I used to think that the Bookmakers made books but could not understand why there were so many of them and they all seemed to have stained glass windows of horses. I was 18 before I found out it was a betting agents and that Scotland wasn't some great Literary Capital of the world.

Scaussie

As a child, I had some very strange ideas about the world, traffic crossing poles in particular. You know how when you want to cross the street, you press the button on the pole, right? My mom always told me that pressing it multiple times wouldn't make it go faster, but still I saw people doing so every day. So, I came to the conclusion that somewhere there was a big office that tracked every time each individual traffic crossing button was pressed, and produce a 'beep' noise. I thought to myself, "Gee, what a boring job," so I often pressed it to the beat of a catchy tune, so that it would 'beep' the same tune to the office workers and make their day more interesting.

Alison

When I was really young I was very interested in other cultures. One day I was driving with my mom and saw a big sign that said "Exotic Dancers" and had all these pictures of beautiful women wearing weird costumes. I got really excited and wanted to go because I thought they were performing traditional foreign dances in exotic-looking clothing. I was crushed when she told me what was really going on - my idea sounded so much more interesting!

Barbara

I used to believe at Christmas God rearranged all the streets to spell 'Merry Christmas'. When we were driving I'd look at the street lights and try and work out what part of which letter we were on

anon

I used to believe that cats eyes in the road were real cats eyes that had been collected by some mad street cat catcher (think child catcher Chitty Chitty Bang Bang).

nat

As a young child I noticed all around as we drove through town "pedestrian" crossings. At the time we attended a Presbyterian church and I thought they said "Presbyterian" crossings. It made me wonder where the Catholics could cross the street.

Nancy

Where there are building sites there are often big signs saying 'plant crossing' - for years I looked for trees, bushes, flowers to cross the road but it never happened....

Carol

I used to believe that you get your taxes done at the taxidermist.

Krissy

I used to believe that the lines down the middle of the road were painted on by someone leaning out the passenger side window of a car. I just assumed you had to have a really steady hand and long arms to get hired for the job.

Brittany

My parents used to always say "Stop yelling, the neighbors will hear you!" I thought that "the neighbors" were a quartet of male singers

Terry

When I was younger I used to believe that a menstrual cycle was raleighs answer to Clive Sinclair C5 Electric trike.

Paul Hilton

I used to think that the cat's eyes on the road were actually real cat's eyes.I thought that they were there to keep you driving on the right side of the road as they would get sqashed and be really yucky if you ran over them.

Lisa R

Unable to Imagine how they built anything that high, and misinformed by my Dad, I used to think tall brick chimneys were 'grown' rather than built - simplay lay 3 courses and water regularly.

andymac

I used to think that if you wanted to rent a Uhaul moving van, you had to use a van that had the name of the state you were moving to on the side (all of the vans feature a random U.S. state), and if they didn't have the state you wanted, you either had to pick another one or wait until somebody from that state moved to where you lived so that a van from the right state would be there. I even thought there a waiting list for popular states.

Kathy

I used to believe that inhaling the smell of tar from roadworks was good for you, my mother used to take me around roadworks because she said it cleared your airways out!!

Anon

When i was little i thought that one particulary large telephone pole was the eiffel tower, and that there were two since i knew we weren't in france.

Emily

i used to think that when you put cans into the recycling machine to get paid... i thought the quarters that came out were made out of the cans by the machine.

emily

When I was growing up across from my house there was this old run-down building. I used to think that that building was where they invented words. I thought that they had meetings every Thursday night, and the members consisted of a group of 30 old men that raised their hands when they thought of a new word.

berg

When I was little, I always thought handicapped parking places were wheelchair parking only--I actually thought people would park their wheelchairs there, then get up and walk into the building. I could never understand why those spots were never used like that.

Anon

When in large traffic jams when I was a child (around 3 or 4), I used to wonder what was at the FRONT of the line of cars. I decided it must be someone important and was fully convinced that it was Abraham Lincoln. I don't think I realized what 'dead' means.

Sarah Kie