to tell me "Watch out for the gratings, they're slippery". Only i thought that she was calling them "Grey Things" because well, they were grey and i thought she didn't know wat they were actually called..

Mike

At pedestrian crossings with red and green men on the lights my mum always used to say wait for the green man, for months id wait for a man wearing green to walk by on the other side of the road. Whenever i said we could go my mum said no the green man hasn't come.I tried to convince her he had. it was only one day when i looked up high enough i realised why i was always wanting to go at the wrong time!

Anon

I believed that poor people lived in the little "glass house" skylights that used to be on the roofs of apartment buildings in Chicago. We were on the elevated train and my grandmother pointed at the buildings and said "poor people live there" and I thought she meant the little glass enclosures. I thought that was a lousy deal, no privacy.

Terry, Chicago, Illinois

My brother and I believed that when a streetlight went out at night, as you were sitting/walking/driving near it, it was because your brainwaves caused it to.

Jim

I used to believe jaywalking meant walking around naked in public (from naked as a JAY bird...)

Izzi

My dad once told me that scaffolding outside a building was erected to keep burglars out. I believed this for an extraordinarily long time and I still kinda think it's logical somehow.

JimJam

In my old neighborhood where I lived when I was little, there was an old man that lived in the house across the street. He would always play a really loud organ at night, and I thought that inside his house was Dracula and Elvira and other scary things that would wake up and roam the streets whenever he played the organ. This really freaked me out, especially at Halloween.

Tater

There was a USAF military base near our house and my mom and aunts used to always warn one another and us, "Watch out for the airmen." I had this vision of a huge child-eating alien wearing an astronaut's helmet walking around downtown, and wondered why the government didn't stop it.

Stacy

When I was a child, my family often donated old furniture and appliances to the Salvation Army, who would come in a truck to pick up such things. I thoguht they were called the Salvation Army because they salvaged old items like the ones we donated.

Stephanie

When I was a small child, I used to believe that little gnomes lived inside the lamposts seen in the street. These gnomes would sit at computer consoles inside the lamposts and, when it would get dark enough, simultaneously switch on the lights. They lived there all day, every day and I often wondered how they survived as well as admired them for their demanding occupation.

Anon

have you ever seen the signs about neighbourhood watch with a guy on it in a trenchcoat with a hat on that was completely black(not African American black) and you could only see his eyes?I used to think there was a guy like that in our neighbourhood.

Logan

I used to believe that all sewers, if followed long enough, eventually led to Hell. And that if you lifted a manhole cover, demons would fly out.

T.R.

There was a little restaurant three blocks away from the house I grew up in, it had the words "Bar and Grill" painted in the front window. Until around age 9, despite being quite literate, I thought that it actually read "Bar and Girl." Reflecting back, that might not have been such a horrible advertisment to attract the men!

Rickie Beth