I used to believe - because my brother told me so - that if I stood on a manhole cover and cover both holes with my feet, the road would blow up because of the build up of pressure underneath. I felt genuinely uncomfortable and anxious when he did just that.

Anon

As a boy fond of throwing and catching, I believed that if a ball or frisbee touched a telephone wire, the thrown object had to hit the ground before being caught to knock the electricity out of it. To not do so was to die immediately of electrocution. My friends still make fun of my continuing trepidation towards catching anything that has touched a suspended wire.

ben

In one of the neighborhoods that I lived in growing up there was this old house that had its windows boarded up and the grass outside was like three feet high and all the kids were positive that a mean old lady lived in there. We called her the cat lady because whenever a kitten went missing it was said that she lured them to her house and fed them poison... forget the fact that we all bought those kittens at the town fireworks for a-penny-a-paw and thought they were old enough to run around the neighborhood by themselves. And it meant nothing that the house was condemned by the town. There was an old lady cat-napping our kitten!!

Sam

I grew up in Los Angeles. Once, when I was about 4, I saw an opening ceremony for a new freeway on the news. For a while after that, I believed that the the freeway was closed every night, and that mayor came out every morning to cut the ribbon and open it.

Anon

When I was little my mom always told me never to walk outside barefooted. One summer day I touched the street (twas scorching) then I realized that if I walked on the street barefooted I would be engulfed in flames.

Bubs

I used to believe those odd black pouch-looking things up on telephone wires held the workmen's tools so they wouldn't have to keep going up and down the pole to their truck to get tools. Still don't know what they're for however...

Cathryn NY USA

When i was little my mom used to tell me that all the oil spots and/or gum spots in a parking lot or road was children that ran in front of traffic and got splattered! i belived that from the time i was 3 to the age of 7 ....kinda cruel huh?....but i guess if it kept me out of the road!!!!

Tegan

When i was about 8, i remember seeing a sign that said "Brat Roast this weekend" at a church. I thought they'd be roasting disobedient children. It didn't occur to me that "brat" was short for Bratwurst.

Sizzlin' brat

I used to believe that when you drove a car, the tires turned the earth, so it amazed me how two cars could pass each other. I thought it was because the road had two parts, one for each direction.

Hayabusa

my friend told me that curbs painted yellow would turn to lava and burn up anyone's legs who stood on them for too long. all i could do was watching in horror whenever anyone set foot on them, waiting for their legs to be burnt off.

juliet

When you walked up the high street you had an invisible piece of string behind you & you had to walk back home the right way so it did not get entangled up between lamp posts

martin

I uesed to believe that when I posted a letter a little person would snatch the letter from my hand and run along a tunnel to its destination. The "little person" would appear like a mole in the garden of the recipient and post it through thier letterbox. It was years before I connected the friendly postman with the receiving of mail.

Rita Rush Southampton

I used to see signs all over the place saying 'PARK AND RIDE' and wondered why my parents never to took me to this Park, which I presumed had swings and slides and Rides, like a fun fair.

Imagine my dissappointment years later when I discovered that PARK AND RIDE were out of town car parks where you can PARK your car and RIDE free on the bus into the town centre.

Angie

When I was a kid there was a building site behind our house where they were building some new houses, and naturally us neighbourhood kids would use it for playing soldiers, and climbing on the scaffolding and throwing bricks and planks at each other. The usual stuff.

However, one day I was sat on one of the earthmovers, pretending to drive it when my father saw me and carted me into the house, and proceeded to tell me not to go onto the lorries and diggers, as you needed special leather trousers. If you sat on the seats without these special leather trousers, then if the digger started up, the vibrations would shake all your insides out of your bum.

Damn, I was scared, so I never went on the building site again. Mental scarring, or what!!

Chilly99

when i was a child i used to think that a cross on top of the church in town was my dad watching me. It seemed so high up so i couldn't see what it really was.

laura

Every time we were in the industrial part of town i would see this big stormwater drain, more like a large concrete-lined canal. I honestly believed that if you stood in the drain you would immediately be cloned! So, if you stood in there long enough there would be an army of you....don't know where i got that one from!

Daleen

After being fixated with Thomas the Tank Engine and how the streets lights turned on I finally came to a logical conclusion. I believed that the fat controller lives inside the lamp post on a little chair and turned on the lights when it go dark.

Matt

There is a huge factory (which I now know is owned by Sunoco) next to the highway. Whenever we would drive by my mom would tell us that's where Batman lived. For years I thought Batman really lived there. Weird thing is, in all the movies he lives in a HUGE house, yet I still believed he lived in a huge pipe filled factory that shot out fire.

Babe

when I was little I asked my mother howcome streetlamps turned themselves on at night. She told me there was a little man inside each lamp, that could tell when it got dark and cold, so he turned the light on himself to keep him warm.

katie

When i was out and about, this is up until recently aswell, I used to see written everywhere "post no bills". I used to think that this meant never to post electricity or gas bills. I was always angry at my mum when she posted the bills off. I could never understand why she hadnt seen the notices. I felt pretty stupid when i learnt that it actually means not to stick up posters.

Boydy