swimming pools

I used to think that drains in pools and bathtubs were deadly. I never went anywhere within more than seven feet from one in fear of being quickly sucked in and having my body cut up into many tiny pieces to go through the little holes. My dad dropped a penny once near the drain and went to go get it to prove to me that it was OK to go near it - I came pretty close to tears as I saw him swim toward that drain, I thought my daddy was dead meat :(

Gina

when my sister and i were young, we went to a pool that had white tiles on the bottom of the shallow end, with the occasional black tile. my sister believed these black tiles were bottomless abysses and refused to step on them for years, until one day she braved it and was completely shocked it was just another tile.

Anon

My son came home from school and announced that I must go out and buy him some verrucas from the chemist in order for him to go swimming with the school. He insisted the whole class were getting them. I explained to him about the little plastic socks people sometimes needed to wear to the pool..............

Lisa

i used to believe there were invisible sharks in the deep end of the pool, thanks to my older brother.

Melissa

I used to believe that beyond the floating markers in a swimming pool or a lake, that lined off deeper ends of the water, that there were sharks there and i was terrified to go past them for years.

phayd2dark

I used to believe that those vans you see with the ladder on the back that leads up to the roof actually went up to a pool that was on top of the van.

Lisa

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

An older cousin told me that if you peed in the pool, the pee would solidify, drag you down and drown you. From that day on, I just kacked in the pool instead...

Anon

I remember when i was very little, about 3, my cousin came over one day (she has VERY blonde hair), and her hair was all green. my mom said it was because she had gone swimming, and the chlorine caused her hair to turn that color. i was SO scared that my hair (which is brown) would also turn green if it ever touched the water in a pool, so for the longest time, i completely avoided going underwater. i had this fear for many years, and one day during swimming lessons when i was 5, a boy hugged me while we were still in the pool. when he did this, i toppled over, and my head got wet for the first time in years! i was traumatized and thought my hair would turn green instantly. i started crying so hysterically that the instructor let me leave early. what a childhood!

KT

When I was little I thought that if you swam to long the water would suck up your youth and that was why your fingers got all wrinkly.

Anon

When I would have my swimming lessons, I would belt it down the pool, not because I wanted to become an Olympic medallist, I didn't want the sharks, or worse, the whales, to eat me while I swam! I still swim pretty quickly in the deep end....

'Mama, I'm scared!'

I used to think that when you swimming 'Freestyle' was swimming any way you want.

Anon

When I was around 5 or 6, I remember asking someone what the big bubble was under the pool cover in my neighbor's backyard at the end of my street. The person told me it was a giant fat lady under there hiding, waiting to snatch up any little kids and eat them. So, everytime I would go by that house, I ran like hell.

RP

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*

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

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

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 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

I used to believe that if I went in the public pool with the boy from our school who was missing a leg - that mine would fall off too. So I didn't get in.

Anon

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