I took my seven year old brother swimming - and thought I was being very funny by asking him if he knew what the 'no petting' sign meant. Quite cooly he said "yes, it means no shagging" Although he couldn't understand why I then started choking!

Bad Baby Sitter

Until I turned about 10, I thought "carpool" was another word for El Caminos -- the cars that look like they're half pickup truck. I always wondered why I had never seen one put to proper use, filled with water and people in swimsuits. To this day, I want to try that version of carpooling!

*splash*

My older brothers told me if a person did a belly flop off the high dive, their stomach would split open. They said they actually saw this happen at the local pool - blood and guts floating in the water. I never got my swimming certificate that year, because I refused to jump off the high dive!

Annelee

When I went swimming I used to believe that sharks lived behind the grills where the wave machine comes from!! I wouldn't even look underwater at them incase I saw a shark looking back at me. When the wave machine came on I thought the sharks were getting angry and I wouldn't go near the grills incase they ate me!

Jo

When i was around 4 we had a big pool in our back garden , i didn't know how to swim , meaning that my parents never even let me go near the deep end ( even if i did have those blow up arm things) ... after one close incident , my parents got me into believing that the reason why they didn't want me in the deep end was because a mean monster called Madame Hozze ( hozze meaning small pool in farsi) lived in the deep end ...and that she swallowed all children and that after they never saw their moms and dads again .. .i was traumatized ..and therefore didn't swim for years !

naz

I used to belive that at the end of the wave pool where my daddy wouldn't let me go becsuae it was to deep. I used to belive there were dolpins down there and everyone got to paly with them but me!

Nonedolphinplayer

I used to believe that skinny dipping means you have to be skinny to do this. I found out what it REALLY meant, D:

KELM

When I used to go to our local swimming pool I always looked at the poster by a man called Will Patrons with some good drawings of people at the pool. It was in fact asking people not to do a number of things while there. Will patrons kindly refrain from running etc!

Lisa

when I was little I thought that if you swam over the grate of a swimming pool in the deep end you would get sucked down under water and drown.

Anon

When I was young, my mom took my sisters and I to a public swimming pool in the summer. I questioned whether we were allowed in because we went to Catholic School (vs. "public" school).

Anon

To prevent me from falling in the pool while i tried ot pick a stick out of the water, my grandmother told me that the weren;t just sticks, but alot of them were buggs and could bite me. Mind you i have never seen an actual stick bug anywhere near where i live to this day, but i still pick sticks out of the pool very delicately even now.

Marissa

I was told by a Carowinds employee when I was a kid that the waves in their wave pool were created by elephants underneath it. They would feed them peanuts and they would stomp their feet which created the waves.

Scott Brooks

my older brother convinced me when i was 2 that their was an algea monster that lived in our pool (the algea almost never went away for some reason) and that if i swam in the deep end the monster would come up from the muck and eat me. I didn't swim in the deep end till i was 7.

farm grown

I used to think that El Dorados were carpools. I would get so jealous whenever one drove by.

Anon

I used to belive that there were lobsters in the pool filter and people would take them and eat them, I dont know why i guess it looked like a lobster trap!

me

my uncle wouldn't let us go swimming after lunch, he said it was the alligator's turn to use the pool. somehow, when i was 4 and moved from new orleans to houston the alligator came with me and lived under my bed. i was at least 24 before i was able to sleep without the sheets tucked in all the way around the sides of the bed and i will STILL pull my foot back if i notice it dangling past the edge of the bed.

mekare

I didn't know where else to put this one, but it was in my grandparents swimming pool I always thought there was some sort of bubble monster that would come get me if I was alone in the pool. I was a very good swimmer and loved to swim, but I could never stay in alone.

Jeska

When I was younger, I used to think that by swimming in a public pool I would get pregnent. I knew that people peed in public pools and that if the pee went around, or, on my "girly part" I would get pregnant. Weiird...

marie

when i was younger i used to go swimming in my Aunt's pool. right under the diving board was a light. I always thought that at night a shark would come out and eat anyone or thing that was in the water. i belived this until i was 12 and i still dont swim at night in a pool

stupid silly girl

At the pool where I took swimming lessons as a kid, there was a list of rules, including one that said "Shower in the nude before using the pool." That sign baffled me for years because I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the "nude" was.

AmyM